Anyone ever listened to the radio and thought: "Man, I don't like this song.". And then you hear that song multiple times throughout the day/week/month. The song gets stuck in your head at some point. You get the urge to listen to the song for satisfaction. Do you genuinely like it then or have you been brainwashed? Any thoughts? I'm curious. Thanks :)
It doesn't really happen to me. I don't get an urge to listen to it. Even if I download it anyway, I end up listening to it only once or twice and then forgetting about it. conversely, I might hear a song that's somewhat good. I download it but then I realize before long that it's not really all that good and I forget about it too. So, I'm hard to impress.
Sort of how like how explosion-filled action movies sell better than many oscar-winning titles or well-written books do not sell as much as many teenage love stories. Nothing wrong with that, neither of them are objectively "better". I think there will always be a divide of consumers of culture and media between the simple hedonistic consumer and the analytical consumer/collector.
His argument falls flat on the dunning-kruger effekt. People having less understanding of something and liking it out of plain ignorance isn't universally just "better". It's like saying we should go back to using leeches for every ailment instead of modern western medicine and saying "you know what. since people seem LIKE the idea of leeches, perhaps it's just BETTER?"
@@collectorduck9061 Even though I do like music with complex content, and not regarding only the lyrics specifically, I can't say your example is very accurate. Contrary to medical treatments that often provide objective data, music is almost completly subjective. So naturally, opinion matters. Everything can be good and bad, depending only on listeners opinion. If many people think a song is good, then given subjective statistical standard as a measurement, it is. I wouldn't say Dunning-Kreuger is as applicable in such a case either. Complexity is also very undefined here, and does not equal to good production quality in any way. For example: "Sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis confirmed a separation of the polypeptides." or "Hi" are both complex statements, and the filter used and task at hand will decide which one is more complex. To find a pattern in 2 letters is very hard to do, for instance, and it might also be the sum of a long assumed context of thought. I do wish music was not simplified, because I like metal, blues, jazz and so forth, but there will always be a market for that too. Don't worry, just make an effort to find what you like and it will be there :)
The Beatles' first release, 'Love Me Do' is one of the most repetitive songs ever, as is the song from which it is loosely derived, Buddy Holly's only slightly less repetitive 'Peggy Sue'. Both are immortal. 'Love Me Do' has just one verse of four simple syllables per line, with the verse repeated six times. It has an equally minimalistic bridge and no chorus.
I feel his analysis is fundamentally flawed. He is only looking at the lyrical content and not the rhythmic and harmonic devices which have been the key contributors to how degraded today's music has become. There's also a trend in recording today that makes everything sound similar to everything else. There was a time in history when radio shows were programmed by the hosts and disk jockeys and they weren't afraid to take chances so there was more diversity and variety. These days everything is very calculated.
Not everything, there's alternative radio station which was actually the first private station around here and it has still a lot of variety because it's selected only by independent DJs, moderators, and hosts. They still manage to showcase upcoming music which may not be mainstream popular but it's interesting and good quality, yet still remaining unique. In this age to remain at least somewhat unique you need to have some amount of complexity and try to take on composition in untraditional way, using unusual instruments and techniques because everything simple has been done and repeated several times already. This can't be captured from only counting similar words in the lyrics. There's plenty of good new music but it stays relatively underground.
@@jan.tichavsky Sure, of course you have Public Radio, College and Private Local Stations and if you can manage to get promotion and publicity through that, it would be quite the accomplishment, although it does happen every once in a while. I am speaking of about the major networks of the big cities in the United States which rely on advertising to keep them in business.
You know why everything sounds the same? Because it is all in bloody english! How many foreign languages have ever made it to the US top 100? Music already is a lingua franca in itself. The english-ization of today's music is commercially understandable, fits repetitiveness and monoculture.
Music is not just about structure, but originality and creativity. Nowadays pop music is a *product,* not a piece of original art. It's *designed* to be consumed and discarded right away. It's not fair, in the slightest, to be compared with Queen, which music creation was driven by truthful spirit of art.
And Bach's Masses weren't a product for the church to be consumed on a Sunday and then discsrded? Shakespeare wrote plays to be performed in front of paying audiences. Product. Michaelangelo was commissioned to paint the Sistene Chapel. Product. You're criticizing art as "bad" based on the perceived motivation behind its creation. Form your opinion of art based on its own merit and how it makes you feel regardless of how it was made.
A work of art is supposed to be a work to be appreciated for its beauty or emotional power, but some songs or pieces of music are trite -- they are "junk" rather than "art". But the existence of the junk shows me how very grateful I can be for the good stuff -- like Händel's Messiah and Haydn's Die Schöpfung.
@@Jinni_SD It must be a symptom of my tendency towards attention-deficit disorder, but what you said reminds me of food -- "form your opinion of food based on its own merit and how it makes you feel regardless of how it was made".
I wouldn't say "nowadays". The fact is there has always been commercial pressure and the interest of patrons who make the art possible. The extent of that design, the enormous level of competition, and our knowledge about writing effective earworms are all new. The dollars funding the artwork are not.
That moment when you realize being an intellectual doesn't equate to being wise... or human even. Let's face it, the guy's persona reeks of cognitive technical overload. I would otherwise wonder what musical instrument he plays, but I honestly don't see any evidence toward that type of expressive personality.
I'm with you on this. The presenter makes the argument that this is somehow okay simply because it's effective. But I would make the argument that it works not because it's "good" but because it's exploitative. He even gives an example where classical songs were dumbed down and made more repetitive and a sizable portion of the, let's just say, "consumers" preferred them more. So, put in marketing terms: catchy hooks sell. And of course it's generally much easier to create a catchy repetitive hook than to make a well-crafted song in the usual way. While he makes a good point that some of these are much more complex than they would appear at first glance it's also true that many of them were probably just the result of laziness that just happened to work. Basically since this stuff is so easy to make it's a valid tactic to just throw sh*t at a wall and see what sticks. If you can pump out 10 of them there's a good chance at least one will have a catchy ear worm and become popular. And this is even worse when the actual music is considered. That's truly lazy as it is just a side-effect of how insanely simple it is to make a chunk of music and loop it in a sequencer. A proper song might use that as a base and then add layers. But a lazy musician can just call it done.
When I was young, we actually used to listen to music. That is to say, we'd put on an album and pay attention to it for an extended period of time (usually the album side, around 20 minutes) with actual concentration and focus. We found this rewarding because we appreciated the depth that went into the compositions. I am referring to album-oriented-rock -- the Dark Side of the Moon, Close to the Edge, In the Court of the Crimson King. People will not take the time to do that these days; they "listen" thru cheap earbuds on their phones while they are going about their daily lives, thinking about what they need from the grocery store, that kind of thing. No concentration is given, so music which doesn't require concentration is what becomes popular. It still has less substance, IMHO, but who's going to listen to substantive music these days? Sheesh, you kids. Get off my lawn!
Those cheap earbuds probably have better sound quality than the sound system you had when you were young and listening on the go does not preclude paying attention. Granted, the people who are paying attention to their earbuds are probably mostly listening to audiobooks, but that's because tuning out music is an effect of bad music not an effect of multitasking.
@@nathanbrown8680 Cheap earbuds do NOT sound better than headphones from years ago. There is no evidence to support that. Pop music to me is not bad because it's repetitive..it's because it is not really relevant to me anymore. It seems that we have just about reached the end of 4 chord songs. I like the new electronic beats, there more to explore.
I am a 64 year old journeyman musician who has played top 40 for 50 years. I was SO ready to bash this but as I watched it I was fascinated by the lengths Colin went to; employing new techniques to an ageless discussion. There was a book published back in the mid-60's called TWILIGHT OF THE GODS. It was fascinating in the same way - a massive deep dive into the historical musical patterns ascribed by "scholars" vs. the notion that maybe, just maybe, the writers wrote it the way they did because it sounded good. I actually really enjoyed your presentation Colin!
Respect for your journey, Sir. I'm also (not that long as you) a musician and I enjoyed to watch new approaches to discuss something that seems to have no answer. Even if I have some points on his speech, like the way he put the ostinato - what obviously is so much more important in a context of a Bach's mass than being the whole structure of a pop song - it is important and desirable to have new possibilities of think the music we listen to (or the ones we do not). Pleasure to share those feelings. Cheers from Brazil.
IF "everyone loves repetitive music" 7:11 (yes i quoted him) then why is 'Bohemian Rhapsody', a song which has no chorus, verses and virtually no repetition whatsoever thought of as the greatest song of all time and is still extremely popular to this day
@@kradicalkaymeom2969 The fact that 'everyone likes repetitive music, he translates that from the scientific research mentioned, does not exclude the fact that a lot of people name bohemian rhapsody the best song. Almost everyone I know likes the taste of crisps. But if you ask everyone what the best tasting food is, it would probably not be crisps
They like catchy background noise, and sometimes a track they can sing along to. But they listen to "music" very casually and never really take a moment to analyse and think about what they're hearing.
I completely agree with you! I lent my phone to a friend on a long train journey after her ipod went flat once. Watching her face as she explored sounds she'd never even imagined before was great fun. Her finding out that Prince (as great as he was) was not the only multi-instrumentalist in history, and that funk-fusion was a style he explored with others, and that is still being explored today was amazing. But finding her still actively exploring the boundaries of her own (very different to mine, but now clearly owned and enjoyed) musical taste was priceless. I wish more people could experience the joy she now gets from the music she loves. Even the weird awkwardness that comes with showing each other our newest audio love affairs only to cringe at each other's god awful taste is fun!!
Ah, the good old "X vs Bohemian Rhapsody" example to show how repetetive music has become. This example has kind-of lost its power. The example I know compares Queen to Justin Bieber, and it goes like: Baby, baby, baby ooh Like baby, baby, baby no Like baby, baby, baby ooh I thought you'd always be mine (mine) ~ Justin Bieber - Baby, My World 2.0 (2010) Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality Open your eyes, look up to the skies and see ~ Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody, A Night at the Opera (1975) And then you simply pick two different examples: I just can't sleep tonight Knowing that things ain't right It's in the papers, it's on the TV, it's everywhere that I go Children are crying Soldiers are dying Some people don't have a home ~ Justin Bieber - Pray, My Worlds Acoustic (2010) Sweet lady Sweet lady Sweet lady... stay sweet Stay sweet Oh, run away Come on Yeah yeah, yeah yeah Sweet lady Wooh ~ Queen - Sweet Lady, A Night at the Opera (1975) And there goes your point by showing that you're just cherry-picking your examples to "prove" it.
Actually it doesn't because the Queen song may repeat words but not inflections, it's not just repeating, it's spoken words over a chorus and solos. There are plenty of repetitions in 70s rock, but it's way more dynamic than the copy pasting we are seeing today. Not only that the point of the original comparison is to compare two widely popular songs. Where you selected whatever would prove your point. I'm not saying you're wrong but you're not playing by the same rules here.
@@RupeeRhod I was illustrating the point that one can't make a point regarding a trend by comparing two more or less arbitrary examples. So you are right in a sense that while the example "Baby vs Bohemian Rhapsody" alone is not suitable to prove the trend, "Pray vs Sweet Lady" alone is not capable of refuting it. Luckily he used some more sophisticated methods to analyze the repetition. On a side note, while "Sweet Lady" may not be comparable regarding popularity, "Bicycle Race" from 1978 somewhat is: Bicycle, bicycle, bicycle I want to ride my Bicycle, bicycle, bicycle I want to ride my bicycle I want to ride my bike I want to ride my bicycle I want to ride it where I like ~ Queen - Bicycle Race, Jazz (1978) The best thing about this talk is that the methods he used are useful to investigate other aspects about repetition. What I think could be interesting to look at as well is to have all songs from various artists printed in those self similarity matrices, and then lay those images out in a grid in order of the songs' appearances. I wonder if you could see that former artists had less of a universal pattern they always stuck to compared to modern artists, where every song could be structurally more similar to the others.
