Pop music too loud and all sounds the same: official

(Reuters) - Comforting news for anyone over the age of 35, scientists have worked out that modern pop music really is louder and does all sound the same.

Researchers in Spain used a huge archive known as the Million Song Dataset, which breaks down audio and lyrical content into data that can be crunched, to study pop songs from 1955 to 2010.

A team led by artificial intelligence specialist Joan Serra at the Spanish National Research Council ran music from the last 50 years through some complex algorithms and found that pop songs have become intrinsically louder and more bland in terms of the chords, melodies and types of sound used.

"We found evidence of a progressive homogenization of the musical discourse," Serra told Reuters. "In particular, we obtained numerical indicators that the diversity of transitions between note combinations - roughly speaking chords plus melodies - has consistently diminished in the last 50 years."

They also found the so-called timbre palette has become poorer. The same note played at the same volume on, say, a piano and a guitar is said to have a different timbre, so the researchers found modern pop has a more limited variety of sounds.

Intrinsic loudness is the volume baked into a song when it is recorded, which can make it sound louder than others even at the same volume setting on an amplifier.

The music industry has long been accused of ramping up the volume at which songs are recorded in a 'loudness war' but Serra says this is the first time it has been properly measured using a large database.

The study, which appears in the journal Scientific Reports, offers a handy recipe for musicians in a creative drought.

Old tunes re-recorded with increased loudness, simpler chord progressions and different instruments could sound new and fashionable. The Rolling Stones in their 50th anniversary year should take note.

(Reporting by Chris Wickham)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...86P0R820120726

I wondered if someone would put this up

Yeah, I know exactly what they mean. Probably half of the chart hits the past few years have been direct clones of this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEzc5s3QwKk

I think it's changing now though. Everybody is getting bored of it. The biggest hits of this year so far (Somebody That I Used to Know, Call Me Maybe, We Are Young) are significantly more acoustic and quieter and use more different sounds than those trashy songs like S&M, Where Them Girls At, etc.

theyve employed scientists to tell us what we already knew?

Sad how to had to do a research for it... People like it, so what?

Er, yeah I can hear with my ears that a lot of pop music these days is louder, the dynamics are crap for the most part. You don't need researchers to figure that out.

Why just for anyone over 35? I'm 23 and I've known it for ages!

I agree. I'm 20 and I think most of it sounds the same.

And I'm a fan of mainstream music, but since about 2007 I've noticed it's all started blending into the same song.

I feel vindicated.

Odd, and interesting songs like this one occasionally got
into pop charts and daytime radio play in the past,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBaQOdsTAKo

but they don't seem to anymore...

"Pop music too loud"? Turn it down.

"All sounds the same"? Listen to a different genre.

Well it depends what you call 'Pop' really... if you listen to Born This Way, half of it sounds nothing like whats in the charts. I will happily fight the corner for saying not all pop sounds the same, there are plenty of pop artists with different sounds.

a few genres have emerged in the last decade some DnB is pretty darn good, Metal has tailored off a little into Foo-melikes or screamLikeSatanics though a few odd tracks have come out pretty well. Indie is always knocking about to keep us entertained and some of the 80s bands are cashing in before they are too old to tour which gives a retro choice to enjoy.
even a few new dances appearing (melbourne shuffle) et al.

Mainstream has dumbed down considerably though
in the past we were writing songs about how we were sick and tired of the government and creating huge movements.
now its all about getting a girl and shooting your rival in the face or some soppy romance and thats about it.
anyone interesting never makes it past 27 but leaves behind some decent music at least.

I thought we would see an increase in this type of musical writing with the difficult times we live it, but there has been zippo from what I see. It's a shame.

Pop music too loud? It's not loud enough for me! Thank god I've got Beatport.

I hate this "all sounds the same" rubbish.

Do any of these songs sound the same? (just a random collection from iTunes, all 2011/2012 hits)

212, R.I.P, Next To Me, Ill Manors, Climax, Boyfriend, Heart Skips A Beat, Down With The Trumpets, What Doesn't Kill You, Princess Of China, We Are Young, So Good, Earthquake, Payphone and Twilight?

