Is the pop music paradigm going to die someday?

**Frownland** · 01-01-2021, 04:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DriveYourCarDownToTheSea

Well ... yeah sort of. But that creativity was largely within the fairly narrow format I described in my OP.

The format you describe is too loose, if anything.

DriveYourCarDownToTheSea · 01-01-2021, 06:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by elphenor

I suppose if you mean if they contain any of those criteria to any degree

I feel like "A Day in the Life",for example, is a pretty strange composition

A Day in the Life has repeating melodic lines, (loosely) has rhyming lyrics, and I suppose it doesn't have a chorus but does have verses. The middle section with Paul singing is the only thing particularly different about it, and even then, is not all that uncommon. Lots of pop songs have a section in some part of the song that's different from the rest of the song. They're really more like an elaborate bridge.

DriveYourCarDownToTheSea · 01-01-2021, 06:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frownland

The format you describe is too loose, if anything.

Compared to the entirety of all music, the format in my OP is pretty strict and narrow IMO.

rostasi · 05-19-2021, 06:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DriveYourCarDownToTheSea

Here's one thing I was thinking ...
Instead of putting poetry to music, put prose to music.

Actually, an incisive prose-like style is much more interesting to me than stuff that rhymes.
Mark E. Smith anybody? Nearly all of Robert Wyatt's own songs...

... and I could sing this all day:

Quote:

Tadpoles keep screaming in my ear:
"Hey there! Rotter's Club!
Explain the meaning of this song and share it!"

Guybrush · 05-20-2021, 04:35 AM

Pop music will evolve over time, but I do think it will happen slowly and that the changes from the current format won't be large. At least not until something very dramatic happens to society.. talking western society here in broad terms.

To repeat something I recently wrote in a different thread, a song is made out of various musical traits. It could be distorted guitar, a 5/8 time signature, the break or whatever you call it in Skrillex-songs and so on.

Many of these traits are competing against eachother. What they're competing for is our love and attention. Let's say time signatures.. Music in 4/4 competes with music in 13/8 and other time signatures, possibly also a mix of time signatures within a song. What happens is if the audience finds music in 4/4 more appealing than music in 13/8, then music in 13/8 won't be commercially viable and so will become more obscure. This means that generations growing up will mostly listen to music in 4/4 and will be shaped by that, causing somewhat of a reinforcing feedback loop. While music in 13/8 will still go on existing, it won't have anywhere near as high an influence on society as songs in 4/4. These frequencies/ratios between traits can probably become quite stable for long periods (talking decades or more).

And so it goes for various traits in various genres, whether we're talking harmonies, timbral palettes, instrumentation and so on.

Going up a level, songs compete against other songs. From this perspective, it's about having the right combination of traits for what kind of song it is. The "right" traits make for more competitive (successful) songs. Over time, pop gets distilled into a kind of music that features the most competitive ("right") traits.

What you might ask then is are the "right" traits going to change? Broadly speaking, there are two things that determine what the "right" traits are:

Nature - we find some things naturally appealing and other things not. I don't think baby crying is ever going to become a very prominent sound in pop music.
Culture - you know what this is

If culture changes - and so the environment that those traits exist in changes - then that might in turn change what we (on average) consider "right" musical traits. I do think that the traits that we have now are quite distilled to what's "right" for our current nature/culture, but perhaps there's some unfound innovation coming or perhaps society in a hundred years will be very theocratic and lay down some hard rules for what sort of music is allowed or not. Who knows?

DriveYourCarDownToTheSea · 05-21-2021, 06:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rostasi

Actually, an incisive prose-like style is much more interesting to me than stuff that rhymes.
Mark E. Smith anybody? Nearly all of Robert Wyatt's own songs...

... and I could sing this all day:

Yeah I agree, that was really interesting. Too bad more bands don't do that.

05-20-2021, 04:35 AM	#35 (permalink)
Guybrush Juicious Maximus III Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Scabb Island Posts: 6,525	Pop music will evolve over time, but I do think it will happen slowly and that the changes from the current format won't be large. At least not until something very dramatic happens to society.. talking western society here in broad terms. To repeat something I recently wrote in a different thread, a song is made out of various musical traits. It could be distorted guitar, a 5/8 time signature, the break or whatever you call it in Skrillex-songs and so on. Many of these traits are competing against eachother. What they're competing for is our love and attention. Let's say time signatures.. Music in 4/4 competes with music in 13/8 and other time signatures, possibly also a mix of time signatures within a song. What happens is if the audience finds music in 4/4 more appealing than music in 13/8, then music in 13/8 won't be commercially viable and so will become more obscure. This means that generations growing up will mostly listen to music in 4/4 and will be shaped by that, causing somewhat of a reinforcing feedback loop. While music in 13/8 will still go on existing, it won't have anywhere near as high an influence on society as songs in 4/4. These frequencies/ratios between traits can probably become quite stable for long periods (talking decades or more). And so it goes for various traits in various genres, whether we're talking harmonies, timbral palettes, instrumentation and so on. Going up a level, songs compete against other songs. From this perspective, it's about having the right combination of traits for what kind of song it is. The "right" traits make for more competitive (successful) songs. Over time, pop gets distilled into a kind of music that features the most competitive ("right") traits. What you might ask then is are the "right" traits going to change? Broadly speaking, there are two things that determine what the "right" traits are: Nature - we find some things naturally appealing and other things not. I don't think baby crying is ever going to become a very prominent sound in pop music. Culture - you know what this is If culture changes - and so the environment that those traits exist in changes - then that might in turn change what we (on average) consider "right" musical traits. I do think that the traits that we have now are quite distilled to what's "right" for our current nature/culture, but perhaps there's some unfound innovation coming or perhaps society in a hundred years will be very theocratic and lay down some hard rules for what sort of music is allowed or not. Who knows? __________________ Something Completely Different Last edited by Guybrush; 05-20-2021 at 04:43 AM.