@@zenithquasar9623 I did. I know it is not the only example. I'm not even contradicting his point, I'm just objecting to this particular method. I love the compressabilty metric and the self similarity matrices though, those are quite clever tools to use.
He did take this into account by compressing 20k songs. The compression algorithms will give him the amount of repetitiveness over time. I don't think you really paid attention to the video.
They are catchier, not better, I vastly prefer the song on the right to the song in the left, bohemian rhapsody is excellent, there is a line where a song becomes far too repetitive, I’m a millennial yet I believe that music is getting worse, it depends on how well the repetition is used, as well as the actual notes being repeated, not just how many times the same sequence occurs.
Take away... Colin Morris leaves out the intention of a contingency of industrial complexes to condition consumers through repetitive media products like "pop music" (but also repetitive themes in films, commercials and news propaganda) to be emotionally influence consumers to the point of neurochemical imbalance resulting in their habitual conditioning resulting in consumers consuming more and objectively thinking less. This is a brilliant study with a limited contrived feel good conclusion.
The thing is that people ignore the change in listening habits. In the 60s people still collected disks and sat down to listen to the music (later cassetes or CDs). Nowadays, people do 100 different things while the music is blaring in the background from their phone. Complex music can be distracting while simple repetitive music is not. So perhaps the change in preference is also partly due to this change.
I was talking to a chef one day and he had this amazing sandwich on special that day. I wish i could remember what it was but it was years ago. He said "it was the second best sandwich ever created." Then i asked "what's the best?" He said "easy, the hamburger sandwich"
Yea it's kinda funny, but I don't think it is necessarily fitting or pointing out what the video is about. Most people don't like pop music, it's just the one that most people know and which is broadcasted and listened to and also "relativly positive" received the most. And just because you have something that is "meta" doesn't mean it is gourmet or high end, top of the notch. But what he wanted to express is that it is still good (maybe for volume) for the good basic stuff to exist. also "talks" or presentations kind of always need a conclusion, this one should maybe have focused more on how these snowflake patterns of compressed song lyrics are like a mandala and a fractal of nature too, even though it is also man made, then he could also have compared it to other structures like this in nature, like the repetitiveness of flowers and how they additionally might also be repetitive in bloom (like tulips can bloom once a year for like 4-7 years) and how that would imply that the universe is kind of singing a song too, the joy of life or sth like that. Ending the presentation with a conclusion of whether or not something should be considered good is maybe a representation of the guy's thoughts about presentation rules and I also think of him being autistic. Yes it is not really good ether xD but comparing it to "gourmet burgers"... Wait that's a different thing altogether haha
@@The757packerfan They're not even giving us what we want, they're deciding for us what we want. When producers pays millions dollars to radios so their song are aired at least 10 times a day, this is not what people want. Music is not like painting, you generally tend to like music you've heard several times, no matter what this music sounds like.
I basically break down music into the “At home” listening experience and the “Public/event” listening experience. When I’m at home I prefer more complex and introspective music. When I’m in public like a festival/bar/club, I prefer more simple and repetitive music. It can be hard really enjoy introspective or lower BPM music in a public space. Both have their place for me.
The problem with repetitive songs is not only that they lack depth, but they sound the same. There's also a big difference between a song that literally repeats one or two lines throughout the whole song and a song with a repeating chorus.
Great analysis! I loved the way you thought about this subject and how you employed such interesting tools to dissect and deep dive into it further. I may not necessarily agree with the final conclusion :) but I definitely LOVED the analysis. 👍🏾
I was reading the comments looking for this exact sentiment! The presenter definitely didn't focus on the entirety of the elements of music, like rhythm and meaning, but the element they did focus on and the techniques they used were really cool! Thanks for being nice on the internet!
One of his main arguments is essentially pop music is not dumbed down because of the way the lyrics are pronounced, and syllables are spoken on beat. Well a donut maker can make a million yummy donuts, but he'll never be as skilled as Gordon Ramsay. Pop music is like Mcdonalds, and arguing that it's popularity equals its quality is a fallacy at its core.
I don't think it's the repetition that annoys me as much as the topics of the song. Like I really don't care about Taylor Swift's failed relationships.
Not only for this reason. It's because before pop music were made by using actually real instruments like guitar, keyboard, drums while today music is made using a computer. Everything is artificial now...
@@nightmareTomek the music that have given me the most listening pleasure came my way via word of mouth or random discovery. I do wonder how much of that is my brain tricking me into thinking the discovery is mine and only mine.
Yes, exactly. Why do we feel bad when we like something popular when popularity is defined by appealing to large numbers of people? Must I be special ALL the time?
It's one of the reasons why the few folk songs we know, among countless we don't, are remembered for centuries. Repetitiveness makes catchy. Celtic folktunes for example have the same melody for verse and chorus, and sea-shanties are one line verses, with one line choruses. The term popular in pop music means folk. It's the same thing, the music of the masses.
Funny- I’ve always preferred instrumental music. It’s funny how people think words and lyrics are the main part of music. Try listening to King Crimson instrumentals.
Tried it and I have to say that this is why i read the comments, I'm always hoping someone backs their opinion with actual data to prove their point. You sir, have proved your point.
King Crimson instrumentals would most likely perplex most pop music listeners... Maybe Discipline could win some over with its 4/4 beat hidden under all the polyrhythmic grooves. Then again probably not...
The unspoken presumption is that songs are at the top of the charts because people like them. In fact, the charts are manipulated as a matter of course.
His defense of melodic repetitiveness was inadequate. In classical music, an ostinato is typically used to frame more complex music that is played over it (also the word is Italian, not Greek). It's true that a certain amount of repetition sounds nice, but it's totally fair to call out a simplistic, uncreative melody for what it is. Also, I think that a big point of criticism for pop lyricists is not merely the repetitiveness of the lyrics, but the vacuous nature of many of those lyrics. Take the example from the video of "Run the World (Girls)". The repetitiveness is much more apparent when the lyrics don't have a lot to say. And, sure, people have been writing repetitive songs forever, but I still think it's fair to call out musicians who write boring, thoughtless, overly simplistic tripe, appealing to ever more atrophied attention spans. I think it's clear that this presenter does not play an instrument.
This is an important point. The problem isn't repetition, it's information content. Information content is what compression really measures, but to get a good measure you have to filter out the noise first. A lot of pop music is entirely devoid of meaning. "Run the World (Girls)" could be simplified to the singer just chanting "feminism." The compression test gives a misleadingly high information content because of this.
The problem with his reasoning: what people like and what is good _for_ them are two entirely separate things. As we can see with food: people usually like stuff that is, at least in the long run, pretty bad for them. He's basically making a case for fast food here.
Classical Music == Raw Veggies Pop Music == Junk Food / High Fructose Corn Syrup / Processed Cheese Sure it might taste good initially but too much of anything without a well rounded meal is unhealthy.
You missed the point of each of these new songs being highly unique. That is not the case with fast food, where you have not the same amount of effort put into, let's say each hamburger or soda can. As in snowflakes, they only SEEM similar from a distance.. When you zoom in on the cola can, it continues to be the same. But zooming in on the pop songs, or snowflakes, the differences appears. Zooming in on music is equivalent to having an open ear and mind The equivalent of consuming fast food would be to listen to only a few over and over and over. Here, one could argue the people most attached to 'their good old songs' are the ones most guilty of approximating that fast food-style approach to music.
@@avionphoton6414 I see your point but you misunderstood the analogy. "Fast food" wasn't about repetitiveness but low nutritional value. Repetitive music is easy to deconstruct, it's easy to memorise, it's easy to consume - it is easily "chunked". In pop music there's typically just the right amount of variation so most people won't get bored by it. Its goal is to be as rewarding as possible at minimal mental effort, that's why it's so attractive and popular and why it has "low nutritional value".
"Well here I'm gonna make a point" *Proceeds to throw Vox Populi out there like it actually proves a point about cultural density and quality of any given production*
Reasonable thesis, but one dimensional. Modern pop is driven by the bottom line, $$$$$$$, hence the reduction of risk and homogenisation of pop music. he is right, there is nothing wrong with repetition, but there are many more aspects to modern mass produced pop that have eroded creativity and force fed the modern youth with what the industry wants.
To play devils advoacate, isn't that a motivation for a lot of musicians? Even people we look at as classic artists, did they always play the creative route and never go with something just catchy? Were they always challenging norms and creating something new? And who is to say that modern songwriters are purely doing it for money? Is it fair to say a songwriter who has made tons of money will always keep just writing songs purely for money? Will they never want to try to experiment at all and put something creative in it? That they have no creative ideas they want to express in any sort of way? I mean money can corrupt but to pretend like it completely squashes out any creative ambition or drive out of someone seems like an over reaction.
I found that he went in-depth on this topic. The impact of money on the music industry is another topic. I agree with what he said, listening to pop songs shouldn't be a guilty pleasure. Not taking risks is often what corresponds well to the majority of people, which is why pop songs make so much money in the first place. I am all for experimenting with music but I don't think we should shun producers for following a template that people like and will give success.
I disagree sort of- there were a lot of artists emerging from soundcloud and other platforms that were marketed way AFTER they did their thing in primitve matter and had success! A lot of forced stuff fails at teh end to gain the same sort of mass appeal!
Using a phrase like "the industry" is largely meaningless when the way that people [especially young people] consume and enjoy music (thanks the internet, youtube, spotify, soundcloud, bandcamp, etc. !) is completely different and divorced from what it was not even 10 years ago. You're a little out of touch and late to the party with your criticism. It might have been more valid in the 2000s but now it's completely different.
I like how some people may say to me that my taste in music is repetitive or that I like listening to "repetitive" just because I like trance , drum and bass and breakbeats are the same people that love pop music and will listen to the top 20 tracks over and over again.
Repetitiveness in pop songs not about the lyrics, at least not to the degree he would have you believe. It's about rhythm, chord choices, color, and feel. In the domain of rhythm, pop music, although not alone in this category, is entirely in 4/4. Not a be thing on its own. The next domain of music is chord choices. And suffice it to say, as a musician, analyzing pop songs is fairly easy. Chord progressions are used, reused, and re re used over and over again. Repetitive, unimaginative, and boring. The nest domain is color and feel. In pop, there is very little diversity here. Slow love songs, girl power songs, upbeat love songs, doing crack in the basement songs (aka doing every girl I come across songs), and breakup songs. 5 song types for every pop song ever written. Great work guys. Glad we can sum up the human experience through art so creatively. This really is frustrating as some people work really hard to create and never get anywhere. Rock, jazz, blues, classical, you name it, there's an underpaid musician working on it. And then Kesha has her 16 songwriters re order the same chords from Taylor swifts music and makes a million dollars with adoring fans screeching all the way. It's sad. Wake up. Listen to some dream theater.
Repetitive, unimaginative, boring.... and safe. Safe for the composer, safe for the listener. Safe to sit in one's little box, following the crowd, but pretending to be edgy and thoughtful because the live performance has some new light display and skimpier costumes that when analyzed are not really anything new at all, just another repetitive scrambling of someone else's thoughts. So yeah, easy, safe, and happy as we park our brains and go along for the ride - but is that better just because everyone likes it? Isn't it just another instance of being famous for being famous?
u kinda almost had me for a sec-ish, and then boom u turn out to be the "i hate sampling as a concept and dream theater is uncomparably superior to any present music, i bet ya'll can't wait to hear me rant about fedoras for 30 minutes"-kinda guy wake up sheeple. progressive metal is the only real music. 😆😅😅😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁
It should be added that pop songs are played over and over within the same hour on commercial radio stations. So even if you dont like the song on the first day you are more likely to by the 5th day, as you slowly get brain washed. Then you go and buy it and a week later you realise you dont like it but its too late they have your money and it goes up the charts and them more poeple get to hear it and the cycle goes on and on around the world, around the world.
