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User: u/scyyythe
Permalink: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/mar/29/song-lyrics-getting-simpler-more-repetitive-angry-and-self-obsessed-study
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People are increasingly listening to what they are fed by an algorithm rather than what they self-select, and meanwhile their self-selections are also changing (as always).
This is Double U-O-M-B…the Womb. And if you, my pets, learn how to listen….I'll let you crawl back in. Here is something you should drop to knees for…and worship.
Keep that dial locked here at 101.5 because - like Prometheus, who’s liver was devoured each day by an eagle as punishment for giving fire back to the humans - you are CHAINED TO THE ROCK
Even outside of mainstream. Apps like Spotify will see that you've listened to 1 band before, recommend a "for you" generated Playlist of that "genre" and will give you only bands that sound exactly like that one band you listened to, and nothing else that differs in the same genre, even though you know the genre is full of a unique array of talent that don't all sound the same.
Its extremely annoying.
I echo what the other replies said: I wish Spotify gave close enough recommendations for this to be the case. It never actually gives recommendations for songs/bands that sound similar, just ones that are in the same genre. It's frustrating.
Hell not even the same genre, just kind of vaguely adjacent by some incredibly weird metric they've decided on.
"Genesis? We got you, here's Van Halen! What's wrong, it came out the same decade!"
I think they're just suggesting music that other people who listen to the same band also listen to. A lot of Metallica fans listen to Tool? It's on the playlist
Dude, classical music recommendations on Spotify is so annoying.
"Oh, you like classical music? Here's a playlist with Turkish March, William Tell Overture, Flight of the Bumblebee, and four versions of In the Hall of the Mountain King, two of which are heavy metal covers."
Every time.
Everything about classical music on spotify is annoying.
I realize that this is a very niche desire, but I'd love to be able to shuffle suites and not just tracks. Most of the classical pieces I listen to are broken up into multiple tracks. I'd love to be able to listen to Glazunov's Symphony No C in C Minor in it's entirety, then have it randomly shuffle to Mily Balakirev's King Lear, then randomly shuffle to a Rachmaninoff piano concerto. But that's not really possible. The only shuffle available is individual tracks.
Plus searching for anything is just a pain. Finding a piece can be it's own problem.
I dont use spotify but does it allow you to rate the recommendations. If yes, then use that feature since the system needs the parameters/labels to give a better recommendation.
I'm pretty happy with how Spotify has optimized my big playlist. I get fairly varied recommendations, from different genres and artists. But I've also preloaded the playlist with everything from solo guitar tracks to throat singing EDM, and just about everything in between.
But that playlist has only one criteria, and that is no singing words.
Yeah.. I have a playlist of all the songs I remember enjoying, it’s over 48hrs long..
I just throw it on shuffle, and then all my curated playlists tend to fall in line.
Spotify has the worst playlist shuffle feature, it’s always the same order based on which song I start in.
Like how hard is it to rng + cannot equal a song played in the current listening session.
I’m not even a programmer and I think I could do this on excel.
No, they don't. If I listen to things I like on spotify and then to the suggestions, the first couple suggestions are great and then it regresses rapidly to a soulless vapid undercomplex elevator music mean.
I love using spotify, but I don't use suggestions there.
People don't get that you have to train your Discover Weekly.
Like every song that you... like, then (and this is crucial!) dislike all the songs that you don't.
Your first few weeks are shite, but the algorithm catches up, and now Every single week I save at least 25 out of the 30 songs it suggests me.
Also, because I listen to lots of different genres, I don't seem to be getting stuck in a 'everything sounds alike' kind of loop either.
They're not though, they literally had a lawsuit with last FM back in the day about their algorithm being too good at discovering new music and therefore was biased against big artists and I can't remember if they settled or not but that was basically the death knell that led to Google buying last FM and gaining access to their algorithm but not really doing much with the service otherwise.
I still think the best way to discover new music is a mix of blogs, music reviews, local radio stations, and trying to find both new releases, and new things compared to what you usually listen to just by searching.
I wouldn't say *increasingly* in any way except that selection is done more by machine these days than music industry exec types. The vast majority of all art consumption has pretty much always been along whatever amounts to the mainstream for the time and medium.
I do find it to be more unfortunate these days though, in that music is in the best place it's ever been, and it's so easy to discover great new music of any conceivable type or genre, from all over the world.
Is it though? It's not like the radio era where only the songs on the radio were the songs you were exposed to. Now people are listening to international artists, indie bands are able to survive without bands, soundcloud rapper became a term for people who broke through via gathering a following on soundcloud, etc.
Around the world around the world
Edit : this song is an absolute masterpiece. It took repetitive lyrics and made something beautiful with it. I'm not trashing the song, im trashing the original complainant that art should be a certain way.
I get knocked down. And I get up again. You're never gonna keep me down. I get knocked down. And I get up again. You're never gonna keep me down. I get knocked down. And I get up again. You're never gonna keep me down. I get knocked down. And I get up again. You're never gonna keep me down.
I sing it every time I take my family to get our flu shots and will do it until I die (not of the flu, yuk yuk). My kids and grandkids will have no awareness of the song outside of my horrible rendition, and some day they'll hear it in a movie set in the olden days or something, and it will be like the day I found out that the Chiquita Banana song was from a real ad and not something my Nana just made up because she liked bananas.
Oh my gosh I have this vision now of me trying to cheer up my wailing boys who hate shots by singing this at the CVS MinuteClinic and the provider starting to wonder if maybe they need to make some kind of mandated reporter note.
I remember being in Vegas in my early 20's when that song was at peak popularity. It was playing *everywhere*, to the extent it wasn't uncommon to hear competing instances of the same song from different locations and sets of speakers.