I mean, sure, some songs like Domino and Last Friday Night are identical and there's alot of songs recycling the same themes of self empowerment recently, and there's alot of guest features in songs but I don't see how all chart hits sound the same?

Am I taking it too literally?

I'm always listening to new songs on the radio and trying to figure out what they remind me of, its happening more and more often. There's obviously all the Calvin and Guetta soundalikes. Then there's the Love The Way You Lie/Airplanes/Bright Lights/Read All About It style songs. There's been loads of Just The Way You Are rip-offs. And then there's that whole Dr. Luke sound from Karmin, Ke$ha, Katy Perry, Britney, Jessie J, Rita Ora etc.

So I'd agree that a lot of chart music sounds the same. But I don't think its fair to say that all pop music sounds the same. Pop music and chart music are separate things. There's a lot of brilliant pop music out there which doesn't get any mainstream attention.

The loudness war notwithstanding, given that in 1955, there were no heavy metal, hard rock, or electronic dance music genres, it's not surprising that music has become progressively louder.

Why don't they mention rhythm, tempo, and time signature? Is that because there's greater variety in that area of music than ever before?

The author seems to be implying that complexity is superior - if that's such a terrible thing, they should lay the blame at the foot of the door of the 1960s rock pioneers for that. In the 50s, classical and jazz music were still popular. But those harmonically complex and timbre palette rich genres have gradually diminished in output, while simpler genres like rock have dominated most of the decades since.

But I don't buy the idea that music needs to be complex to be great. I'm a big blues fan - a genre that revolves around the relative sparseness of pentatonic scales and I, IV, V chords. And in my opinion, Bon Iver's 2007 release, 'For Emma, Forever Ago', is one of the greatest albums of all time - it revolves around an acoustic guitar playing simple chords and heartfelt vocals. I would take its unadulterated, unpretentious clarity over the 12 minute '70s prog-wank that would undoubtedly be lauded by the author of this article. Simplicity is beautiful.

I'm 22 and i noticed this years ago , mainly because i noticed that the modern sound and style of general music has become boring , dull , lifeless and soulless and uninspiring and quite frankly awful these past 4 years.

It is remarkable how much ignorance of an entire genre of music one can express in a single sentence, isn't it?

However what the report is swaying is that if you compare the range of music in the singles chart today with the same week 15, 20, 30, or more years ago, the variety of music is much narrower, which it is, and the songs in the chart are recorded at a much higher level than they were in the past, which they are.

The singles chart is no longer representative of the wider music universe in the way it used to be. Shops don't sell singles any more, do they? At least, the shops that used to, don't. And I doubt that the kind of singles that do represent new and exciting ideas in music are bought in any quantities, whereas it used to be quite normal to hear the likes of Hendrix on the Radio 1 Top 40.

The volume thing - wasn't that introduced because most people listen on personal stereos or small home stereos so music is now produced to sound good on small speakers or earphones?

Oh yes, I absolutely agree. A Number 1 single today wouldn't have even got in to the Top 40 20 years ago in terms of sales and for most artists singles are becoming less and less relevant.


I think it goes back to the early 1980s when the first "ghetto blasters" appeared. Because they were often so low powered songs had to be recorded louder for them to sound reasonable when played through those things!

Agree with the highlighted bit. Absolutely!

Corporates dictating what we listen to on the most popular radio stations to their own ends?

It is remarkable how someone can take one sentence out of a post and act like it's a personal affront, yeah. Can't you comment without being combative towards other users?

Nothing in the article says it's about the singles chart alone. The Million Song Dataset uses 'familiar' artists found through another website - The Echo Nest.

And "12 minute '70s prog-wank" isn't a combative statement?

If you were to draw a Venn diagram of every genre of music, from classical, through to jazz, blues, rock, etc, you would find the only genre of music to cross all of them is Progressive music. Progressive Music, and its fans, have moved on from the 1970s, but it is remarkable how many of its detractors haven't.