I liked the analysis. A lot of people in the comments say that he didn't do that and didn't do this, but he's just showing one way of analyzing the music, and it's a cool way to look at the data. I don't think he ever said anything about the quality of the repetitiveness, or repetitiveness's effects on the average iq, or legitimacy of the charts(or any other suggestion from the comments) because it's not the point of the analysis. This is a look at the repetitiveness of the music in the given dataset. To look at all music from all sides would take decades even for a large group of people, if possible at all. If you know another way to look at it, go make another study, go make a website dedicated to analyzing music in every way possible, we would all love to see it. And if you disagree with Bach being repetitive, go listen to Bach some more. Building on top of repetitiveness/evolving repetitiveness/overlaying repetitiveness doesn't make it less repetitive, which is The point of this talk.
Finally a comment I can totally agree with. As an essay about music, his presentation lacks of musical essence; however as an scientific research, it's coherent and on point. I would love to see other research in this field, especially where variables of note or rhythm incorporated into the research.
@@redoputra1611 it doesn't analyze the tonal and rhythmic aspects of music, but I never got the impression that he intended to analyze anything except the lyrics, since he started with an example of lyrical criticism and referred back to it throughout.
Yes, it is an interesting and creative way to analyze data. The objection most people have with this is not that he didn’t go through every single way to appreciate music, but that he didn’t talk about even one way to perceive music. Just a way to analyze consumer reports.
@@redoputra1611 I'm constantly thinking if it' possible to go the way you suggested. Because, despite the western music have it's twelve defined notes and each music gender uses their melodic patterns, it's not the same as use words to create an speech, once a word carries its semantic meaning and a note, interval or rythm structure can be used as free as the composer feels to. As consequence, it is harder to estabilish functions to music elements, specially rhythmic figures and isolated notes, than words, I suppose. What do you think about that?!
He mentions a lot how the repetition makes the song catchy, which is not a bad thing, but while being catchy makes the song much more likely to make it to the top 100 billboard, it does not necessarily translate to people still listening to that song decades later as we would with songs that people now days call classics, such as bohemian rhapsody. I think there are two reasons so many people call modern pop songs bad, the first is that a lot of them sound very similar to each other and the second is that because of the internet more songs are becoming popular then before. Combining these two reasons would conclude that because there are so many more popular songs and they sound so similar to each other they seem less unique, almost as if the same artist released all the albums and over saturated the market, thus making them both less likely to listened to decades later.
Something I deduced on my own a long time ago, was that older songs were about telling a story, and more modern ones less so; and also about repetition, I figured that a repetitive song has more chance to be liked by more ppl, since if the part of the song you happen to like, is the repetitive part, then you'll have plenty of it before the song ends, whereas in a song that doesn't repeat anything, it becomes harder for one person to like the whole song, most likely they will only like a few parts, which then they'll have to wait until they hear the song again to hear the parts they liked. So in that sense, it seems logical to make songs that repeat themselves.
missing is the fact that the popular music during the swing era required a group of relatively talented musicians to play together as an ensemble, whereas todays repetitive music is pre-recorded repetitive backing tracks synced to people who ½sing, ½talk/yell & are primarily performers not musicians.
Reading the comments on this ted talk is really depressing. Colin Morris really went through a lot of work to produce this discourse and truthfully, I really enjoyed how he presented his research. If you don't agree with him, that's fine, but don't be a keyboard warrior about your opinion. Seriously people. He's attempting to persuade; don't give so much hate.
Persuasion isn't his strongest key, then. Lol He should have done more research into music theory and simple searches like how Ostinato isn't a Greek word. If this is the kind of "quality" that TED Talks allow, what does it say about the credibility of the organization and people participating in it? This was poor shoddy work and it deserves every bit of fair criticism from musicians, hobbyists, and the like.
@@1911Zoey : You make valid points. Ostinato is definitely of latin origin (To be fair: I feel like its a common mistake to group 'latin' and 'greek' together and occasionally confuse them). Fair criticism is a wonderful thing, but it's also quite subjective. I feel like many people commenting on this particular video are not criticizing the content, but the person, which is what I was describing as 'depressing'.
Artificial music created by marketing analysis is not better. Haha. This doesn't make all unrestricted and freely inspired music necessarily better. The key is to feel the rhythms, melodies and lyrics that are better, and I am not sure that an algorithm can figure that out any better than humans can do. Awesome TEDx talk anyway and thanks a lot.
If the entire field is becoming more repetitive and it necessarily follows the top 10 become the most repetitive, it does not follow that artists are just giving us what we want. We are getting what they give us. More than 85% of Spotify's streams come from 3 companies.
The fact that seems to get missed here is the newer, 'catchier', more repetative songs also disappear in a short period of time. More complex songs - such as Bohemian Rhapsody here used for example have endured the test of time (40 years actually!) and will endure for time to come. Can we really say the same about the repetative newer song list??? We will see if anyone is listening to Kesha in 40 years......
You forget the vast quantities of mediocre music that was around back then that faded into obscurity. you just remember specific songs from that era. This will never change. There will be music from now that will still be heard many years from now. Repetitiveness isn't inherently a bad thing, take many daft punk songs, or for an older example something like Roxanne from The Police.
I agree mostly, but I don't think it's the complexity that grants staying power. Best example would be stuff like death metal which is actually some of the most complex music out there yet no one seems to care outside of a small sub-set of metalheads. I think it's the ability of a song to tell a story that we can all connect to at an emotional level. Songs like Simple Man, Tears in Heaven, Lightning Crashes, Jeremy, Stairway to Heaven, they all are songs that tell a story that we can emotionally empathize with. Best possible example would be Billy Joel and his songs "We didn't start the fire" and "Piano Man". Both were chart topping hits, and while "We didn't start the fire" is the more lyrically complex song, its "Piano Man" that tells a story we can connect to that is still universally loved and likely will continue to be.
The thing is, we've focused so much on the technical advances in music that we neglected the talent/substance part of writing it, or composing it. Yeah, modern songs sound good, but they don't take me on a journey of feelings as much as old songs. I think we CAN use the technology to our advantage, but if we want to make good music, we have to let people know that being a good writer is not an easy task, and you have to have effort put into it.
Check out Seventh Wonder - The Great Escape. Either just the song or whole album. It takes you on a journey. Then go research the story and the lyrics to get even more out of it. :)
Loved this Ted talk. Really well presented, and loved the analysis. Witty and thoughtful. Made me think a little bit differently about what's clearly a touchy subject!
I've got to say... I am more of a classical music person, but I like how this was presented. I don't exactly care for pop music, but a lot of people do, and they shouldn't feel bad.
Some good analysis, but the problem with "repetitive music" is over-reliance on it and limited horizons in using samey-sounding audio parts, albeit instruments or voice.
Just because something is more statistically enjoyable doesn't mean it is of better quality. Simply put, people enjoy repetition. Our minds have been conditioned for many years by nature itself to enjoy this repetition. After all, it has been repetitive tasks that has kept our species alive for all of this time. Because of this, our brain enjoys patterns, especially repetitive ones. On top of this, if a song is repetitive, one is more likely to remember it after listening to it for the first time. The repetition of the same phrases and notes tells our brains that those are important, and should not be forgotten. The fact that people enjoy repetitive songs more than non-repetitive songs on a first listen is not surprising at all, in fact, it is completely expected. Often times to fully enjoy a song that is not very repetitive, one has to listen to it multiple times. Without repetition, our brains need to hear the song more times to recognize it, and categorize the melodies as important. In my own personal experience, I find that I have to listen to a complex piece of music at least three or four times before it starts to grow on me, and I see it for all that it is actually worth. This is what good music does. One can listen to the same song many times, and get something new out of it every time. However, the people in the pop music industry are smart. They are not looking to produce quality art, they are looking to produce what will sell the best. Because of the intense repetition in pop music, it catches our ear and ingrains itself in our minds on the first listen. This causes the listener to go buy the song, or add it to their playlist on spotify, apple music, ect. Because the song is repetitive, it catches quick, but it also burns out quick. After the listener hears the song for maybe a week, or even less, the song loses it's glamour. The human mind loves simple patterns, but once that pattern has been learned, the mind sees no need to see or hear that pattern anymore. This is because of the fact that the human mind is very efficient. There is no need for the mind to intake patterns it already recognizes, instead, the mind is ready to move on to the next one. This is absolutely fantastic for the pop music industry, why? Because one song catches the listener's attention, in the span of a week or so it looses its appeal making the listener ready for the next simple song. With complex music, the listener could buy one song or one album, and be content with their purchase for a long time. This is good for the listener, but not so much for the record company. With pop music, the songs get old fast, and the listener constantly needs to be exposed to new material to be content. Because of how quick these songs go in and out, they have been essentially mass produced by the record companies for maximum profit. I am not saying that pop music is not enjoyable. It is. Record companies would not produce it if it was not enjoyable. Pop music is catchy, enjoyable, and it makes a huge buck. However, I would like to argue that the increasing repetition of music is indeed harmful, as it hurts the listener. Pop music is like a McDonalds hamburger. It is cheap, tasty, and quick, but very unhealthy. More complex music is like a nice home cooked meal. It takes time and effort, it is more expensive, on the first bite it may not be as tasty, but it is much healthier, and has much more complex flavor patterns. In short, I agree that pop music is enjoyable and catchy, but I do not think that it's increasing repetition is a good thing. But that is just my two cents, and I am just some dude in the TH-cam comments section... Why am I even writing this? It is not like anyone in the TH-cam comments is taken seriously. Oh well.
We don't like repetitive songs more. They reach the top charts because they cater to the common denominator. Saying they are liked most by the most people, is not the same as saying all those people prefer those songs to more complex ones.
So, hooks are very important to a song's value to the listener. Beethoven started with "dit-dit-dit-dah" and repeated that throughout the entire symphony. The problem with "pop" is there is not enough meat on the bones to satisfy the ear after a couple of listenings.
Hear the sound of music Drifting in the aisles Elevator Prozac Stretching on for miles The music of the future Will not entertain It's only meant to repress And neutralize your brain Soul gets squeezed out Edges get blunt Demographic Gives what you want Now the sound of music Comes in silver pills Engineered to suit you Building cheaper thrills The music of rebellion Makes you want to rage But it's made by millionaires Who are nearly twice your age One of the wonders of the world is going down It's going down I know It's one of the blunders of the world that no-one cares No-one cares enough - Steven Wilson
Constant repetition is lack of depth...which in turn reflects on the individual....dumbed down is another way of saying it...ppl want it simple and trite...no thinking involved...i suppose there's room for that but the sheer greatness of Bohemian Rapsody is incomparable!
I think computers are writing both the lyrics and the melodies these days. They're repetitive, uncreative, boring, and mind-numbing. Yesterday I reached the point where I just couldn't stand it anymore. I may never turn on my car radio again.
Just because music is worming it's way into our brains and tricking us into clicking a like button doesn't mean that that music is better than that of the past. It means it's more exploitative for better or worse. I personally like old music more because I feel that it generally manages to give a more unique experience through just one piece of music.
Some of the greatest peices of music had parts that repeated, instead of calling them choruses, they were the refrain. It's not necessarily the lyrics that are being repeated that determines the quality of music, but also the harmonies, rhythms, melodies and solos. Music nowadays increasingly have less solo parts, less diverse harmonies, extremely repetitive melodies, a single rythm made often by a drum machine and not a human. Not to mention the wuality of lyrics which does nothing to appeal to the ethos, or logos of our world and only tries to tap into our pathos.
Repetition prints money because it is easy to understand and thus its recognizability is amplified. That does not mean people passionately love it. It just means that everyone knows what it is and often gets it stuck in their head. This does not correspond to music quality by any metric, or provides listeners any compassion for the music they are listening too. All in all, this video has convinced me of... nothing. The music of today is still good if you know where to look, but to the public eye such quality do not exist. Passion is simply not given the same lime light of what big business considers to be 'profitable'. If such passion recieved the proper attention it deserved, I really do think the world would be a much better place. I truly think that quality cannot be weighed by simple talent either. Passion is only needed. Passion driven by desires of self expression or affection, or even fuming anger and solitude against the uncaring world around them. I think music through proper composition (not just lyrics) should be something that allows us to sit down and comprehend our own existence and find warmth in accepting who we are. But when money is involved, even the most heart felt cries for psychological help are swallowed up by the massive waves of corporate greed. So yeah... I didn't like this video.