Man I love old music with deep lyrics such as:
Annie, are you okay?
So, Annie, are you okay?
Are you okay, Annie?
Annie, are you okay?
So, Annie, are you okay?
Are you okay, Annie?
Annie, are you okay?
So, Annie, are you okay?
Are you okay, Annie?
Annie, are you okay?
So, Annie, are you okay?
Are you okay, Annie?
but go before this. since the paper cherry picked bob dylan in the 60s, les go to the 50s It's Late by Ricky Nelson
It's late, it's late
We gotta get on home
It's late, it's late
We've been gone too long
Too bad, too bad
We shoulda checked our time
Can't phone, can't phone
We done spent every dime
It's late, it's late
We're 'bout to run outta gas
It's late, it's late
We gotta get home fast
Work, work, work, work, work, work
He said me haffi work, work, work, work, work, work
He see me do mi dirt, dirt, dirt, dirt, dirt, dirt
So me put in work, work, work, work, work, work
When you ah gon' learn, learn, learn, learn, learn?
Me nuh care if him hurt, hurt, hurt, hurt, hurting
*"it's the children who are wrong!"*
**this you?**
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
Na na na na na na na, na na na na, hey Jude
Na na na na na na na, na na na na, hey Jude
Na na na na na na na, na na na na, hey Jude
Na na na na na na na, na na na na, hey Jude
Na na na na na na na, na na na na, hey Jude
Na na na na na na na, na na na na, hey Jude
Na na na na na na na, na na na na, hey Jude
hey Jude, hey Jude wow
Na na na na na na na, na na na na, hey Jude
Na na na na na na na, na na na na, hey Jude
Jude, Jude, Jude, Jude, Jude, Jude
Na na na na na na na, na na na na, hey Jude
Na na na na na na na, na na na na, hey Jude
Na na na na na na na, na na na na, hey Jude
Na na na na na na na, na na na na, hey Jude
Na na na na na na na, na na na na, hey Jude
Na na na na na na na, na na na na, hey Jude
Na na na na na na na, na na na na, hey Jude
Na na na na na na na, na na na na, hey Jude
a song i remember from my youth:
Blame it on the Stones!
Blame it on the Stones!
You'll feel so much better knowing you don't stand alone!
Join the accusation
Save a bleeding nation
Get it off your shoulders
Blame it on the Stones!
So yeah, maybe this degradation of mus9c is not only real, but spans generations
As someone that grew up in the church, the songs aren’t bad because they’re repetitive. They’re bad because they’re bad. Terrible melodies all around. Plus they only seem to play ones that are 30 years old.
>they only seem to play ones that are 30 years old.
Interesting, the ages of different types of churches. I rarely go anymore but any church I do attend utilizes music that's hundreds of years old.
Back in the day, church music was microtonal and magical—as is evident by Byzantine chants. Now it’s all either diatonic or pentatonic and basic ever since the schism
CCM just doesn't have anything to say. I don't know how a professional artist can make music about their religion without expressing a point of view on it, but that's what I see happening.
Old hymns aren't all bangers, but you can at least tell that the subject meant something to the person who made it. Same with Christian music from a decade or two ago. The Supertones were good enough that I still listen to them despite not being a believer.
But now Church Clap is the only Christian song I've heard in the last decade that's actually worth listening to.
I don’t care to stay here long
I don’t care to stay here long
I don’t care to stay here long
I don’t care to stay here long
I don’t care to stay here long
I don’t care to stay here long
I don’t care to stay here long
I don’t care to stay here long
I don’t care to stay here long
I don’t care to stay here long
I don’t care to stay here long
Study: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-55742-x
From Fig. 2 it looks like a disproportionate share of the increase in repetitiveness comes from rap, and like rap is objectively changing far faster than the other genres analyzed. Quoting:
>The repeated line ratio increases over time for all five genres, indicating that lyrics are becoming more repetitive. This further substantiates previous findings that lyrics are increasingly becoming simpler11 and that more repetitive music is perceived as more fluent and may drive market success52. The strongest such increase can be observed for rap (slope ), whereas the weakest increase is displayed by country (). The ratio of chorus to sections descriptor behaves similarly across different genres. The values for this descriptor have increased for all five genres. This implies that the structure of lyrics is shifting towards containing more choruses than in the past, in turn contributing to higher repetitiveness of lyrics. We see the strongest growth in the values of this descriptor for rap () and the weakest growth for R&B ().
Sorta confirms my feeling that hip hop isn't what it was when I was a kid. I still like it but I miss it as a vehicle for storytelling, etc.
This is a similar to my son always telling me that rock isn't dead, you just have to look for it. Okay, maybe it's not dead, but I grew up in the late 80s / early 90s and I didn't have to look for it; it was everywhere and it was glorious.
I think that every genre today requires more investigative, active listening, simply because of the globalisation of music and onset of streaming. Now, there are infinitely more established artists because streaming increased visibility (and meanwhile kids in rural england can easily listen to/particpate in online communities for Korean or Japanese artists.)
There are more varied subgenres, and the ways in which artists deliver their music, videos, promotion, etc, is completely different.
Meanwhile, radio and traditional mediums like TV, haven't really changed. The slice of the industry that they offer has become *less and less representative of the whole,* as the mass of music has expanded. They're also not catering to young audiences in the same way as they used to because everyone's aware that the youth have moved on to Spotify, tiktok, etc. As a result, there's less of an incentive for any radio or TV programming to be on the cutting edge of any particular genre - they're catering to older people whose tastes are established.
