Hits have become increasingly simpler since the 1950s

The scientists do not want to evaluate the development: attributing the result to the fact that newer music is “bad” or that their listeners have “bad taste” “would go beyond the scientific findings and into the realm of subjective opinion,” they write in the journal “Scientific Reports”.

350 top songs analyzed in detail
For their study, Madeline Hamilton and Marcus Pearce of Queen Mary University of London evaluated the most distinctive melodies – usually the vocal melody – of songs that appeared in the top five songs of the year on the US Billboard singles chart between 1950 and 2022. In total, more than 350 songs were included.

According to their statistical analysis, the complexity of rhythms and tonal arrangements has decreased over the years, and the average number of notes played per second has increased significantly. The scientists recorded two jumps in 1975 and 2000 and a smaller one in 1996, which were characterized by a significant reduction in complexity.

The researchers associate the decline in 1975 with the rise of new genres such as disco and new wave. In the nineties and around the turn of the millennium, the rise of hip hop may have played a role.

The melodic complexity decreases
Hamilton and Pearce speculate that the decrease in melodic complexity may be due to an increase in the complexity of other musical elements, such as the increased number of notes. This may be intended to prevent the music from sounding too overwhelming to listeners. The increasing availability of digital instruments means that musical complexity can increasingly be expressed through creativity in sound.

Another theory is that the musical trend mirrors the linguistic trend: “The digital age increasingly demands compression of language, so that what we have to say stays within character boundaries and fits into headings,” the researchers write.

This reduces the complexity of the messages and perhaps the ability to process complex ideas – it could be the same in popular music. In other words, people may no longer have the mental capacity for complex songs.

Western pop is getting simpler and angrier
The results are consistent with an analysis of the lyrics of more than 350,000 English-language songs presented in 2023. Western pop music is becoming increasingly simple and angry. The analysis of rap, country, pop, rock and R&B songs from the period 1980 to 2020 shows that the structure of the so-called lyrics has become increasingly simple. Lyric elements are repeated more often, choruses take up more space and the vocabulary used has become smaller, it was said.

According to the research team, the development could partly be related to the way songs are consumed today. Musicians would produce their songs in such a way that they are ‘streamed, clicked and seen’ as often as possible, as Elisabeth Lex from the Technical University (TU) Graz explained. Repetitive, simple and compact – this promotes the development of a catchy tune.