He's missing the point. The problem is that repetitive songs are only satisfying because on a primitive level, we like patterns, meaning we don't need to put much effort into listening to them. On the flipside, more complicated songs are satisfying because you can appreciate their meaning better, which can get our brains thinking more. And of course, it's always good to have songs that we don't have to think about, as that would get exhausting. However, when ALL popular songs are just SO agonizingly repetitive, it's just boring. That's why more popular repetitive songs are a bad thing. Not because it's lazy, but because it's uninteresting. We remember Bohemian Rhapsody because it was complicatedly four songs in one. And we don't remember (or I don't anyway) most modern rap songs because they're usually very repetitive.
In the UK Bohemian Rhapsody sold 1.1 million singles to reach number 1. The current UK number 1 has sold less than 100,000 across all channels. So.... more repetitive songs might be getting into the top 10 but the whole pop music market is tiny compared to 40 years ago and most people listen to music that isn't in the charts at all.
While people have a wider access to different music genres, they are measured more than once as weekly views/hits on Deezer, Spotify, official TH-cam uploads are also recorded alongside sales.
But in the meme he shows at the start it clearly is being used as a synonym for poor quality. It may not be directly stated, but the implicit meaning is obvious.
I'd love to see him apply his algorithm and self-similarity matrix to other genres of music. That would be fascinating to me. Also, I think it would be cool if he somehow managed to apply the same ideas to the music (melody?) to see what happens.
It seems like you could make MIDI files of the notes in a song, perhaps with a bit of quantization applied judiciously and accounting for "swing", and then run those through the compression test. Perhaps normalizing the notes to convert the time offset into the song into an offset within the current measure???
If the brain gets fed with repetitive, thus "comfortable" songs... doesn't it stop being stimulated? In comparison to listening to a song like Bohemian Rhapsody, where it is "surprised" by changes in rhythm etc...?
I argue that Mr. Einstein is incorrect about one thing: People do not necessarily "love repetitive music". Rather, they are subjected to the music industry's method of mind-control; much in the way of the experimental Pavlov's behavior patterns. Repeat any 'music' -- with a solid beat and repetitive values -- and many will indeed fall prey to this form of legal subliminal assault on the human brain by the Pop music industry. Eventually listener's may learn to "love" any repetitive mindless drivel and purchase it. Game over! The music industry moguls win.
A lot of "Get off my lawn!" types in the comments. I'm glad this guy is exposing such snobbery. Though it's worth pointing out, Bohemian Rhapsody got picked on by the critics too.
The only thing he talked about was lyrics. He forgot to analyze chord structure repetitiveness. And also to do a repetitiveness test ACROSS songs of the same era. A song may internally repeat the same chords and lyrics, however, if it has a unique chord structure apart from all other pop songs of the time, and a unique set of lyrics differentiating it from other pop songs, it can still be a very interesting and fun to listen to song. This dude has barely scratched the surface of music analysis and is already making the claim that repetitive music is good because it's popular. Popular ≠ good. It's like saying that McDonald's burgers are good simply because they're the most popular. The reason that repetitive music is popular is because most people don't have the same kind of accessibility to more complex music. By accessibility I mean the ability to subconsciously understand and enjoy the more complex music, something that only comes from exposing yourself to more complex and difficult to understand music on a frequent basis, which most people don't do. This is also why even people who may understand and enjoy classical music have a much harder time enjoying jazz, and then from jazz, a harder time enjoying the more bizarre contemporary composing styles. This isn't to say that more complex and harder to understand music is necessarily better. However, a broader accessibility to more complex music makes it easier to judge the quality of music being made, and in most cases, pop music isn't very high quality.
It has taken me a long time to appreciate both jazz and classical, however, there is so much more depth that is extremely easy to point to and explain once you have an ear for it. I now really appreciate both genres because I was patient and wanted to have a more complex taste.
Not all pop music repeatetive, it depends on the style, writer and producer, some pop music does have complex lyric, chords, melody and arrangement. Not all Jazz music are complex some really consist of simple chords, melody and arrangement only, It's like drink, every drink has different taste, some people drink water only most of the time but it has no taste.
As a classical music fan I totally agree. I took a quite long time to like classical music when I was first introduced to it, because when I was a kid (just like today's young generations) I too was almost only exposed to pop music literally everywhere; from stores to radios, most advertisements on the TV shows, etc. In the city I grew up, there was no professional orchestra, literally no classical music concerts. Only truly complex music I would hear was the traditional music of the place, (it was very rich in especially in micro notes) my father playing some of the classical pieces and traditional music of my country on accordion. Then, I got into movie scores and thanks to youtube I truly started to like classical. Being able to listen exceptionally talented people like Hilary Hahn almost anytime on youtube, or basically accessibility, helps quite a lot. I know, its too long, probably didn't read.
PiercingSight I agree! A lot of people consider musical genres like jazz, classical, etc. to be boring, almost like broccoli. However, it’s important to note that you get bored because of one of two reasons: it’s either too simple or too complex. Pop music is repetitive in a way that the majority of the population doesn’t get bored, meaning it’s not quite oversimplified enough to bore the average listener. With more complex musical styles, a lot of people get overwhelmed with the amount of differences in timing, tune, etc. and thus become bored. A good way to enjoy a complex piece without becoming too overwhelmed is to listen to it more than once because our brains need to pick out patterns and group things together to process correctly. Even babies as young as 3 months old can pick out the intricate structures of classical pieces and can even recognize the songs they’ve heard before. However, a lot of people might have listened to a classical piece once, became bored, and gave up on the song. In contrast, the top trending songs are, as we’ve observed, very repetitive and easy to comprehend on the first listen. This TED Talk showed the increasing repetition in song lyrics, but failed to convince me why it could be a good thing other than “it’s what the majority wants.”
I'm not persuaded that increased repetition is a good thing. The complaint against repetitive music seems to come from the interpretation of the listener that the repetition serves no purpose and becomes annoying. In dance music, the repetition doesn't need to serve a purpose other than create a framework for the listener to build on with their dance (Around the World). In a movie soundtrack, repetition might provide a rhythm for the action to build on. Listeners who aren't into that will just find it annoying. In the case of Daft Punk, we can see them do both (Around the World and Tron Legacy), and they do it with pieces are repetitive to greater and lesser degrees. Some repetition is necessary to music. Not many pieces have been composed without any repetition or rhythm. I think they've all been experiments in composition rather than art or commercial pieces. Repetition is nearly universal in music, but when it doesn't seem to serve the listeners tastes, it is a liability according to the listener. So, I think repetitiveness itself isn't good or bad, except for how well it is used. A rise in criticism that music is becoming repetitive suggests that it is becoming increasingly less well used, or that the people to whom it seems inappropriate finally found a way to reach one another and a meme has arisen. Repetitive music might also have some characteristics of meme, and still all we know is that some people like it and some don't. Personally, I don't care for it,. So, unnecessarily repetitive music seems to be of poor quality. It doesn't work for me. Neither does the analysis in this talk, though the data is interesting ("Are" interesting? What kind of pedant are you?)
3amsleep Funny, because it shows that *you* didn’t “read” the whole thing either. 50% of the talk is not about how pop music is increasingly repetitive.
So he thinks repetitiveness is good so he is being repetitive. Makes sense. I can't stand the way he ends his sentences in a voiceless scratch though. Dude, you have vocal cords, USE THEM!
Sometimes I want to listen to something repetitive, sometimes I want to listen to something with deep meaning.
Ikr I like both
Anyone ever listened to the radio and thought: "Man, I don't like this song.". And then you hear that song multiple times throughout the day/week/month.
The song gets stuck in your head at some point. You get the urge to listen to the song for satisfaction.
Do you genuinely like it then or have you been brainwashed? Any thoughts? I'm curious. Thanks :)
It doesn't really happen to me. I don't get an urge to listen to it. Even if I download it anyway, I end up listening to it only once or twice and then forgetting about it.
conversely, I might hear a song that's somewhat good. I download it but then I realize before long that it's not really all that good and I forget about it too. So, I'm hard to impress.
Not really. Or atleast not for pop. It's catchy and that's why I get the urge to "sing-a-long". Not because I genuinely like it
"Music is not what it used to be, but you know what? maybe it's better"
me: no
Yeah there is no way Beyonce is better than Queen
says the guy whose logo is acdc (though i do agree with you--just thought it was funny)
Sort of how like how explosion-filled action movies sell better than many oscar-winning titles or well-written books do not sell as much as many teenage love stories. Nothing wrong with that, neither of them are objectively "better". I think there will always be a divide of consumers of culture and media between the simple hedonistic consumer and the analytical consumer/collector.
His argument falls flat on the dunning-kruger effekt. People having less understanding of something and liking it out of plain ignorance isn't universally just "better". It's like saying we should go back to using leeches for every ailment instead of modern western medicine and saying "you know what. since people seem LIKE the idea of leeches, perhaps it's just BETTER?"
@@collectorduck9061 Even though I do like music with complex content, and not regarding only the lyrics specifically, I can't say your example is very accurate.
Contrary to medical treatments that often provide objective data, music is almost completly subjective. So naturally, opinion matters. Everything can be good and bad, depending only on listeners opinion. If many people think a song is good, then given subjective statistical standard as a measurement, it is.
I wouldn't say Dunning-Kreuger is as applicable in such a case either. Complexity is also very undefined here, and does not equal to good production quality in any way.
For example:
"Sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis confirmed a separation of the polypeptides."
or
"Hi"
are both complex statements, and the filter used and task at hand will decide which one is more complex. To find a pattern in 2 letters is very hard to do, for instance, and it might also be the sum of a long assumed context of thought.
I do wish music was not simplified, because I like metal, blues, jazz and so forth, but there will always be a market for that too. Don't worry, just make an effort to find what you like and it will be there :)
The Beatles' first release, 'Love Me Do' is one of the most repetitive songs ever, as is the song from which it is loosely derived, Buddy Holly's only slightly less repetitive 'Peggy Sue'. Both are immortal. 'Love Me Do' has just one verse of four simple syllables per line, with the verse repeated six times. It has an equally minimalistic bridge and no chorus.
I feel his analysis is fundamentally flawed. He is only looking at the lyrical content and not the rhythmic and harmonic devices which have been the key contributors to how degraded today's music has become. There's also a trend in recording today that makes everything sound similar to everything else. There was a time in history when radio shows were programmed by the hosts and disk jockeys and they weren't afraid to take chances so there was more diversity and variety. These days everything is very calculated.
Honestly the most accurate comment I could have expected. Thank you for your input and I completely agree.
Not everything, there's alternative radio station which was actually the first private station around here and it has still a lot of variety because it's selected only by independent DJs, moderators, and hosts. They still manage to showcase upcoming music which may not be mainstream popular but it's interesting and good quality, yet still remaining unique. In this age to remain at least somewhat unique you need to have some amount of complexity and try to take on composition in untraditional way, using unusual instruments and techniques because everything simple has been done and repeated several times already. This can't be captured from only counting similar words in the lyrics. There's plenty of good new music but it stays relatively underground.
@@jan.tichavsky
Sure, of course you have Public Radio, College and Private Local Stations and if you can manage to get promotion and publicity through that, it would be quite the accomplishment, although it does happen every once in a while. I am speaking of about the major networks of the big cities in the United States which rely on advertising to keep them in business.
Have you ever noticed this in royalty-free music used in TH-cam videos? They all sound so similar
You know why everything sounds the same? Because it is all in bloody english! How many foreign languages have ever made it to the US top 100?
Music already is a lingua franca in itself. The english-ization of today's music is commercially understandable, fits repetitiveness and monoculture.
Music is not just about structure, but originality and creativity. Nowadays pop music is a *product,* not a piece of original art. It's *designed* to be consumed and discarded right away. It's not fair, in the slightest, to be compared with Queen, which music creation was driven by truthful spirit of art.