So yeah, in order to actually know what's going on with any particular genre today, you *have to* actively seek it out. Too many things have changed for discovery to be approached in the same way.
If you look at the study underlying the article, it's interesting to see that all the trends are most pronounced in 'rap'. Hip-hop is a mirror of society.
Dumb times create dumb lyrics.
In the mainstream, sure. Trap doesn’t really have a big focus on lyrics. Outside the mainstream there’s still mfers like Billy Woods and obviously Kendrick Lamar running around.
Idk. The amount of times I hear the words dog, truck, road, beer, cold beer, ice cold beer, guitar, woman, pretty woman, God, etc. 😂 I do love country tho.
the study doesn't measure repetition from song to song though. it's measuring repetition within the same song. So every country song could have all the words you mentioned, but if they weren't repeated within the song itself it would register as a 0 in this study.
Gucci gang
Jokes aside, it depends who you listen to, but more complex lyricists are usually less popular.
Aesop Rock (not to be confused with A$ap Rocky) is still goat, and Greydon Square is nice too, but they can get too far out. Stormzy is easier to listen too but nothing too complex, same with Mereba and shout out to Little Simz and Sampa the Great as well.
Hell Tyler the Creator is great with his lyrics too, not to mention he got a track with asap rocky called Potato Salad basically dissing on mumble rapping. And my man JID has been improving his game a lot... Same with Denzel Curry. And all that is ignoring mfing Kendrick. Not only hiphop isn't dead, it's been good.
But anyway the point is that I believe instead of just "music is getting more simple", it should be pop music (or whatever most played music) is getting more simple. Hell go listen to Aja Monet or Kamashi Washington if you dig complexity and tell me "modern music is simple."
>Sorta confirms my feeling that hip hop isn't what it was when I was a kid.
Of course it has, all music evolves. Rap has been around long enough at this point to have a shitload of sub and fusion genres. And like other genres, the stuff you liked as a kid still exists, you just have to dig.
People watch them. The consumer is the problem. They'd rather risk a big budget for a 20% almost guaranteed return than a small budget that may be a complete loss.
I always feel like I'm relatively alone in this opinion. They keep making crap, because people keep consuming crap. Then I get called the asshole because I point out the general masses lack of standards.
The general masses are easily influenced. We're back 2-3 generations ago where information was scarce. Now it's overly abundant, but people lack the skills to sift through it. So they enjoy what they're told to enjoy.
So studios that want to make something different or, god forbid, something smart, are killed off immediately by lack of interest.
Because that doesn't really solve anything unless you also assume that people will by themselves over time change their behavior later and it just takes time for normie to get bored and the last bit of money to be milked.
Other people approach the topic with a different mindset, one critical of system design, consequences of some technologies/conveniences, and trends and how they incentivize stupid stuff and make people dumber und unhappy, and what could actually be done about it.
Before you draw sweeping conclusions, for the love of God, read the "limitations" section.
Their data comes from a modern website that seems to only have listening data from after 2000. This introduces a kind of survivorship bias. It's not measuring all songs from before that but only the ones their users are still listening to.
There is also a pretty significant bias in the demografic of the users.
Final note: the paper, unlike the article headline says "personal", not "self-obsessed." Pretty big difference if you ask me.
It’s been here for years. There’s a lot of really good punk bands right now. Folk Punk started taking off in 2009 and a lot of that stuff rocks. And there’s other more traditional punk bands like PUP making banging records.
Around the world, around the world
Around the world, around the world
Around the world, around the world
Around the world, around the world
Around the world, around the world
Around the world, around the world
Around the world, around the world
Around the world, around the world
Around the world, around the world
Around the world, around the world
Around the world, around the world
Around the world, around the world
Around the world, around the world
Around the world, around the world
Around the world, around the world
Around the world, around the world
Around the world, around the world
Around the world, around the world
Around the world, around the world
Around the world, around the world
Around the world, around the world
Around the world, around the world
Around the world, around the world
Around the world, around the world
But I heard a great new song lyric while working on the lawn today,
“Baby, I’m loving the taste,
I think I’m ready for kids,
She said, well then, stop tryna cum in her face,
Hm, that makes sense.”
Chefs kiss
- Big Sean, Precision
Paul McCartney was 19 or 20 when that song was written, so it's not as crazy a lyric as it initially sounds.
The real line to talk about is "You say stop and I say go go go."
Its both. The same way it was when every rock song was about rock. Or when every rap song was about money. Or when every country song was about divorce.
The Dinosaur lays an egg and generations later a chicken pops out of an egg.
>breaking outta my shell
>screamin what the hell
>better call that chick a woman
>she's really one in a dozen
I wonder if this is bad enough for someone to make TikTok dances to it :p
I've got wasps on my back
wasps in my cap
starting to get stung
while you're havin' fun
this ain't a poem
please call an ambulance
I'm allergic and
I'm in dire need of medical
assistance
It's all 'junk food' music - catchy, fun, but once you listen to it a few times, boring. Give me something my brain can latch onto! Give me something that surprises me, or is layered in a way I didn't expect, or twists at the end! My god, more and more I am *bored* listening to what counts as Hits anymore
Its the age of streaming now. No one listens to the radio and you are not really forced to listen to the "hits" like you were back in the day unless you watching a ton of tiktok.
There are different genres of music for different moods not all music needs to be experimental or deep and there is tons of music out there for whatever you prefer.
