Popular songs have become increasingly simple over the past 70 years, both in terms of their rhythms and melodies, according to new research published in the journal Scientific Reports.
A research duo in London analysed the most distinctive melodies - usually the vocal melody - of songs that were the top five songs of the respective year in the US Billboard singles charts between 1950 and 2022. In total, more than 350 songs were included.
According to the statistical analysis, the complexity of the song rhythms and pitch arrangements decreased over the years, while the average number of notes played per second increased significantly.
The pair of scientists behind the study caution say they aren't seeking to judge this development, nor do they claim this is because newer music is "bad" or that its listeners have "poor taste." This would go beyond scientific findings into the realm of subjective opinion, say Madeline Hamilton and Marcus Pearce from Queen Mary University of London.
The scientists recorded two notable jumps in 1975 and 2000 and a smaller one in 1996, which were characterised by a considerable reduction in complexity.
The researchers associate the decrease in 1975 with the emergence of new genres such as disco and new wave. In the 1990s and at the turn of the millennium, the rise of hip-hop may have played a role.
Hamilton and Pearce speculate that the decrease in melodic complexity could be due to an increase in the complexity of other musical elements such as the increased number of notes. This may be to prevent the music from sounding too overwhelming for listeners. The increasing availability of digital instruments could also allow musical complexity to be expressed more through creativity in sound.
Another theory is that the musical trend mirrors the linguistic trend, since the digital age increasingly compresses our language so that we can fit what we want to say into the internet's character limits.
This reduces the complexity of messages and perhaps also the ability to digest complex ideas - it could be the same in popular music. In other words, people may no longer have the mental capacity for complex songs.
The findings are compatible with a 2023 analysis of lyrics from more than 350,000 English-language songs, according to which Western pop music is becoming increasingly simpler and angrier.
The analysis of rap, country, pop, rock and R&B songs from 1980 to 2020 showed that the structure of lyrics has become increasingly simple. Text elements are repeated more frequently, choruses take up more space and the vocabulary used has become narrower, according to the study.
The researchers believe this development could be linked to the way songs are now consumed, among other things. Music creators produce songs to allow them to be "streamed, clicked and watched as often as possible," as Elisabeth Lex from Graz University of Technology explained. Repetitive, simple and compact - all this promotes the development of catchy tunes.