And Bach's Masses weren't a product for the church to be consumed on a Sunday and then discsrded? Shakespeare wrote plays to be performed in front of paying audiences. Product. Michaelangelo was commissioned to paint the Sistene Chapel. Product. You're criticizing art as "bad" based on the perceived motivation behind its creation. Form your opinion of art based on its own merit and how it makes you feel regardless of how it was made.
A lot of Queens repertoire is just shallow and catchy
A work of art is supposed to be a work to be appreciated for its beauty or emotional power, but some songs or pieces of music are trite -- they are "junk" rather than "art". But the existence of the junk shows me how very grateful I can be for the good stuff -- like Händel's Messiah and Haydn's Die Schöpfung.
@@Jinni_SD It must be a symptom of my tendency towards attention-deficit disorder, but what you said reminds me of food -- "form your opinion of food based on its own merit and how it makes you feel regardless of how it was made".
I wouldn't say "nowadays". The fact is there has always been commercial pressure and the interest of patrons who make the art possible. The extent of that design, the enormous level of competition, and our knowledge about writing effective earworms are all new. The dollars funding the artwork are not.
"Music just ain't what it used to be, but maybe it's better... " I think I've had enough internet for today
That moment when you realize being an intellectual doesn't equate to being wise... or human even.
Let's face it, the guy's persona reeks of cognitive technical overload. I would otherwise wonder what musical instrument he plays, but I honestly don't see any evidence toward that type of expressive personality.
Grab your torch and pitchforks.
Read your comment and realized I don't need to watch this video, thx bro
No lyrical intelligence ... Thank you Max Martin
Andrew Hakomaki Granger same! Also he’s an insufferable bore!
Yes, repetition works--it's a well-known principle in visual design, as well. The point is to use it in a balanced way.
"Most people like repetitive songs". Well, I can also argue that the population of the world has more idiots than geniuses...
😂😂 that's what the corporations know all too well
@@PureHoney_ASMR Can you point out specifically where did I say that "I'm a genius and listen to complex music"?
Thanks babe.
@@ShadzWins "Most people don't like repititve songs". wElL, I CAn AlsO AruGue ThaT thE PopULATiOn oF tHe WorLD HaS MorE IdiotS tHan GeniUseS...
ShadzWins
, Oh, there's zero argument there my friend, sad but true.
I'm with you on this. The presenter makes the argument that this is somehow okay simply because it's effective. But I would make the argument that it works not because it's "good" but because it's exploitative. He even gives an example where classical songs were dumbed down and made more repetitive and a sizable portion of the, let's just say, "consumers" preferred them more. So, put in marketing terms: catchy hooks sell.
And of course it's generally much easier to create a catchy repetitive hook than to make a well-crafted song in the usual way. While he makes a good point that some of these are much more complex than they would appear at first glance it's also true that many of them were probably just the result of laziness that just happened to work. Basically since this stuff is so easy to make it's a valid tactic to just throw sh*t at a wall and see what sticks. If you can pump out 10 of them there's a good chance at least one will have a catchy ear worm and become popular.
And this is even worse when the actual music is considered. That's truly lazy as it is just a side-effect of how insanely simple it is to make a chunk of music and loop it in a sequencer. A proper song might use that as a base and then add layers. But a lazy musician can just call it done.
When I was young, we actually used to listen to music. That is to say, we'd put on an album and pay attention to it for an extended period of time (usually the album side, around 20 minutes) with actual concentration and focus. We found this rewarding because we appreciated the depth that went into the compositions. I am referring to album-oriented-rock -- the Dark Side of the Moon, Close to the Edge, In the Court of the Crimson King. People will not take the time to do that these days; they "listen" thru cheap earbuds on their phones while they are going about their daily lives, thinking about what they need from the grocery store, that kind of thing. No concentration is given, so music which doesn't require concentration is what becomes popular. It still has less substance, IMHO, but who's going to listen to substantive music these days? Sheesh, you kids. Get off my lawn!
Well said.
Those cheap earbuds probably have better sound quality than the sound system you had when you were young and listening on the go does not preclude paying attention.
Granted, the people who are paying attention to their earbuds are probably mostly listening to audiobooks, but that's because tuning out music is an effect of bad music not an effect of multitasking.
@@nathanbrown8680 Cheap earbuds do NOT sound better than headphones from years ago. There is no evidence to support that. Pop music to me is not bad because it's repetitive..it's because it is not really relevant to me anymore. It seems that we have just about reached the end of 4 chord songs. I like the new electronic beats, there more to explore.
Old Man Yells At Cloud
Thank you, next
I am a 64 year old journeyman musician who has played top 40 for 50 years. I was SO ready to bash this but as I watched it I was fascinated by the lengths Colin went to; employing new techniques to an ageless discussion. There was a book published back in the mid-60's called TWILIGHT OF THE GODS. It was fascinating in the same way - a massive deep dive into the historical musical patterns ascribed by "scholars" vs. the notion that maybe, just maybe, the writers wrote it the way they did because it sounded good. I actually really enjoyed your presentation Colin!
Respect for your journey, Sir. I'm also (not that long as you) a musician and I enjoyed to watch new approaches to discuss something that seems to have no answer. Even if I have some points on his speech, like the way he put the ostinato - what obviously is so much more important in a context of a Bach's mass than being the whole structure of a pop song - it is important and desirable to have new possibilities of think the music we listen to (or the ones we do not). Pleasure to share those feelings. Cheers from Brazil.
In pop music you don't need a word for repeated sounds because your whole music is based on it
IF "everyone loves repetitive music" 7:11 (yes i quoted him) then why is 'Bohemian Rhapsody', a song which has no chorus, verses and virtually no repetition whatsoever thought of as the greatest song of all time and is still extremely popular to this day
One does not exclude another.
what do you mean
Because he's talking nonsense and I don't think he has any serious musical background
@@kradicalkaymeom2969 The fact that 'everyone likes repetitive music, he translates that from the scientific research mentioned, does not exclude the fact that a lot of people name bohemian rhapsody the best song.
Almost everyone I know likes the taste of crisps. But if you ask everyone what the best tasting food is, it would probably not be crisps
people can like multiple types of songs einstein
I've believed a long time now that most people don't even like music they just think they do.
Andre Richard Agreed. A lot of people “like” music the same way they like a post on Facebook
FACTS TO BOTH OF THESE COMMENTS
They like catchy background noise, and sometimes a track they can sing along to. But they listen to "music" very casually and never really take a moment to analyse and think about what they're hearing.
I completely agree with you! I lent my phone to a friend on a long train journey after her ipod went flat once. Watching her face as she explored sounds she'd never even imagined before was great fun. Her finding out that Prince (as great as he was) was not the only multi-instrumentalist in history, and that funk-fusion was a style he explored with others, and that is still being explored today was amazing. But finding her still actively exploring the boundaries of her own (very different to mine, but now clearly owned and enjoyed) musical taste was priceless. I wish more people could experience the joy she now gets from the music she loves. Even the weird awkwardness that comes with showing each other our newest audio love affairs only to cringe at each other's god awful taste is fun!!
Ah, the good old "X vs Bohemian Rhapsody" example to show how repetetive music has become. This example has kind-of lost its power. The example I know compares Queen to Justin Bieber, and it goes like:
Baby, baby, baby ooh
Like baby, baby, baby no
Like baby, baby, baby ooh
I thought you'd always be mine (mine)
~ Justin Bieber - Baby, My World 2.0 (2010)
Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality
Open your eyes, look up to the skies and see
~ Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody, A Night at the Opera (1975)
And then you simply pick two different examples:
I just can't sleep tonight
Knowing that things ain't right
It's in the papers, it's on the TV, it's everywhere that I go
Children are crying
Soldiers are dying
Some people don't have a home
~ Justin Bieber - Pray, My Worlds Acoustic (2010)
Sweet lady
Sweet lady
Sweet lady... stay sweet
Stay sweet
Oh, run away
Come on
Yeah yeah, yeah yeah
Sweet lady
Wooh
~ Queen - Sweet Lady, A Night at the Opera (1975)
And there goes your point by showing that you're just cherry-picking your examples to "prove" it.
Actually it doesn't because the Queen song may repeat words but not inflections, it's not just repeating, it's spoken words over a chorus and solos.
There are plenty of repetitions in 70s rock, but it's way more dynamic than the copy pasting we are seeing today.
Not only that the point of the original comparison is to compare two widely popular songs. Where you selected whatever would prove your point.
I'm not saying you're wrong but you're not playing by the same rules here.
@@RupeeRhod I was illustrating the point that one can't make a point regarding a trend by comparing two more or less arbitrary examples. So you are right in a sense that while the example "Baby vs Bohemian Rhapsody" alone is not suitable to prove the trend, "Pray vs Sweet Lady" alone is not capable of refuting it. Luckily he used some more sophisticated methods to analyze the repetition.
On a side note, while "Sweet Lady" may not be comparable regarding popularity, "Bicycle Race" from 1978 somewhat is:
Bicycle, bicycle, bicycle
I want to ride my
Bicycle, bicycle, bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride my bike
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride it where I like
~ Queen - Bicycle Race, Jazz (1978)
The best thing about this talk is that the methods he used are useful to investigate other aspects about repetition. What I think could be interesting to look at as well is to have all songs from various artists printed in those self similarity matrices, and then lay those images out in a grid in order of the songs' appearances. I wonder if you could see that former artists had less of a universal pattern they always stuck to compared to modern artists, where every song could be structurally more similar to the others.
@@NFSHeld I wouldn't respond to that
@@zenithquasar9623 I did. I know it is not the only example. I'm not even contradicting his point, I'm just objecting to this particular method. I love the compressabilty metric and the self similarity matrices though, those are quite clever tools to use.
He did take this into account by compressing 20k songs. The compression algorithms will give him the amount of repetitiveness over time. I don't think you really paid attention to the video.
They are catchier, not better, I vastly prefer the song on the right to the song in the left, bohemian rhapsody is excellent, there is a line where a song becomes far too repetitive, I’m a millennial yet I believe that music is getting worse, it depends on how well the repetition is used, as well as the actual notes being repeated, not just how many times the same sequence occurs.
Take away... Colin Morris leaves out the intention of a contingency of industrial complexes to condition consumers through repetitive media products like "pop music" (but also repetitive themes in films, commercials and news propaganda) to be emotionally influence consumers to the point of neurochemical imbalance resulting in their habitual conditioning resulting in consumers consuming more and objectively thinking less.
This is a brilliant study with a limited contrived feel good conclusion.
Lost me at "why this is a good thing"
Same. Stopped there, upvote your comment and leave
Me too
Yup. I kept watching. But this guy is nuts.
The thing is that people ignore the change in listening habits. In the 60s people still collected disks and sat down to listen to the music (later cassetes or CDs). Nowadays, people do 100 different things while the music is blaring in the background from their phone. Complex music can be distracting while simple repetitive music is not. So perhaps the change in preference is also partly due to this change.
lol, you guys are the kind of people no one wants to talk to, because you don't even care about other people's oppinions
Brought to you by the record industry.
I'll agree with you on that
yep. record labels ruins musicians.
This talk: Everybody likes hamburgers, hamburgers must be gourmet food.
I'd rather have a burger than some weird bubble of french goo in a cellophane wrapper dotted with origami parsley
Blair Snurtburgler good one
I was talking to a chef one day and he had this amazing sandwich on special that day. I wish i could remember what it was but it was years ago. He said "it was the second best sandwich ever created." Then i asked "what's the best?" He said "easy, the hamburger sandwich"
He did not make any such claim!