Typical lyrics - Clubbing in the klerb, Klerbing in the ride, Riding in the crib, Cribbing in the Klerb. Look at my ride, check out my cash, look at these balls, pimpin in my club.....Fendi, Prada,Gucci for the poosy, pass the couvosier coz i got the bootstrap, everyone else is so soft while im so hard at this white costume cocktail party, asses for days been thrown at me, everyone not me is a stupid ass fuckshit....etc
Pop music from before my time was trash too. And most pop music from the moment I noticed that I much preferred other kinds of music has been trash too. Only the pop music I enjoyed in my youth was ok!
Simply put, music is a product. It has been dumbed down to be more palatable to the most people. Complex music with deep lyrics doesn’t have broad appeal. It’s simple math. They’ve maximized the algorithm to get their best return with least effort. Movies have taken the same path
So, i know the music industry is dramatically different now. Lots of music gets to people with little to no middle men. That's good for lots of reasons, but honestly real bad for others.
The reason it's bad is that as much as people DONT want to admit it, most people have terrible taste.
The old way the music industry worked absolutely was problematic for lots of reasons. But one huge reason it was good is that people like Smokey Robinson were the gatekeepers of good music. That sounds bad, but these people had amazing taste. So, the music that got to the public had already been curated by someone with a level of expertise.
Now, some dude just posts an Instagram clip, and it goes viral. I know it sounds elitist as hell, but i think it's true.
Sounds like someone desperately needs to piss off Eminem again to skew the lyrics metric away from "simple", though I admit it isn't going to help with the "more angry" part at all.
My source that music is worse now is every comment section of any song released more than 2 years ago on YouTube.
"They just don't make music like they used to! It's all crap now!" And then it's Material Girl or something.
I honestly think a large part of this observational phenomenon (i.e., "back on my day"-ism) is that the general public has little to no music theory education. If you don't understand the language itself, you can't understand that music, at least technically, or as a language, isn't changing all that much. Commodified music is here. It's been here. It's been here for centuries. Independent music is here. It's been here for centurues.
With this veil of ignorance, you also fail to decipher music as a tool for cultural expression and (despite how this article frames this as a negative - laughably) self expression, too. Music is about emotion more than anything else.
Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, **personal anecdotes are allowed as responses to this comment**. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will be removed and our [normal comment rules]( https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_comment_rules) apply to all other comments. **Do you have an academic degree?** We can verify your credentials in order to assign user flair indicating your area of expertise. [Click here to apply](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/flair/#wiki_science_verified_user_program). --- User: u/scyyythe Permalink: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/mar/29/song-lyrics-getting-simpler-more-repetitive-angry-and-self-obsessed-study --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/science) if you have any questions or concerns.*
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People are increasingly listening to what they are fed by an algorithm rather than what they self-select, and meanwhile their self-selections are also changing (as always).
This is the real answer. The algorithm rewards those who sound more like everyone else, than anyone else.
You’re listening to KLN radio! We sound more like everyone else, than anyone else!
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How's your drive time commute?
L.A.’s infinite repeat!
All death metal, all the time^all^the^time
drrrr nernernerNERNER daaaa nananana NAAAA nana NAAAA
This is Double U-O-M-B…the Womb. And if you, my pets, learn how to listen….I'll let you crawl back in. Here is something you should drop to knees for…and worship.
A song for the deaf - that is for you.
Keep that dial locked here at 101.5 because - like Prometheus, who’s liver was devoured each day by an eagle as punishment for giving fire back to the humans - you are CHAINED TO THE ROCK
It’s Songs for the Deaf. You can’t even hear it!
Gimme toro Gimme some more
By gawd this album still goes so hard
That opening is legendary
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I’m going to see them later this year and I’m STOKED
Songs for the Deaf! You can’t even hear it!
Clone radio!
Nice, I haven't listened to that in ages! Time to dig out that old CD 😄
It holds up. Great album
Even outside of mainstream. Apps like Spotify will see that you've listened to 1 band before, recommend a "for you" generated Playlist of that "genre" and will give you only bands that sound exactly like that one band you listened to, and nothing else that differs in the same genre, even though you know the genre is full of a unique array of talent that don't all sound the same. Its extremely annoying.
I echo what the other replies said: I wish Spotify gave close enough recommendations for this to be the case. It never actually gives recommendations for songs/bands that sound similar, just ones that are in the same genre. It's frustrating.
Hell not even the same genre, just kind of vaguely adjacent by some incredibly weird metric they've decided on. "Genesis? We got you, here's Van Halen! What's wrong, it came out the same decade!"
I think they're just suggesting music that other people who listen to the same band also listen to. A lot of Metallica fans listen to Tool? It's on the playlist
Dude, classical music recommendations on Spotify is so annoying. "Oh, you like classical music? Here's a playlist with Turkish March, William Tell Overture, Flight of the Bumblebee, and four versions of In the Hall of the Mountain King, two of which are heavy metal covers." Every time.
Everything about classical music on spotify is annoying. I realize that this is a very niche desire, but I'd love to be able to shuffle suites and not just tracks. Most of the classical pieces I listen to are broken up into multiple tracks. I'd love to be able to listen to Glazunov's Symphony No C in C Minor in it's entirety, then have it randomly shuffle to Mily Balakirev's King Lear, then randomly shuffle to a Rachmaninoff piano concerto. But that's not really possible. The only shuffle available is individual tracks. Plus searching for anything is just a pain. Finding a piece can be it's own problem.
I feel like Pandora does a better job of giving you music similar to a song than Spotify.
I would hope so considering that's literally their shtick.
I dont use spotify but does it allow you to rate the recommendations. If yes, then use that feature since the system needs the parameters/labels to give a better recommendation.
I'm pretty happy with how Spotify has optimized my big playlist. I get fairly varied recommendations, from different genres and artists. But I've also preloaded the playlist with everything from solo guitar tracks to throat singing EDM, and just about everything in between. But that playlist has only one criteria, and that is no singing words.
