Science Proves Your Grandma Right About Pop Music
- Thread starter John Funk
- Start date
I was just going to talk about that but you beat me too it. I just find it shameful because almost ALL producers do this know by default and it makes a lot of music sound shitty.Cowabungaa said:
OT: Gramma isn't right any means, they think it all sounds the same because they have no interest in the music. The Loudness war didn't really start until the late 90s/early 2000s.
Thanks I've just been saying this for 9 of my 21 years on this earth. Still interesting to have proof to back up my views.
This video succinctly explains what the Loudness War is, for those who don't know, or just want a good example of its effects.
After Metallica's last album being nearly all flat-line full volume, it's nice to go back to their Black Album, which had some of the best production of any metal album ever made.
If you want to at least partially fight back against the Loudness War, I recommend getting a music player that supports Replay Gain tags, and tag all of your music for Album Gain. I recommend Foobar2000 [http://www.foobar2000.org/]. That way when you switch from a quiet album (like a recording of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony) to a loud album (like any rock album made in the past 5 years) you don't blow your speakers and your eardrums.
After Metallica's last album being nearly all flat-line full volume, it's nice to go back to their Black Album, which had some of the best production of any metal album ever made.
If you want to at least partially fight back against the Loudness War, I recommend getting a music player that supports Replay Gain tags, and tag all of your music for Album Gain. I recommend Foobar2000 [http://www.foobar2000.org/]. That way when you switch from a quiet album (like a recording of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony) to a loud album (like any rock album made in the past 5 years) you don't blow your speakers and your eardrums.
Now watch as every single wannabe hipster starts saying all music is generic when the study was done on pop music.
I don't think I really want to hear *any* kind of sax in my music. Gross!Mortis Nuncius said:
Anywho, yeah. The results are pretty obvious to anyone who's listened to music in the last 20 years or so. Still, nice to have some hard data to back it up.
This study is bogus because it has as its basis two values assumptions that cannot be taken as objective truth:
1) More complex chords in more complex combinations is better than fewer chords in fewer combinations.
2) More timbres is better than fewer timbres.
To address 1. If this is true, then the entire genre of the blues is all crap. But it isn't, people have found lots and lots of new and interesting things to do and to be invested in with the blues for over 100 years. And the blues uses 3 chords in a very precise formula. Indeed, there are a lot of popular genres that fall in harmonic formulae. That doesn't make them bad, or less good than the alternative. Also, the idea that pop music is less harmonically complex than the 50s is ridiculous. All of Doo-Wop had the same 4 chord progression. The vast majority of the R&B and early Rock'n'Roll tunes used the 12-bar blues. This is bogus and I suspect there is some seriously suspect methodology going on. This is also ignoring complexity in elements other than harmony and timbre (for example rhythm or stereo placement). And it is ignoring the value of simplicity or minimalism.
To address 2. How are they categorizing timbre? Because since the expansion of electronics we have a lot more timbral resources. And anyway, just because you don't have a lot of timbre doesn't make you bad. For example. 1960s folk music. Most often you have only a guitar and a singer. That's two timbres. You might be able to alter the guitar's timbre by changing how close your right hand is to the bridge, or alter your vocal timbre...but that is still pretty basic. And folk music is a) something old and b) well loved by a lot of people.
Music is comprised of many, many different elements these scientists are focusing on a very narrow set of them, with preconceived subjective notions of what makes something better than the other. There is no attention to genre or musical/social function.
Trooper6, Professor of Musicology
1) More complex chords in more complex combinations is better than fewer chords in fewer combinations.
2) More timbres is better than fewer timbres.
To address 1. If this is true, then the entire genre of the blues is all crap. But it isn't, people have found lots and lots of new and interesting things to do and to be invested in with the blues for over 100 years. And the blues uses 3 chords in a very precise formula. Indeed, there are a lot of popular genres that fall in harmonic formulae. That doesn't make them bad, or less good than the alternative. Also, the idea that pop music is less harmonically complex than the 50s is ridiculous. All of Doo-Wop had the same 4 chord progression. The vast majority of the R&B and early Rock'n'Roll tunes used the 12-bar blues. This is bogus and I suspect there is some seriously suspect methodology going on. This is also ignoring complexity in elements other than harmony and timbre (for example rhythm or stereo placement). And it is ignoring the value of simplicity or minimalism.
To address 2. How are they categorizing timbre? Because since the expansion of electronics we have a lot more timbral resources. And anyway, just because you don't have a lot of timbre doesn't make you bad. For example. 1960s folk music. Most often you have only a guitar and a singer. That's two timbres. You might be able to alter the guitar's timbre by changing how close your right hand is to the bridge, or alter your vocal timbre...but that is still pretty basic. And folk music is a) something old and b) well loved by a lot of people.
Music is comprised of many, many different elements these scientists are focusing on a very narrow set of them, with preconceived subjective notions of what makes something better than the other. There is no attention to genre or musical/social function.
Trooper6, Professor of Musicology
Okay...whatever...I don't really care, but hey, now all "unique" and "free thinking" indivisuals of the world has something to verify their bigoted opinions. At least that's something.