Yea it's kinda funny, but I don't think it is necessarily fitting or pointing out what the video is about. Most people don't like pop music, it's just the one that most people know and which is broadcasted and listened to and also "relativly positive" received the most. And just because you have something that is "meta" doesn't mean it is gourmet or high end, top of the notch. But what he wanted to express is that it is still good (maybe for volume) for the good basic stuff to exist. also "talks" or presentations kind of always need a conclusion, this one should maybe have focused more on how these snowflake patterns of compressed song lyrics are like a mandala and a fractal of nature too, even though it is also man made, then he could also have compared it to other structures like this in nature, like the repetitiveness of flowers and how they additionally might also be repetitive in bloom (like tulips can bloom once a year for like 4-7 years) and how that would imply that the universe is kind of singing a song too, the joy of life or sth like that. Ending the presentation with a conclusion of whether or not something should be considered good is maybe a representation of the guy's thoughts about presentation rules and I also think of him being autistic. Yes it is not really good ether xD but comparing it to "gourmet burgers"... Wait that's a different thing altogether haha
"repeat stuff, repeat stuff, repeat stuff, repeat stuff, repeat stuff, repeat stuff, repeat stuff, repeat stuff, repeat stuff, repeat stuff, repeat stuff, repeat stuff" - bo burnham
TH-cam should add a facepalm button.
Hear. Hear. (highfive)
I really like the idea that you can measure sameyness using zip compression algorithms.
He is also forgetting the fact that they exploit repetitivity not to create a piece of art but to massively profit.
He pretty much did. He said they (music producers) are just giving us what we want
@@The757packerfan They're not even giving us what we want, they're deciding for us what we want. When producers pays millions dollars to radios so their song are aired at least 10 times a day, this is not what people want. Music is not like painting, you generally tend to like music you've heard several times, no matter what this music sounds like.
Repetitive lyricism is not the only thing wrong with pop music.
Great analysis.
I basically break down music into the “At home” listening experience and the “Public/event” listening experience. When I’m at home I prefer more complex and introspective music. When I’m in public like a festival/bar/club, I prefer more simple and repetitive music. It can be hard really enjoy introspective or lower BPM music in a public space. Both have their place for me.
Steffan I play music at events, bars. It'd be a nice change if people didn't take it for granted
Yeah boring repetitive music is fine when you're not actually listening to it.
You must be under 30.
The problem with repetitive songs is not only that they lack depth, but they sound the same. There's also a big difference between a song that literally repeats one or two lines throughout the whole song and a song with a repeating chorus.
Great analysis! I loved the way you thought about this subject and how you employed such interesting tools to dissect and deep dive into it further. I may not necessarily agree with the final conclusion :) but I definitely LOVED the analysis. 👍🏾
I was reading the comments looking for this exact sentiment! The presenter definitely didn't focus on the entirety of the elements of music, like rhythm and meaning, but the element they did focus on and the techniques they used were really cool!
Thanks for being nice on the internet!
One of his main arguments is essentially pop music is not dumbed down because of the way the lyrics are pronounced, and syllables are spoken on beat. Well a donut maker can make a million yummy donuts, but he'll never be as skilled as Gordon Ramsay. Pop music is like Mcdonalds, and arguing that it's popularity equals its quality is a fallacy at its core.
I don't think it's the repetition that annoys me as much as the topics of the song. Like I really don't care about Taylor Swift's failed relationships.
Does this explain why I thoroughly enjoy older pop songs but have no interest in modern day pop music?
Yes.
Not only for this reason. It's because before pop music were made by using actually real instruments like guitar, keyboard, drums while today music is made using a computer. Everything is artificial now...
Electronic music been there sice 60s. Computer assisted electronic music lets say 80s. Its not about computers. Its about the art form.
Probably.
One song made from the heart, the other for money.
Good music is still being made, it's just not on the radio. The good music is underground and not popular.
Like Mike Dawes. Have fun!
Monstercat Intensifies
Not promoted by corporate interests. Music, I don't think, should be treated as a commodity, yet I'll charge people to play a show....
Better music is popular, only not promoted into "popular" charts. And people searching for good quality also stay away from charts.
@@nightmareTomek the music that have given me the most listening pleasure came my way via word of mouth or random discovery.
I do wonder how much of that is my brain tricking me into thinking the discovery is mine and only mine.
"I like repetitive songs," says Collin Morris. That explains his analysis right there.
Có-llin Mó-rris ;)
This isn't the "CHECKMATE COLLIN" you think it is.
Everyone does he says. So I guess that's that.
Let's STOP feeling guilty about stuff we enjoy that doesn't hurt anyone else.
Yes, exactly. Why do we feel bad when we like something popular when popularity is defined by appealing to large numbers of people? Must I be special ALL the time?
I was expecting a thorough defense about why metal is superior
For that topic, I would refer you to Tenacious D's TH-cam channel. 👍
Lmao fuckin same man
Hopefully he comes back for a part 2
So was i wouldnt it be awesome if he were to analyze dream theater or gojira
Some pop songs are catchy and don't make me want to vomit, but yes, metal is superior.
It's one of the reasons why the few folk songs we know, among countless we don't, are remembered for centuries. Repetitiveness makes catchy. Celtic folktunes for example have the same melody for verse and chorus, and sea-shanties are one line verses, with one line choruses.
The term popular in pop music means folk. It's the same thing, the music of the masses.
Wow
"Music is the right mix of repetition and surprise."
Funny- I’ve always preferred instrumental music.
It’s funny how people think words and lyrics are the main part of music.
Try listening to King Crimson instrumentals.
Or, for that matter, Around the World by Daft Punk.
Tried it and I have to say that this is why i read the comments, I'm always hoping someone backs their opinion with actual data to prove their point. You sir, have proved your point.
King Crimson has a lot of interesting lyrics...... they are a top progressive band......
King Crimson instrumentals would most likely perplex most pop music listeners... Maybe Discipline could win some over with its 4/4 beat hidden under all the polyrhythmic grooves. Then again probably not...
Thela hun ginjeet has more musical innovation than some artists entire catalogue.
Lets see Britney Spears write a fugue.
Hahahah xD that would be good maybe she could! I would like to know how that sounded (don’t limit Bach to fugues, he did so much more ;) )
Yeah he had that one with a toccata that was pretty bangin' :P
The unspoken presumption is that songs are at the top of the charts because people like them. In fact, the charts are manipulated as a matter of course.
His defense of melodic repetitiveness was inadequate. In classical music, an ostinato is typically used to frame more complex music that is played over it (also the word is Italian, not Greek). It's true that a certain amount of repetition sounds nice, but it's totally fair to call out a simplistic, uncreative melody for what it is.
Also, I think that a big point of criticism for pop lyricists is not merely the repetitiveness of the lyrics, but the vacuous nature of many of those lyrics. Take the example from the video of "Run the World (Girls)". The repetitiveness is much more apparent when the lyrics don't have a lot to say. And, sure, people have been writing repetitive songs forever, but I still think it's fair to call out musicians who write boring, thoughtless, overly simplistic tripe, appealing to ever more atrophied attention spans. I think it's clear that this presenter does not play an instrument.
This is an important point. The problem isn't repetition, it's information content. Information content is what compression really measures, but to get a good measure you have to filter out the noise first. A lot of pop music is entirely devoid of meaning.
"Run the World (Girls)" could be simplified to the singer just chanting "feminism." The compression test gives a misleadingly high information content because of this.
The problem with his reasoning: what people like and what is good _for_ them are two entirely separate things. As we can see with food: people usually like stuff that is, at least in the long run, pretty bad for them. He's basically making a case for fast food here.
It's good in the sense that they have a good time with it.I might make them feel better emotionally. But yes you 're absolutely correct.
Classical Music == Raw Veggies
Pop Music == Junk Food / High Fructose Corn Syrup / Processed Cheese
Sure it might taste good initially but too much of anything without a well rounded meal is unhealthy.
You missed the point of each of these new songs being highly unique. That is not the case with fast food, where you have not the same amount of effort put into, let's say each hamburger or soda can. As in snowflakes, they only SEEM similar from a distance.. When you zoom in on the cola can, it continues to be the same. But zooming in on the pop songs, or snowflakes, the differences appears. Zooming in on music is equivalent to having an open ear and mind
The equivalent of consuming fast food would be to listen to only a few over and over and over.
Here, one could argue the people most attached to 'their good old songs' are the ones most guilty of approximating that fast food-style approach to music.
I tried to express this myself on another video, in much less eloquent terms, and all it got me was a bunch of hate comments.
@@avionphoton6414 I see your point but you misunderstood the analogy. "Fast food" wasn't about repetitiveness but low nutritional value. Repetitive music is easy to deconstruct, it's easy to memorise, it's easy to consume - it is easily "chunked". In pop music there's typically just the right amount of variation so most people won't get bored by it. Its goal is to be as rewarding as possible at minimal mental effort, that's why it's so attractive and popular and why it has "low nutritional value".
"Well here I'm gonna make a point"
*Proceeds to throw Vox Populi out there like it actually proves a point about cultural density and quality of any given production*
Reasonable thesis, but one dimensional. Modern pop is driven by the bottom line, $$$$$$$, hence the reduction of risk and homogenisation of pop music. he is right, there is nothing wrong with repetition, but there are many more aspects to modern mass produced pop that have eroded creativity and force fed the modern youth with what the industry wants.
To play devils advoacate, isn't that a motivation for a lot of musicians? Even people we look at as classic artists, did they always play the creative route and never go with something just catchy? Were they always challenging norms and creating something new?
And who is to say that modern songwriters are purely doing it for money? Is it fair to say a songwriter who has made tons of money will always keep just writing songs purely for money? Will they never want to try to experiment at all and put something creative in it? That they have no creative ideas they want to express in any sort of way? I mean money can corrupt but to pretend like it completely squashes out any creative ambition or drive out of someone seems like an over reaction.
I found that he went in-depth on this topic. The impact of money on the music industry is another topic. I agree with what he said, listening to pop songs shouldn't be a guilty pleasure. Not taking risks is often what corresponds well to the majority of people, which is why pop songs make so much money in the first place. I am all for experimenting with music but I don't think we should shun producers for following a template that people like and will give success.
I disagree sort of- there were a lot of artists emerging from soundcloud and other platforms that were marketed way AFTER they did their thing in primitve matter and had success! A lot of forced stuff fails at teh end to gain the same sort of mass appeal!
Using a phrase like "the industry" is largely meaningless when the way that people [especially young people] consume and enjoy music (thanks the internet, youtube, spotify, soundcloud, bandcamp, etc. !) is completely different and divorced from what it was not even 10 years ago. You're a little out of touch and late to the party with your criticism. It might have been more valid in the 2000s but now it's completely different.
@@missychick1359 well said! Although there still is an industry - and its still about that dollar!
I like how some people may say to me that my taste in music is repetitive or that I like listening to "repetitive" just because I like trance , drum and bass and breakbeats are the same people that love pop music and will listen to the top 20 tracks over and over again.
I hear that so often.
Listening to lyrics in the year 2018?
C'mon I thought this guy was gonna talk about music theory...
Clearly, he doesn't know anything about music theory. He just draws unrelated parallels with things that have nothing to do with music.
Repetitiveness in pop songs not about the lyrics, at least not to the degree he would have you believe. It's about rhythm, chord choices, color, and feel. In the domain of rhythm, pop music, although not alone in this category, is entirely in 4/4. Not a be thing on its own. The next domain of music is chord choices. And suffice it to say, as a musician, analyzing pop songs is fairly easy. Chord progressions are used, reused, and re re used over and over again. Repetitive, unimaginative, and boring. The nest domain is color and feel. In pop, there is very little diversity here. Slow love songs, girl power songs, upbeat love songs, doing crack in the basement songs (aka doing every girl I come across songs), and breakup songs. 5 song types for every pop song ever written. Great work guys. Glad we can sum up the human experience through art so creatively. This really is frustrating as some people work really hard to create and never get anywhere. Rock, jazz, blues, classical, you name it, there's an underpaid musician working on it. And then Kesha has her 16 songwriters re order the same chords from Taylor swifts music and makes a million dollars with adoring fans screeching all the way. It's sad. Wake up. Listen to some dream theater.