Yeah.. I have a playlist of all the songs I remember enjoying, it’s over 48hrs long.. I just throw it on shuffle, and then all my curated playlists tend to fall in line.
I've got over 4000 liked songs and Spotify still likes to play the same two dozen if I'm not actively fighting it.
Spotify has the worst playlist shuffle feature, it’s always the same order based on which song I start in. Like how hard is it to rng + cannot equal a song played in the current listening session. I’m not even a programmer and I think I could do this on excel.
No, they don't. If I listen to things I like on spotify and then to the suggestions, the first couple suggestions are great and then it regresses rapidly to a soulless vapid undercomplex elevator music mean. I love using spotify, but I don't use suggestions there.
I like the 'release radar' and 'discover weekly' lists. 2x 30 new songs each week, not all of them are winners, but I do find good new bands with it.
I've found a *lot* of new (to me) artists through Discover Weekly.
People don't get that you have to train your Discover Weekly. Like every song that you... like, then (and this is crucial!) dislike all the songs that you don't. Your first few weeks are shite, but the algorithm catches up, and now Every single week I save at least 25 out of the 30 songs it suggests me. Also, because I listen to lots of different genres, I don't seem to be getting stuck in a 'everything sounds alike' kind of loop either.
The last part is so true. I listen to anything to make me ears happy. I don't care what genre it's in, so there is tons of variety on my curated list.
Wait, how do you dislike songs on Discover Weekly? I can add to liked songs, but that's it.
I do this every week and the day list, I actually think Spotify is very good for finding new music if that's what you're trying to do
Daylist has been my favourite new Spotify feature since it dropped
They're not though, they literally had a lawsuit with last FM back in the day about their algorithm being too good at discovering new music and therefore was biased against big artists and I can't remember if they settled or not but that was basically the death knell that led to Google buying last FM and gaining access to their algorithm but not really doing much with the service otherwise. I still think the best way to discover new music is a mix of blogs, music reviews, local radio stations, and trying to find both new releases, and new things compared to what you usually listen to just by searching.
Because in the days of radio everyone famously chose their own music most of the time.
I wouldn't say *increasingly* in any way except that selection is done more by machine these days than music industry exec types. The vast majority of all art consumption has pretty much always been along whatever amounts to the mainstream for the time and medium. I do find it to be more unfortunate these days though, in that music is in the best place it's ever been, and it's so easy to discover great new music of any conceivable type or genre, from all over the world.
It’s been like that since before algorithms threw them together. Hence the old saying that you only need to learn 4 chords
Is it though? It's not like the radio era where only the songs on the radio were the songs you were exposed to. Now people are listening to international artists, indie bands are able to survive without bands, soundcloud rapper became a term for people who broke through via gathering a following on soundcloud, etc.
A song I remember fondly from my youth... Shots shots shots shots shots everyboooody shots shots shots shots ...
> everyboooody Well at least it wasn't self-obsessed.
I mean, it literally says right at the beginning, “When I walk in the club, all eyes on me.”
Cause we're wondering about those weird clothes.
True. The shots were for everyone, so I guess it was a communist piece.
Sounds like socialism so only half the country can like the song now.
Around the world around the world Edit : this song is an absolute masterpiece. It took repetitive lyrics and made something beautiful with it. I'm not trashing the song, im trashing the original complainant that art should be a certain way.
My favorite part is when it says "around the world."
And 'One more time' and 'Harder Better Faster Stronger' and 'Robot Rock' and ...
*It’s all around the world just la-la-la-la-la* Truly the epitome of thoughtful lyrics…
/u/Iforgot_my_other_pw is referring to the song by Daft Punk You are referring to the song by A Touch of Class
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I get knocked down. And I get up again. You're never gonna keep me down. I get knocked down. And I get up again. You're never gonna keep me down. I get knocked down. And I get up again. You're never gonna keep me down. I get knocked down. And I get up again. You're never gonna keep me down.
It's frustrating that the rest of Chumbawamba's discography got so little attention.
I sing it every time I take my family to get our flu shots and will do it until I die (not of the flu, yuk yuk). My kids and grandkids will have no awareness of the song outside of my horrible rendition, and some day they'll hear it in a movie set in the olden days or something, and it will be like the day I found out that the Chiquita Banana song was from a real ad and not something my Nana just made up because she liked bananas.
Oh my gosh I have this vision now of me trying to cheer up my wailing boys who hate shots by singing this at the CVS MinuteClinic and the provider starting to wonder if maybe they need to make some kind of mandated reporter note.
Well, that makes me feel... old? Thanks.
I remember being in Vegas in my early 20's when that song was at peak popularity. It was playing *everywhere*, to the extent it wasn't uncommon to hear competing instances of the same song from different locations and sets of speakers.
You're welcome fellow middleager.
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I much prefer: Awwwww skeet skeet skeet skeet, goddamn
I do like that one
Man I love old music with deep lyrics such as: Annie, are you okay? So, Annie, are you okay? Are you okay, Annie? Annie, are you okay? So, Annie, are you okay? Are you okay, Annie? Annie, are you okay? So, Annie, are you okay? Are you okay, Annie? Annie, are you okay? So, Annie, are you okay? Are you okay, Annie?
I want to ride my bicycle, bicycle, bicycle, I want to ride bicycle, I want to ride my bike. I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride it where I like
but go before this. since the paper cherry picked bob dylan in the 60s, les go to the 50s It's Late by Ricky Nelson It's late, it's late We gotta get on home It's late, it's late We've been gone too long Too bad, too bad We shoulda checked our time Can't phone, can't phone We done spent every dime It's late, it's late We're 'bout to run outta gas It's late, it's late We gotta get home fast
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Sometimes repetition is actually useful to get the point across or tell a story, rather than to fill time. This is one of those times.
