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Increasing Similarity of Billboard Songs
It's not just you, others have also noticed that popular songs on the Billboard charts sound similar. But what you may not realize is that in the recent days, they're sounding even more similar. Andrew Thompson and Matt Daniels for The Pudding make the case: From 2010-2014, the top ten producers (by number of hits) wrote about 40% of songs that achieved #1 - #5 ranking on the Billboard Hot 100. In the late-80s, the top ten producers were credited with half as many hits, about 19%. In other words, more songs have been produced by fewer and fewer topline songwriters, who oversee the combinations of all the separately created sounds. Take a less personal production process and execute that process by a shrinking number of people and everything starts to sound more or less the same.
Surprised they are, when sales stagnate. Recording companies, complain to the Emperor they do. Longer copyright they want.
Are the billboard top 10 even relevant anymore? It seems like a different metric like "top 100 concert earnings" or something would be more relevant these days.
Or no single metric. Over the last 50 years or so both the number of different genres and the quantity of being being produced have both ballooned so it's not reasonable for a single chart to make sense. What you now really want to know is who thinks what is popular rather than just what is considered popular by the largest number of people.
soylentnews.org
Top 10, Top 40, Top Whatever lists are always 100% manufactured. Either directly through payola, or indirectly by "encouraging" bars and clubs to play the same shit over an over again, so people enter a sort of Stockholm Syndrome, where they only "like" the hits because they recognize them or because "everyone likes it". People are afraid of new experiences, they actively seek to be superficially the same as everyone else. Even if that means "enjoying" utter garbage.
Eat the rich.
You forgot fuck nigga, nigga fuck fuck, hos and nigga....now that's a hit
But now in the age of "I want to be famous without any talent", successful songs are now easier to copy and more and more talentless people have access to the tools to do it
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Sounds like the phenomenon of "Top 1% owns 99%" is impacting music as well as wealth, but it that purely an American phenomenon? The concentration does not seem to be as bad in UK or Europe, or here in Australia.
As an old fart (punched card Fortran guy) it seems to me that most pop music has become very homogeneous there; the same four chords and riffs over and over with autotuned well-known-female-voice over the top.
Listening to random classics on Youtube (today: The Monkeys, The Stranglers) the difference in texture and nuance from then to now is very evident.
It will be interesting to see how AI generated music goes:
a. Will it be indistinguishable from human output, or is there some 'human' quality that WE will always be able to detect?
b. What music will an artificial consciousness prefer? Jazz? Human au Naturale? - we may be surprised!
[Personal Taste warning]
There is some 'real music' still coming out of USA, but mostly in genres ignored by the Mu$ic Indu$try, My favourite is Jackie Evancho who seems to have been blackballed by the industry since singing at Trumps Inauguration, but her vocals are very impressive (and very human) to my ears.
[/End Personal Taste warning]
Even if Tommy Robinson were a bigot, since when has that been illegal?
Do you advocate the Orwellian practice of punishing people for thought crimes?
Are other bigots held to the same standard? For example, what about hate-preaching Muslim Mullahs?