Repetitive, unimaginative, boring.... and safe. Safe for the composer, safe for the listener. Safe to sit in one's little box, following the crowd, but pretending to be edgy and thoughtful because the live performance has some new light display and skimpier costumes that when analyzed are not really anything new at all, just another repetitive scrambling of someone else's thoughts. So yeah, easy, safe, and happy as we park our brains and go along for the ride - but is that better just because everyone likes it? Isn't it just another instance of being famous for being famous?
Jesus christ this is cringeworthy.
Of course the guy with the Dream Theater Logo for a profile pic would say something like this. Rock on, mate! \m/
Dream Theater is awesome, cool profile pic. I'm excited for their new album!
u kinda almost had me for a sec-ish, and then boom u turn out to be the "i hate sampling as a concept and dream theater is uncomparably superior to any present music, i bet ya'll can't wait to hear me rant about fedoras for 30 minutes"-kinda guy
wake up sheeple. progressive metal is the only real music. 😆😅😅😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁
It should be added that pop songs are played over and over within the same hour on commercial radio stations. So even if you dont like the song on the first day you are more likely to by the 5th day, as you slowly get brain washed. Then you go and buy it and a week later you realise you dont like it but its too late they have your money and it goes up the charts and them more poeple get to hear it and the cycle goes on and on around the world, around the world.
The idea of meassuring repetitivness by meassuring compressibility is genius imo. Nice talk.
I mean, that's literally what compression _is_ ...
I liked the analysis. A lot of people in the comments say that he didn't do that and didn't do this, but he's just showing one way of analyzing the music, and it's a cool way to look at the data. I don't think he ever said anything about the quality of the repetitiveness, or repetitiveness's effects on the average iq, or legitimacy of the charts(or any other suggestion from the comments) because it's not the point of the analysis. This is a look at the repetitiveness of the music in the given dataset. To look at all music from all sides would take decades even for a large group of people, if possible at all. If you know another way to look at it, go make another study, go make a website dedicated to analyzing music in every way possible, we would all love to see it.
And if you disagree with Bach being repetitive, go listen to Bach some more. Building on top of repetitiveness/evolving repetitiveness/overlaying repetitiveness doesn't make it less repetitive, which is The point of this talk.
Finally a comment I can totally agree with. As an essay about music, his presentation lacks of musical essence; however as an scientific research, it's coherent and on point. I would love to see other research in this field, especially where variables of note or rhythm incorporated into the research.
@@redoputra1611 it doesn't analyze the tonal and rhythmic aspects of music, but I never got the impression that he intended to analyze anything except the lyrics, since he started with an example of lyrical criticism and referred back to it throughout.
Yes, it is an interesting and creative way to analyze data. The objection most people have with this is not that he didn’t go through every single way to appreciate music, but that he didn’t talk about even one way to perceive music. Just a way to analyze consumer reports.
@@redoputra1611 I'm constantly thinking if it' possible to go the way you suggested. Because, despite the western music have it's twelve defined notes and each music gender uses their melodic patterns, it's not the same as use words to create an speech, once a word carries its semantic meaning and a note, interval or rythm structure can be used as free as the composer feels to. As consequence, it is harder to estabilish functions to music elements, specially rhythmic figures and isolated notes, than words, I suppose. What do you think about that?!
He mentions a lot how the repetition makes the song catchy, which is not a bad thing, but while being catchy makes the song much more likely to make it to the top 100 billboard, it does not necessarily translate to people still listening to that song decades later as we would with songs that people now days call classics, such as bohemian rhapsody. I think there are two reasons so many people call modern pop songs bad, the first is that a lot of them sound very similar to each other and the second is that because of the internet more songs are becoming popular then before. Combining these two reasons would conclude that because there are so many more popular songs and they sound so similar to each other they seem less unique, almost as if the same artist released all the albums and over saturated the market, thus making them both less likely to listened to decades later.
I'm a simple man: I see the title, I click expecting a TED Talk on how Metal is lyrically, musically and compositionally superior to Pop music.
I am Discount American Boyinaband and thank you for coming to my Tedtalk
Something I deduced on my own a long time ago, was that older songs were about telling a story, and more modern ones less so; and also about repetition, I figured that a repetitive song has more chance to be liked by more ppl, since if the part of the song you happen to like, is the repetitive part, then you'll have plenty of it before the song ends, whereas in a song that doesn't repeat anything, it becomes harder for one person to like the whole song, most likely they will only like a few parts, which then they'll have to wait until they hear the song again to hear the parts they liked. So in that sense, it seems logical to make songs that repeat themselves.
This TED talk could be compressed 43%. :D
"Talking about music is like dancing about architecture" - Francis Vincent Zappa
missing is the fact that the popular music during the swing era required a group of relatively talented musicians to play together as an ensemble, whereas todays repetitive music is pre-recorded repetitive backing tracks synced to people who ½sing, ½talk/yell & are primarily performers not musicians.
Since you mentioned swing era I think you might enjoy the song MINSEO 'IS WHO'
Agreed. A lot of today's popular singers are performers, not musicians. Japan still place high value on musicianship, thankfully.
Reading the comments on this ted talk is really depressing. Colin Morris really went through a lot of work to produce this discourse and truthfully, I really enjoyed how he presented his research. If you don't agree with him, that's fine, but don't be a keyboard warrior about your opinion. Seriously people. He's attempting to persuade; don't give so much hate.
Persuasion isn't his strongest key, then. Lol He should have done more research into music theory and simple searches like how Ostinato isn't a Greek word. If this is the kind of "quality" that TED Talks allow, what does it say about the credibility of the organization and people participating in it? This was poor shoddy work and it deserves every bit of fair criticism from musicians, hobbyists, and the like.
@@1911Zoey : You make valid points. Ostinato is definitely of latin origin (To be fair: I feel like its a common mistake to group 'latin' and 'greek' together and occasionally confuse them). Fair criticism is a wonderful thing, but it's also quite subjective. I feel like many people commenting on this particular video are not criticizing the content, but the person, which is what I was describing as 'depressing'.
Artificial music created by marketing analysis is not better. Haha. This doesn't make all unrestricted and freely inspired music necessarily better. The key is to feel the rhythms, melodies and lyrics that are better, and I am not sure that an algorithm can figure that out any better than humans can do. Awesome TEDx talk anyway and thanks a lot.
If the entire field is becoming more repetitive and it necessarily follows the top 10 become the most repetitive, it does not follow that artists are just giving us what we want. We are getting what they give us. More than 85% of Spotify's streams come from 3 companies.
The fact that seems to get missed here is the newer, 'catchier', more repetative songs also disappear in a short period of time. More complex songs - such as Bohemian Rhapsody here used for example have endured the test of time (40 years actually!) and will endure for time to come. Can we really say the same about the repetative newer song list??? We will see if anyone is listening to Kesha in 40 years......
You forget the vast quantities of mediocre music that was around back then that faded into obscurity. you just remember specific songs from that era. This will never change. There will be music from now that will still be heard many years from now. Repetitiveness isn't inherently a bad thing, take many daft punk songs, or for an older example something like Roxanne from The Police.
Who's Ke$ha?
@@Kreb2 interesting point. Survivor bias maybe
You tell 'em
I agree mostly, but I don't think it's the complexity that grants staying power. Best example would be stuff like death metal which is actually some of the most complex music out there yet no one seems to care outside of a small sub-set of metalheads.
I think it's the ability of a song to tell a story that we can all connect to at an emotional level. Songs like Simple Man, Tears in Heaven, Lightning Crashes, Jeremy, Stairway to Heaven, they all are songs that tell a story that we can emotionally empathize with.
Best possible example would be Billy Joel and his songs "We didn't start the fire" and "Piano Man". Both were chart topping hits, and while "We didn't start the fire" is the more lyrically complex song, its "Piano Man" that tells a story we can connect to that is still universally loved and likely will continue to be.
"La.
La. La. La. La.
La. La.
La. La. La. La. La."
There. I'm a creative genius.
Lalala by bbno$?
The thing is, we've focused so much on the technical advances in music that we neglected the talent/substance part of writing it, or composing it. Yeah, modern songs sound good, but they don't take me on a journey of feelings as much as old songs. I think we CAN use the technology to our advantage, but if we want to make good music, we have to let people know that being a good writer is not an easy task, and you have to have effort put into it.
Check out Seventh Wonder - The Great Escape. Either just the song or whole album. It takes you on a journey. Then go research the story and the lyrics to get even more out of it. :)
Loved this Ted talk. Really well presented, and loved the analysis. Witty and thoughtful. Made me think a little bit differently about what's clearly a touchy subject!
I've got to say... I am more of a classical music person, but I like how this was presented. I don't exactly care for pop music, but a lot of people do, and they shouldn't feel bad.
Some good analysis, but the problem with "repetitive music" is over-reliance on it and limited horizons in using samey-sounding audio parts, albeit instruments or voice.
The problem is when pop songs repeat other pop songs. Most pop songs are indistinguishable from each other these days
Just because something is more statistically enjoyable doesn't mean it is of better quality. Simply put, people enjoy repetition. Our minds have been conditioned for many years by nature itself to enjoy this repetition. After all, it has been repetitive tasks that has kept our species alive for all of this time. Because of this, our brain enjoys patterns, especially repetitive ones. On top of this, if a song is repetitive, one is more likely to remember it after listening to it for the first time. The repetition of the same phrases and notes tells our brains that those are important, and should not be forgotten. The fact that people enjoy repetitive songs more than non-repetitive songs on a first listen is not surprising at all, in fact, it is completely expected. Often times to fully enjoy a song that is not very repetitive, one has to listen to it multiple times. Without repetition, our brains need to hear the song more times to recognize it, and categorize the melodies as important. In my own personal experience, I find that I have to listen to a complex piece of music at least three or four times before it starts to grow on me, and I see it for all that it is actually worth. This is what good music does. One can listen to the same song many times, and get something new out of it every time. However, the people in the pop music industry are smart. They are not looking to produce quality art, they are looking to produce what will sell the best. Because of the intense repetition in pop music, it catches our ear and ingrains itself in our minds on the first listen. This causes the listener to go buy the song, or add it to their playlist on spotify, apple music, ect. Because the song is repetitive, it catches quick, but it also burns out quick. After the listener hears the song for maybe a week, or even less, the song loses it's glamour. The human mind loves simple patterns, but once that pattern has been learned, the mind sees no need to see or hear that pattern anymore. This is because of the fact that the human mind is very efficient. There is no need for the mind to intake patterns it already recognizes, instead, the mind is ready to move on to the next one. This is absolutely fantastic for the pop music industry, why? Because one song catches the listener's attention, in the span of a week or so it looses its appeal making the listener ready for the next simple song. With complex music, the listener could buy one song or one album, and be content with their purchase for a long time. This is good for the listener, but not so much for the record company. With pop music, the songs get old fast, and the listener constantly needs to be exposed to new material to be content. Because of how quick these songs go in and out, they have been essentially mass produced by the record companies for maximum profit. I am not saying that pop music is not enjoyable. It is. Record companies would not produce it if it was not enjoyable. Pop music is catchy, enjoyable, and it makes a huge buck. However, I would like to argue that the increasing repetition of music is indeed harmful, as it hurts the listener. Pop music is like a McDonalds hamburger. It is cheap, tasty, and quick, but very unhealthy. More complex music is like a nice home cooked meal. It takes time and effort, it is more expensive, on the first bite it may not be as tasty, but it is much healthier, and has much more complex flavor patterns. In short, I agree that pop music is enjoyable and catchy, but I do not think that it's increasing repetition is a good thing. But that is just my two cents, and I am just some dude in the TH-cam comments section... Why am I even writing this? It is not like anyone in the TH-cam comments is taken seriously. Oh well.
We don't like repetitive songs more. They reach the top charts because they cater to the common denominator. Saying they are liked most by the most people, is not the same as saying all those people prefer those songs to more complex ones.
Jack Torrance wrote the most repetitive book of all time: "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." x 10,000
all I have to say is:
"Baby shark tutututututu......."
Genius! I don't want 13 min of him talking about this, I want 13h!! Do you guys know if I can reach this man online for more content??