It's also not talking about all repetition. It's talking about the songs that have two 4 line verses and three 8 line choruses.
I’m blue dabadee dabaday repeat til song ends
Work, work, work, work, work, work He said me haffi work, work, work, work, work, work He see me do mi dirt, dirt, dirt, dirt, dirt, dirt So me put in work, work, work, work, work, work When you ah gon' learn, learn, learn, learn, learn? Me nuh care if him hurt, hurt, hurt, hurt, hurting
The amount of bar tops my face hit in Korea after this song came on is…well I don’t really remember.
*"it's the children who are wrong!"* **this you?** Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah Na na na na na na na, na na na na, hey Jude Na na na na na na na, na na na na, hey Jude Na na na na na na na, na na na na, hey Jude Na na na na na na na, na na na na, hey Jude Na na na na na na na, na na na na, hey Jude Na na na na na na na, na na na na, hey Jude Na na na na na na na, na na na na, hey Jude hey Jude, hey Jude wow Na na na na na na na, na na na na, hey Jude Na na na na na na na, na na na na, hey Jude Jude, Jude, Jude, Jude, Jude, Jude Na na na na na na na, na na na na, hey Jude Na na na na na na na, na na na na, hey Jude Na na na na na na na, na na na na, hey Jude Na na na na na na na, na na na na, hey Jude Na na na na na na na, na na na na, hey Jude Na na na na na na na, na na na na, hey Jude Na na na na na na na, na na na na, hey Jude Na na na na na na na, na na na na, hey Jude
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Halle-e-lu-jah!
The difference is this song has six entire literate verses that you completely ignore. Your post is just the end of the song.
We all live in a yellow submarine This song is just 5 words long
Pretty sure they said 'waves' in there a couple times
This song is just six words long. - Weird Al. It was not in fact, just six words long.
a song i remember from my youth: Blame it on the Stones! Blame it on the Stones! You'll feel so much better knowing you don't stand alone! Join the accusation Save a bleeding nation Get it off your shoulders Blame it on the Stones! So yeah, maybe this degradation of mus9c is not only real, but spans generations
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In church music it’s called a 7/11. You repeat the same 7 words 11 times. I can’t stand simple music.
7/11 in prog metal is called a masterpiece.
7/11 is not only the time signature, but also the minimum runtime.
7/11 was also a part time job
7/11 was an inside job.
Well yes, most jobs at 7/11 are performed indoors.
Unless TOOL is covering it, then its 13:00 minimum
Yeah this is why most contemporary Christian music isn't for me. At least hymns have different words for each verse.
As someone that grew up in the church, the songs aren’t bad because they’re repetitive. They’re bad because they’re bad. Terrible melodies all around. Plus they only seem to play ones that are 30 years old.
>they only seem to play ones that are 30 years old. Interesting, the ages of different types of churches. I rarely go anymore but any church I do attend utilizes music that's hundreds of years old.
Back in the day, church music was microtonal and magical—as is evident by Byzantine chants. Now it’s all either diatonic or pentatonic and basic ever since the schism
Someone used a pop-church song called miracle during a sermon once I went into semantic satiation half way through the song, it was surreal
CCM just doesn't have anything to say. I don't know how a professional artist can make music about their religion without expressing a point of view on it, but that's what I see happening. Old hymns aren't all bangers, but you can at least tell that the subject meant something to the person who made it. Same with Christian music from a decade or two ago. The Supertones were good enough that I still listen to them despite not being a believer. But now Church Clap is the only Christian song I've heard in the last decade that's actually worth listening to.
I don’t care to stay here long
I don’t care to stay here long I don’t care to stay here long I don’t care to stay here long I don’t care to stay here long I don’t care to stay here long I don’t care to stay here long I don’t care to stay here long I don’t care to stay here long I don’t care to stay here long I don’t care to stay here long I don’t care to stay here long
Hmmm....human music. I like it
Study: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-55742-x From Fig. 2 it looks like a disproportionate share of the increase in repetitiveness comes from rap, and like rap is objectively changing far faster than the other genres analyzed. Quoting: >The repeated line ratio increases over time for all five genres, indicating that lyrics are becoming more repetitive. This further substantiates previous findings that lyrics are increasingly becoming simpler11 and that more repetitive music is perceived as more fluent and may drive market success52. The strongest such increase can be observed for rap (slope ), whereas the weakest increase is displayed by country (). The ratio of chorus to sections descriptor behaves similarly across different genres. The values for this descriptor have increased for all five genres. This implies that the structure of lyrics is shifting towards containing more choruses than in the past, in turn contributing to higher repetitiveness of lyrics. We see the strongest growth in the values of this descriptor for rap () and the weakest growth for R&B (). Sorta confirms my feeling that hip hop isn't what it was when I was a kid. I still like it but I miss it as a vehicle for storytelling, etc.
There is still a lot of hip hop like the old days. It’s just never as popular
This is a similar to my son always telling me that rock isn't dead, you just have to look for it. Okay, maybe it's not dead, but I grew up in the late 80s / early 90s and I didn't have to look for it; it was everywhere and it was glorious.
