Researchers prove that music these days all sound the same..

It's a recurring discussion I've seen on music production forums on the 'loudness wars'. Producers use compressors way too heavily today. If you look at the sound waves of popular songs, they all look like one big fat block. It's ridiculous.

 

Yeah. No dynamics. If the trend continues, pretty soon all popular music will be nothing more than a modulating square wave.

 

All CRAPPY music sounds the same... basically everything on the radio or spewed on us from ClearChannel.

 

Yep .... or anything on television, or anything that sells a million copies and has a performing celebrity (instead of a songwriter) as a center piece.

 

Wonder how much of a grant they got to figure that out. I could have told them for half that.

 

People pay good money for studies for a reason. It's imperative that the conclusion and the supporting data all match the agenda perfectly.

 

....what you're describing is dishonesty. Good researchers wouldn't do that for any amount of money, and because of that, it rarely happens.

 

homogenization <--- this is happening in all American Society not just this particular art form.

Rocket River

 

I sure hope you are only talking about popular music. While I agree wholeheartedly and then some with regards to music for the masses, the fact of the matter is, some very exciting things are happening both harmonically, rhythmically and aesthetically right now.

Both classical and jazz musicians, especially at the turn of this century, have begun to focus their attention not only at melodic and harmonic content, but literally the physical nature of sound. This has resulted in a wave of new conceptual thinkers, including the late Sorabji, Viajy Iyer, György_Ligeti, Vardan Ovsepian, Ethan Iverson and Jason Moran to name a few.

This isn't to say that harmony has be thrown to the wayside by any means. In fact, it is constantly progressing, and the 21'st century has developed it's own language, much like what we saw in the 1940's, or 60's. Main proponents of this movement come from the renewed intrest of serialism or the 12 tone method perfected by Arnold Schoenberg and later expounded upon by Webern. Today it has become assimilated into the current musical vocabulary with artists like Elliot Carter, Iannis Xenakis.

Perhaps the most influential movement for this century is that of gesturalism. Spearheaded by the likes of Karlheinz Stockhausen and most recently the late Milton Babbit. (Now if people were serious about music, why would the Grammys choose to not celebrate Babbit's life this year, instead choosing to worship a crackhead?)

Gestural thinking and new avenues in harmony have given way to brilliant performers like Brad Meldau, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Mark Turner, Chris Potter. Many of these musicians employ odd meters in their works. Not only 7/4 or 5/4 but people today, are becoming increasingly confortable with 9/4, 11/4. Not to mention assimilating indian modal systems or looking at music with much larger beat cycles like what Dave Holland, Rudresh Mahanthrapa or Danilo Perez have done. When you consider how big of a deal "music in 3/4 by Max Roach" was at the time and how common it is today, it is impossible not to notice the dramatic improvement in this area over time. I'm sure everyone is familar with Radohead, who themselves have begun to progress rock music with some of these elements in mind. If anything these developments have lead us into somewhat of a new Baroque period with an influx of new ideas which will surely later become refined. Just as it had in the past.

The article reminds me of a new york times article which said that Stravinsky declined steadily after his greatest work "the firebird." This couldn't be further from the truth. Why would a genius of Stravinsky's stature, write his greatest piece so early in his yourth? Same holds true with John Coltrane. He's most remembered for his middle period. Not his late works. I digress, there comes a point where music becomes too much of an intelectual feat and most of the public drops off from there. The problem in our society is that there truly is no middle ground. The public can't possibly relate to many of the serious advancements in the music of today. That doesn't mean music hasn't progressed. One day people will remember the greats of today, just as Bach was discovered a hundred years after his death or the fact that the "failed" 9th symphony of Beethoven is now revered as a highly spiritual endever. On the flip side, popular music has become way too simple and packaged. It isn't anything more than a commodity at this point. To put things in perspective, the black eyed peas were not met with adoration at first. Things were a little too odd. By sandwiching them between two very popular songs on the radio people became accustomed. Perhaps the public wants what it is familiar with and the "music business plays into that. Hence the lack of progress in popular music. After investing much time in the greats of today, popular music of any style sounds incredibly boring, empty and devoid of any meaning.

I mean seriously Keith Jarret, Nico Muhly, Wayne Shorter and Brad Mehldau to name a very small few artists are alive right now, and you want to convince me that there are no adventurous musicians?

 

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Don't really need research to point out the obvious.

 

WRONG. It happens all the time. There is simply no way to completely remove the human element from the scientific method. Although "good" researchers will surely disagree. I'm sure you will too.

 

I've seen this before and disgusts me. that band is the least favorite of anything and of any genre. i don't like the way they look, don't like the way they sound, i don't like the singers hair, i don't like the fact that they are rich from the crap they make, i do not like green eggs and ham.

 

There's no way to remove the human element from anything, including your estimation of this research. That fact alone doesn't provide an adequate reason for immediately dismissing this, or any, research.

The research has minor limitations because the dataset (the mp3s) can't be completely comprehensive, but they limitations imposed by that are, as I said, minor.

And it doesn't happen all the time - it happens infrequently enough, in fact, that instances of dishonest research generally get quite a bit of coverage. Peer review isn't perfect, but nothing is.

 

Just so I clear the air before I leave this argument, my comments in this discussion were a product of my cynicism regarding "studies" in general. I take them all with a grain of salt. My opinion on that remains the same. However, the outcome of this particular study matches my own opinion on the subject. There's some good music being made today, but much of it is crap. In other words, if I was paying for this study, I'd make sure my researchers were products of the 60's and 70's to better ensure they came to the same conclusion.


You can think I'm stupid....Im fine with that. Just don't think I'm sticking up for today's music vs the music of my youth. That would be untenable.

 

We should have a pole about this. :grin:

Do you believe that the following are having serious impacts on the quality of scientific research done today?
a) Confirmation bias
b) Massaging of data
c) Misuse of statistics

The godfather of bad science to me is Dr. Ancel Keys for the way he did a study with 22 countries and published the 7 countries study which blamed fat intake for heart disease. I blame him for vastly increasing the amount of fake food we eat and the amount of sugar we eat as well.

Bad science and dishonest research have had MAJOR impacts on society and public policy. The first question anybody should ask about a scientific study was who funded it.

Until we get a funding-blind system in place, science will continue to be corrupted by the grant system. The economics of the system guarantee it.

 

I swear, all the songs on the radio I currently hear are electronic sounding with female singers. Not trying to be a hipster, but most main stream music is garbage now-a-days. A few years ago I could bear what was on the hit stations, but now it's just mindless crap.

 

Music will only get worse over time. That is common sense. Everything has already been done. I could tell you that for free.

 

People said the same thing in the 16th century. Far from the truth.

The beauty of music as a language is that it is indeed infinite and constantly evolving.

In your eyes, at what point in history was everything officially done?