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Evidence that pop music is getting sadder and angrier

bbc.com

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Re: Evidence that pop music is getting sadder and angrier

#11

Post by onemoresoop »

peterlk wrote: post #7

Short explanation: the music industry has discovered that capturing the teenage market pays dividends and teenagers are emotional. Unrelated anecdote with a different explanation: I had a fascinating conversation with my parents recently. They are both children of the 60s and grew up in San Francisco. We often share music just to talk about it. I was playing some heavier (dubsteppy-metal) music to them, and wanted to…

>In the 60s and 70s, the rebellion was not against the machine, it was for betterment.

The rebellion was very much against the machine, the establishment, the norms,etc.

It's very interesting that nowadays rebellious trends tend to feed the machine. You were spot on on your first line. Whatever captures any market and pays dividends is echoed right back, amplified by the machine (which takes the dividend). There is still great music being made, but it's harder to find (if not impossible) on mainstream channels.

Re: Evidence that pop music is getting sadder and angrier

#12

Post by the_pwner224 »

codetrotter wrote: post #2

Interesting article. Too bad they resort to a clickbait title as opposed to the title used for it here on HN. My willingness to post an article on social media to share it with others is inversely proportionate to the clickbaityness of its title. If it has a clickbait title I ain’t posting it. And this one does, so I won’t. Too bad, because the article is good.

I don't use social media aside from HN and Reddit so maybe this isn't possible, but why can't you just post a link to this over at your social media sites along with the same HN non-clickbait title?

Re: Evidence that pop music is getting sadder and angrier

#13

Post by empath75 »

derefr wrote: post #6
empath75 wrote: post #4

It seems implausible that music is angrier than it was at the height of grunge and industrial and gangster rap in the mid 90s.

The article is about "pop music", not music generally. The article is asserting that pop music—you know, the music that is considered a strictly middle-of-the-road, top-40, polished studio-establishment production; the music that is safe to play over the PA in a restaurant, and is used as an image-song for a character in the latest summer blockbuster; that kind of stuff—is what's getting sadder/angrier. Which is surp…

I’d just like to see how he scores songs that charted like Smells Like Teen Spirit, Closer, You Oughta Know, Creep, Beautiful People, etc.

Re: Evidence that pop music is getting sadder and angrier

#14

Post by onemoresoop »

peterlk wrote: post #7

Short explanation: the music industry has discovered that capturing the teenage market pays dividends and teenagers are emotional. Unrelated anecdote with a different explanation: I had a fascinating conversation with my parents recently. They are both children of the 60s and grew up in San Francisco. We often share music just to talk about it. I was playing some heavier (dubsteppy-metal) music to them, and wanted to…

Also, its fascinating how the test of time clarifies things up. I now enjoy the music my parents listened to but rarely do enjoy the music that I grew up on

Re: Evidence that pop music is getting sadder and angrier

#15

Post by codetrotter »

the_pwner224 wrote: post #12
codetrotter wrote: post #2

Interesting article. Too bad they resort to a clickbait title as opposed to the title used for it here on HN. My willingness to post an article on social media to share it with others is inversely proportionate to the clickbaityness of its title. If it has a clickbait title I ain’t posting it. And this one does, so I won’t. Too bad, because the article is good.

I don't use social media aside from HN and Reddit so maybe this isn't possible, but why can't you just post a link to this over at your social media sites along with the same HN non-clickbait title?

Social media site in question would show a preview with the original title displaying much more prominently than my added text. Also even if they didn’t I’d still be hesitant because as soon as anyone follows the link the original title would be all up in their grill.

Re: Evidence that pop music is getting sadder and angrier

#16

Post by rdiddly »

I'm a fan of generally more aggressive music, and I'm also an old fart, but whenever I'm (usually accidentally) exposed to anything from nowadays, it sounds "too happy" to me - saccharine, treacly, shallow, heavy on notes 1, 2, 3 and 5 of the major scale, full of "millenial whoops" (https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=millenial+whoop) and so on. So hearing that "pop music is getting sadder and angrier" surprises me.

Re: Evidence that pop music is getting sadder and angrier

#17

Post by theoh »

codetrotter wrote: post #2

Interesting article. Too bad they resort to a clickbait title as opposed to the title used for it here on HN. My willingness to post an article on social media to share it with others is inversely proportionate to the clickbaityness of its title. If it has a clickbait title I ain’t posting it. And this one does, so I won’t. Too bad, because the article is good.

Just post links to the studies the article is based on:

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsos.171...

http://jpms.ucpress.edu/content/30/4/161.abstract

I don't get the HN fussiness about clickbait titles. If there's a way to vouch for the content (and if it appears on HN, there is) then the problem goes away. Similarly, you could post "This sounds like clickbait, but it's a good article!" which neutralizes the threat and wastes nobody's time.

Re: Evidence that pop music is getting sadder and angrier

#20

Post by athroway »

onemoresoop wrote: post #14
peterlk wrote: post #7

Short explanation: the music industry has discovered that capturing the teenage market pays dividends and teenagers are emotional. Unrelated anecdote with a different explanation: I had a fascinating conversation with my parents recently. They are both children of the 60s and grew up in San Francisco. We often share music just to talk about it. I was playing some heavier (dubsteppy-metal) music to them, and wanted to…

Also, its fascinating how the test of time clarifies things up. I now enjoy the music my parents listened to but rarely do enjoy the music that I grew up on

Interesting. Many people I talk to about this stuff tell me they basically only like whatever they used to listen to when they were teenagers and have a hard time getting into other musical genres as an adult. You also see it in non-niche nightclubs generally broadcasting a mix of pop music from 10 years ago + a few recent viral hits. They know what demographics to target.
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