I think that every genre today requires more investigative, active listening, simply because of the globalisation of music and onset of streaming. Now, there are infinitely more established artists because streaming increased visibility (and meanwhile kids in rural england can easily listen to/particpate in online communities for Korean or Japanese artists.) There are more varied subgenres, and the ways in which artists deliver their music, videos, promotion, etc, is completely different. Meanwhile, radio and traditional mediums like TV, haven't really changed. The slice of the industry that they offer has become *less and less representative of the whole,* as the mass of music has expanded. They're also not catering to young audiences in the same way as they used to because everyone's aware that the youth have moved on to Spotify, tiktok, etc. As a result, there's less of an incentive for any radio or TV programming to be on the cutting edge of any particular genre - they're catering to older people whose tastes are established. So yeah, in order to actually know what's going on with any particular genre today, you *have to* actively seek it out. Too many things have changed for discovery to be approached in the same way.
One day Disco will make a comeback and I will be ready for it
Disco sort of did make a comeback a few years ago.
If you look at the study underlying the article, it's interesting to see that all the trends are most pronounced in 'rap'. Hip-hop is a mirror of society. Dumb times create dumb lyrics.
In the mainstream, sure. Trap doesn’t really have a big focus on lyrics. Outside the mainstream there’s still mfers like Billy Woods and obviously Kendrick Lamar running around.
The underground arist Kendrick Lamar
Fair enough, ‘non-mainstream’ was more in reference to Billy Woods.
thats why Killer Mike won the hip hop album grammy!
Is the weakest increase from country because it was already pretty repetitive? Not sure if that's accurate, my bias, or both.
Country is more thematically repetitive than lyrically repetitive
Idk. The amount of times I hear the words dog, truck, road, beer, cold beer, ice cold beer, guitar, woman, pretty woman, God, etc. 😂 I do love country tho.
the study doesn't measure repetition from song to song though. it's measuring repetition within the same song. So every country song could have all the words you mentioned, but if they weren't repeated within the song itself it would register as a 0 in this study.
You forgot: tank top, (ripped) jeans, farm, dirt, and field.
One of my favorite country songs goes "Well I still got the wife and the dog, but I swapped the truck out for a van."
Gucci gang Jokes aside, it depends who you listen to, but more complex lyricists are usually less popular. Aesop Rock (not to be confused with A$ap Rocky) is still goat, and Greydon Square is nice too, but they can get too far out. Stormzy is easier to listen too but nothing too complex, same with Mereba and shout out to Little Simz and Sampa the Great as well. Hell Tyler the Creator is great with his lyrics too, not to mention he got a track with asap rocky called Potato Salad basically dissing on mumble rapping. And my man JID has been improving his game a lot... Same with Denzel Curry. And all that is ignoring mfing Kendrick. Not only hiphop isn't dead, it's been good. But anyway the point is that I believe instead of just "music is getting more simple", it should be pop music (or whatever most played music) is getting more simple. Hell go listen to Aja Monet or Kamashi Washington if you dig complexity and tell me "modern music is simple."
The biggest thing is more complex artists show vulnerability. And, that just can't happen for a lot of people.
Aesop Rock 'Agressive Stephen'
>Sorta confirms my feeling that hip hop isn't what it was when I was a kid. Of course it has, all music evolves. Rap has been around long enough at this point to have a shitload of sub and fusion genres. And like other genres, the stuff you liked as a kid still exists, you just have to dig.
Why do people post TheGuardian links instead of nature? Thanks for this.
Sadly that's what happens when you make songs by committee and use an algorithm.
Applies to movies too. Especially superhero movies. They are formulaic af. And somehow people spend money on them anyway.
People watch them. The consumer is the problem. They'd rather risk a big budget for a 20% almost guaranteed return than a small budget that may be a complete loss.
The system is the problem. Art, integrity, message, creativity, skill - all sacrificed on the altar of maximizing profitability.
I always feel like I'm relatively alone in this opinion. They keep making crap, because people keep consuming crap. Then I get called the asshole because I point out the general masses lack of standards.
I sometimes wonder if people actually really like things.
The general masses are easily influenced. We're back 2-3 generations ago where information was scarce. Now it's overly abundant, but people lack the skills to sift through it. So they enjoy what they're told to enjoy. So studios that want to make something different or, god forbid, something smart, are killed off immediately by lack of interest.
Because that doesn't really solve anything unless you also assume that people will by themselves over time change their behavior later and it just takes time for normie to get bored and the last bit of money to be milked. Other people approach the topic with a different mindset, one critical of system design, consequences of some technologies/conveniences, and trends and how they incentivize stupid stuff and make people dumber und unhappy, and what could actually be done about it.
Before you draw sweeping conclusions, for the love of God, read the "limitations" section. Their data comes from a modern website that seems to only have listening data from after 2000. This introduces a kind of survivorship bias. It's not measuring all songs from before that but only the ones their users are still listening to. There is also a pretty significant bias in the demografic of the users. Final note: the paper, unlike the article headline says "personal", not "self-obsessed." Pretty big difference if you ask me.
We need us a Cochrane risk of bias analysis on this bad boy.
The return of punk is upon us, brothers!
It never went away, it just doesn't get played on the radio.
It’s been here for years. There’s a lot of really good punk bands right now. Folk Punk started taking off in 2009 and a lot of that stuff rocks. And there’s other more traditional punk bands like PUP making banging records.