So, hooks are very important to a song's value to the listener. Beethoven started with "dit-dit-dit-dah" and repeated that throughout the entire symphony. The problem with "pop" is there is not enough meat on the bones to satisfy the ear after a couple of listenings.
Hear the sound of music
Drifting in the aisles
Elevator Prozac
Stretching on for miles
The music of the future
Will not entertain
It's only meant to repress
And neutralize your brain
Soul gets squeezed out
Edges get blunt
Demographic
Gives what you want
Now the sound of music
Comes in silver pills
Engineered to suit you
Building cheaper thrills
The music of rebellion
Makes you want to rage
But it's made by millionaires
Who are nearly twice your age
One of the wonders of the world is going down
It's going down I know
It's one of the blunders of the world that no-one cares
No-one cares enough
- Steven Wilson
Constant repetition is lack of depth...which in turn reflects on the individual....dumbed down is another way of saying it...ppl want it simple and trite...no thinking involved...i suppose there's room for that but the sheer greatness of Bohemian Rapsody is incomparable!
Repetition leads to familiarity, familiarity leads to comfort with mediocrity, comfort with mediocrity leads to the dark side.
I think computers are writing both the lyrics and the melodies these days. They're repetitive, uncreative, boring, and mind-numbing. Yesterday I reached the point where I just couldn't stand it anymore. I may never turn on my car radio again.
Just because music is worming it's way into our brains and tricking us into clicking a like button doesn't mean that that music is better than that of the past. It means it's more exploitative for better or worse. I personally like old music more because I feel that it generally manages to give a more unique experience through just one piece of music.
Some of the greatest peices of music had parts that repeated, instead of calling them choruses, they were the refrain.
It's not necessarily the lyrics that are being repeated that determines the quality of music, but also the harmonies, rhythms, melodies and solos.
Music nowadays increasingly have less solo parts, less diverse harmonies, extremely repetitive melodies, a single rythm made often by a drum machine and not a human. Not to mention the wuality of lyrics which does nothing to appeal to the ethos, or logos of our world and only tries to tap into our pathos.
Repetition prints money because it is easy to understand and thus its recognizability is amplified. That does not mean people passionately love it. It just means that everyone knows what it is and often gets it stuck in their head. This does not correspond to music quality by any metric, or provides listeners any compassion for the music they are listening too.
All in all, this video has convinced me of... nothing. The music of today is still good if you know where to look, but to the public eye such quality do not exist. Passion is simply not given the same lime light of what big business considers to be 'profitable'.
If such passion recieved the proper attention it deserved, I really do think the world would be a much better place. I truly think that quality cannot be weighed by simple talent either. Passion is only needed. Passion driven by desires of self expression or affection, or even fuming anger and solitude against the uncaring world around them. I think music through proper composition (not just lyrics) should be something that allows us to sit down and comprehend our own existence and find warmth in accepting who we are. But when money is involved, even the most heart felt cries for psychological help are swallowed up by the massive waves of corporate greed.
So yeah... I didn't like this video.
Listen to modern pop for 2 weeks and get bored. You forget it. Rock, however, never gets old.
Uuuhhh, fun fact for the edgy kids:
Music taste doesn’t make anyone superior
He's missing the point. The problem is that repetitive songs are only satisfying because on a primitive level, we like patterns, meaning we don't need to put much effort into listening to them. On the flipside, more complicated songs are satisfying because you can appreciate their meaning better, which can get our brains thinking more. And of course, it's always good to have songs that we don't have to think about, as that would get exhausting. However, when ALL popular songs are just SO agonizingly repetitive, it's just boring. That's why more popular repetitive songs are a bad thing. Not because it's lazy, but because it's uninteresting. We remember Bohemian Rhapsody because it was complicatedly four songs in one. And we don't remember (or I don't anyway) most modern rap songs because they're usually very repetitive.
Dude needed to reason out why he got addicted to K-Pop.
That's another reason i love kpop-
I respect that. **Listens to RED VELVET 'PSYCHO'**
In the UK Bohemian Rhapsody sold 1.1 million singles to reach number 1. The current UK number 1 has sold less than 100,000 across all channels. So.... more repetitive songs might be getting into the top 10 but the whole pop music market is tiny compared to 40 years ago and most people listen to music that isn't in the charts at all.
Paul Rone-Clarke TH-cam,Spotify.
While people have a wider access to different music genres, they are measured more than once as weekly views/hits on Deezer, Spotify, official TH-cam uploads are also recorded alongside sales.
Repetitiveness never was a synonym of quality or lack of it, this is just nonsense.
But in the meme he shows at the start it clearly is being used as a synonym for poor quality. It may not be directly stated, but the implicit meaning is obvious.
Can be summed up as "the Big Mac is the peak of human cuisine because it sells a lot and I like it."
I'd love to see him apply his algorithm and self-similarity matrix to other genres of music. That would be fascinating to me. Also, I think it would be cool if he somehow managed to apply the same ideas to the music (melody?) to see what happens.
It seems like you could make MIDI files of the notes in a song, perhaps with a bit of quantization applied judiciously and accounting for "swing", and then run those through the compression test. Perhaps normalizing the notes to convert the time offset into the song into an offset within the current measure???
I must confess…
I still believe
We increasingly like repetitive songs because we're getting stupider as a people.
If the brain gets fed with repetitive, thus "comfortable" songs... doesn't it stop being stimulated? In comparison to listening to a song like Bohemian Rhapsody, where it is "surprised" by changes in rhythm etc...?
heard "Rhapsody" million times and still find it interesting......
How many chocolate bars do you have to eat before you're tired of chocolate bars? This is exactly why bridges exist in pop music.
No not at all - repetition can be incredibly mind-opening, as Coltrane, Steve Reich and Howlin' Wolf knew all too well.
I'm sure the band would be famous even without the film... anyhow, somehow I think you're not the brightest person around here...
Goodness, anything and anyone can do a TED talk these days...now becoming watered down and no longer being taken so seriously!
It’s now seemingly just academic resume padding. Too much work finding something substantial imo
It's tedx. Not Ted. Just sayin
Look up Sam Hyde 2070 Paradigm Shift. It's honestly impressive
I argue that Mr. Einstein is incorrect about one thing: People do not necessarily "love repetitive music".
Rather, they are subjected to the music industry's method of mind-control; much in the way of the experimental Pavlov's behavior patterns.
Repeat any 'music' -- with a solid beat and repetitive values -- and many will indeed fall prey to this form of legal subliminal assault on the human brain by the Pop music industry.
Eventually listener's may learn to "love" any repetitive mindless drivel and purchase it. Game over! The music industry moguls win.
A lot of "Get off my lawn!" types in the comments. I'm glad this guy is exposing such snobbery. Though it's worth pointing out, Bohemian Rhapsody got picked on by the critics too.
The only thing he talked about was lyrics. He forgot to analyze chord structure repetitiveness. And also to do a repetitiveness test ACROSS songs of the same era.
A song may internally repeat the same chords and lyrics, however, if it has a unique chord structure apart from all other pop songs of the time, and a unique set of lyrics differentiating it from other pop songs, it can still be a very interesting and fun to listen to song.
This dude has barely scratched the surface of music analysis and is already making the claim that repetitive music is good because it's popular. Popular ≠ good. It's like saying that McDonald's burgers are good simply because they're the most popular.
The reason that repetitive music is popular is because most people don't have the same kind of accessibility to more complex music. By accessibility I mean the ability to subconsciously understand and enjoy the more complex music, something that only comes from exposing yourself to more complex and difficult to understand music on a frequent basis, which most people don't do. This is also why even people who may understand and enjoy classical music have a much harder time enjoying jazz, and then from jazz, a harder time enjoying the more bizarre contemporary composing styles.
This isn't to say that more complex and harder to understand music is necessarily better. However, a broader accessibility to more complex music makes it easier to judge the quality of music being made, and in most cases, pop music isn't very high quality.
It has taken me a long time to appreciate both jazz and classical, however, there is so much more depth that is extremely easy to point to and explain once you have an ear for it. I now really appreciate both genres because I was patient and wanted to have a more complex taste.
Not all pop music repeatetive, it depends on the style, writer and producer, some pop music does have complex lyric, chords, melody and arrangement. Not all Jazz music are complex some really consist of simple chords, melody and arrangement only, It's like drink, every drink has different taste, some people drink water only most of the time but it has no taste.
As a classical music fan I totally agree. I took a quite long time to like classical music when I was first introduced to it, because when I was a kid (just like today's young generations) I too was almost only exposed to pop music literally everywhere; from stores to radios, most advertisements on the TV shows, etc. In the city I grew up, there was no professional orchestra, literally no classical music concerts. Only truly complex music I would hear was the traditional music of the place, (it was very rich in especially in micro notes) my father playing some of the classical pieces and traditional music of my country on accordion. Then, I got into movie scores and thanks to youtube I truly started to like classical. Being able to listen exceptionally talented people like Hilary Hahn almost anytime on youtube, or basically accessibility, helps quite a lot. I know, its too long, probably didn't read.
PiercingSight I agree! A lot of people consider musical genres like jazz, classical, etc. to be boring, almost like broccoli. However, it’s important to note that you get bored because of one of two reasons: it’s either too simple or too complex. Pop music is repetitive in a way that the majority of the population doesn’t get bored, meaning it’s not quite oversimplified enough to bore the average listener. With more complex musical styles, a lot of people get overwhelmed with the amount of differences in timing, tune, etc. and thus become bored. A good way to enjoy a complex piece without becoming too overwhelmed is to listen to it more than once because our brains need to pick out patterns and group things together to process correctly. Even babies as young as 3 months old can pick out the intricate structures of classical pieces and can even recognize the songs they’ve heard before. However, a lot of people might have listened to a classical piece once, became bored, and gave up on the song. In contrast, the top trending songs are, as we’ve observed, very repetitive and easy to comprehend on the first listen. This TED Talk showed the increasing repetition in song lyrics, but failed to convince me why it could be a good thing other than “it’s what the majority wants.”
@@sydneybidney5671 Popularity and quality are often misused for each other.
I'm not persuaded that increased repetition is a good thing. The complaint against repetitive music seems to come from the interpretation of the listener that the repetition serves no purpose and becomes annoying. In dance music, the repetition doesn't need to serve a purpose other than create a framework for the listener to build on with their dance (Around the World). In a movie soundtrack, repetition might provide a rhythm for the action to build on. Listeners who aren't into that will just find it annoying. In the case of Daft Punk, we can see them do both (Around the World and Tron Legacy), and they do it with pieces are repetitive to greater and lesser degrees.
Some repetition is necessary to music. Not many pieces have been composed without any repetition or rhythm. I think they've all been experiments in composition rather than art or commercial pieces. Repetition is nearly universal in music, but when it doesn't seem to serve the listeners tastes, it is a liability according to the listener. So, I think repetitiveness itself isn't good or bad, except for how well it is used. A rise in criticism that music is becoming repetitive suggests that it is becoming increasingly less well used, or that the people to whom it seems inappropriate finally found a way to reach one another and a meme has arisen. Repetitive music might also have some characteristics of meme, and still all we know is that some people like it and some don't. Personally, I don't care for it,. So, unnecessarily repetitive music seems to be of poor quality. It doesn't work for me. Neither does the analysis in this talk, though the data is interesting ("Are" interesting? What kind of pedant are you?)
I'll still disagree with music repetitiveness being a good thing, despite everyone liking it.
We need stuff that makes our brains work more, not less.
0:55 this font makes me think I'm looking on a code
TL;DR: pop music is repetitive and it gets more repetitive each year.
He repeats this point for 15 minutes.
3amsleep Funny, because it shows that *you* didn’t “read” the whole thing either. 50% of the talk is not about how pop music is increasingly repetitive.
it's not how pop music gets more repetitive each year... it's how the speaker gets more repetitive each minute
hahahahaha.
TL;DW*
So he thinks repetitiveness is good so he is being repetitive. Makes sense.
I can't stand the way he ends his sentences in a voiceless scratch though. Dude, you have vocal cords, USE THEM!