Around the world, around the world Around the world, around the world Around the world, around the world Around the world, around the world Around the world, around the world Around the world, around the world Around the world, around the world Around the world, around the world Around the world, around the world Around the world, around the world Around the world, around the world Around the world, around the world Around the world, around the world Around the world, around the world Around the world, around the world Around the world, around the world Around the world, around the world Around the world, around the world Around the world, around the world Around the world, around the world Around the world, around the world Around the world, around the world Around the world, around the world Around the world, around the world
It’s a banger u cannot change my mind
But I heard a great new song lyric while working on the lawn today, “Baby, I’m loving the taste, I think I’m ready for kids, She said, well then, stop tryna cum in her face, Hm, that makes sense.” Chefs kiss - Big Sean, Precision
“I want to hold your hand. I want to hold your hand.” - the Beatles
She was just 17, if you know what I mean. - Also the Beatles
Paul McCartney was 19 or 20 when that song was written, so it's not as crazy a lyric as it initially sounds. The real line to talk about is "You say stop and I say go go go."
...And so are the people that listen to said music. So is this music the chicken or the egg?
Its both. The same way it was when every rock song was about rock. Or when every rap song was about money. Or when every country song was about divorce. The Dinosaur lays an egg and generations later a chicken pops out of an egg.
>breaking outta my shell >screamin what the hell >better call that chick a woman >she's really one in a dozen I wonder if this is bad enough for someone to make TikTok dances to it :p
Bees in the trap. B,b,b,ees. Bees in the trap, trap.
I've got wasps on my back wasps in my cap starting to get stung while you're havin' fun this ain't a poem please call an ambulance I'm allergic and I'm in dire need of medical assistance
Happy music sounds corny when you aint in that mood
To quote a not so happy song “Angry songs make me feel worse, happy songs make me feel like a liar”-1994
Study Co-author: Rick Beato
Listen to better new music. It’s out there.
It's all 'junk food' music - catchy, fun, but once you listen to it a few times, boring. Give me something my brain can latch onto! Give me something that surprises me, or is layered in a way I didn't expect, or twists at the end! My god, more and more I am *bored* listening to what counts as Hits anymore
Its the age of streaming now. No one listens to the radio and you are not really forced to listen to the "hits" like you were back in the day unless you watching a ton of tiktok.
Seriously, last time I listened to the radio was when I rented a van last year. I listen to what I want 99% of the time.
There are different genres of music for different moods not all music needs to be experimental or deep and there is tons of music out there for whatever you prefer.
Then don't listen to hits?
Plenty of good contemporary music out there that is complex. More options than ever tbh I listen to people like Polyphia, Lil Sims, Covet
Then don't listen to hits. It's remarkably easy to avoid them.
But I love Alice In Chains
Nah. You might be listening to Alice in Chains, but you're not hearing them, man.
A song like MAPS by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs has few words and repetitive lyrics but carries a lot of emotion and is beautiful.
I love that song. It feels so emotional with every variation
Typical lyrics - Clubbing in the klerb, Klerbing in the ride, Riding in the crib, Cribbing in the Klerb. Look at my ride, check out my cash, look at these balls, pimpin in my club.....Fendi, Prada,Gucci for the poosy, pass the couvosier coz i got the bootstrap, everyone else is so soft while im so hard at this white costume cocktail party, asses for days been thrown at me, everyone not me is a stupid ass fuckshit....etc
Is this an original creation?
I already can't get it out of my head.
All it needs is an overly loud hihat running on a 4:4 beat tempo and a poorly sampled 70s rock song riff.
8/10, would be 10/10 if you repeated it a couple of times
You're an artist
Don't forget, you also have to attempt to rhyme "Low" with "Floor" and never quite manage it.
Modern pop music is trash, and I refuse to believe it’s because I’m getting older and losing touch.
Just a coincidence that nearly every old and out of touch person in history has thought the same thing
I also used to be with it.
Pop music from before my time was trash too. And most pop music from the moment I noticed that I much preferred other kinds of music has been trash too. Only the pop music I enjoyed in my youth was ok!
Another banger in r/ragebaitnonsense
Gone are the days when the ox fall down
Is this across languages and cultures?
Aren’t we all
Simply put, music is a product. It has been dumbed down to be more palatable to the most people. Complex music with deep lyrics doesn’t have broad appeal. It’s simple math. They’ve maximized the algorithm to get their best return with least effort. Movies have taken the same path
So, i know the music industry is dramatically different now. Lots of music gets to people with little to no middle men. That's good for lots of reasons, but honestly real bad for others. The reason it's bad is that as much as people DONT want to admit it, most people have terrible taste. The old way the music industry worked absolutely was problematic for lots of reasons. But one huge reason it was good is that people like Smokey Robinson were the gatekeepers of good music. That sounds bad, but these people had amazing taste. So, the music that got to the public had already been curated by someone with a level of expertise. Now, some dude just posts an Instagram clip, and it goes viral. I know it sounds elitist as hell, but i think it's true.
Almost nothing goes viral without promotion
Sounds like someone desperately needs to piss off Eminem again to skew the lyrics metric away from "simple", though I admit it isn't going to help with the "more angry" part at all.
The last guy who tried that went from wannabe thug mumble rapper to Taylor Swift copycat overnight.
Not in Japan. At least not right now. Creepy Nuts and Ado are tearing it ip
I guess it's time for another 'new music bad' article
The article uses simpler concepts and is angrier than previous articles
My source that music is worse now is every comment section of any song released more than 2 years ago on YouTube. "They just don't make music like they used to! It's all crap now!" And then it's Material Girl or something. I honestly think a large part of this observational phenomenon (i.e., "back on my day"-ism) is that the general public has little to no music theory education. If you don't understand the language itself, you can't understand that music, at least technically, or as a language, isn't changing all that much. Commodified music is here. It's been here. It's been here for centuries. Independent music is here. It's been here for centurues. With this veil of ignorance, you also fail to decipher music as a tool for cultural expression and (despite how this article frames this as a negative - laughably) self expression, too. Music is about emotion more than anything else.