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Comment by agumonkey | Hacker News Reader

It's strange to realize how sophisticated "pop" music was at the time. Lots of beautiful harmonies, violins ..

I have been thinking about this some lately. The loss of complexity in main stream music. One of the most popular songs this year is just f# f# g ... f# ...

I am sure someone can figure out which song it is. While the music sounds great and sells, my theory is that it comes as a result of losing music classes in many public schools. Over decades it has led to a loss of complexity.

Then again, I am probably just old.

I wonder which way the causal arrow goes? I'm confident more complex (and also excellent) music is being made now than ever before so it wouldn't be a supply problem. Could be a demand problem, or a transit problem, maybe.

It wouldn't be terribly surprising if it's the audience that has dragged things towards simplicity.

Could also be the homogenizing effect of recommendation algorithms that select for mass appeal, a song that everyone likes at an average of 7/10 is selected for way harder than a song that 50% of people like at an average of 9/10.

You really do need gatekeeping and curation in art. Otherwise it regresses to the mean - which is where the money is, but not the danger or surprise.

Fair point, and I'd add that there's a spot above the average where people used to flock to because it felt special and not just random average stuff. That's where society picked stars and new trends, something slightly special, complex, original yet not vulgar.

I wouldn't consider schools as a factor, my best guess was a harder industry that required people to know more theory before producing (except youth punk/rock..). Quincy jones had a long career in advanced genre, even bands like the police were trained on sophisticated music. It raised the entry bar higher overall.

Tarja Turunen could have been an excellent Wagnerian soprano but decided she liked heavy metal more. So even today there is quite a bit of musicianship in some pop genres.

I liked pop then and I like pop now, and I liked it the whole time in between, and I don't think you can say pop is less sophisticated now. The conventions of the genre have shifted because of communion with rock, hip hop and electronic dance music.

But violins are just an instrument, no more sophisticated or less than any other arrangement choice. Now the complexity is in the rhythmic interactions, and the timbral palette available to producers. The musicality of pop musicians and especially studio performers and producers is just unreal right now.

Link me some stuff worth listening too, I stopped scanning the recent music releases because most of it (except a few exceptions) felt like soup.

So, not all but quite a few "radio pop" artists actually have excellent studio albums, from which the radio singles are basically the worst songs. Like ariana grande had an incredible three-album run with dangerous woman, sweetener, thank u next. Dua Lipa's future nostalgia is another one of these, full of popified funk and dancehall grooves. Bass players love that album. So don't write off bad radio pop without giving the album a listen, there's quite a lot of good music hidden in plain sight.

Other than that some of my favorites from the last approximate decade in no particular order (in format: album - artist) are froot - marina and the diamonds; I feel alive - TOPS; shabrang - sevdaliza; unfortunately, terror jr - terror jr; take me apart - kelela; somewhere in between - verite; dogviolet - laurel; empathogen - willow; expectations - hayley kiyoko; once twice melody - beach house; the fool - ryn weaver.

Pop is hard to define as a genre, particularly it tends to blend into r&b and indie rock so some people might categorize some these differently. And most are "indie pop" but afaict that's just pop by non-famous musicians. That ryn weaver album is probably the best in the list, it's a monster masterpiece that deserves to be more widely known.

I'll take a peek, but i'm surprised, I stopped caring (pun slightly intended) about dua liap around future nostalgia. There's some nice bass in it but it's crude. The recent willow single was interesting that's true. Only people that manage to give me a sense of depth were thundercat/knower, benny sings

But I still miss some of the subtle harmonics from edits like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVhl896h2NI . There are other studio sessions with isolated vocals which afaik are not made this way anymore

ps: ryn makes good pop, colorful, but i don't know, maybe a different approach to voicings, it's missing something

psedit: fixed link

Yeah ryn's raw musicality is unreal but that album is underproduced and doesn't do her justice. I still think it's a masterpiece but the criticism is legit. I was really hoping to hear another from her but I'm not sure what it would be like now, the sound has changed a lot and I'm not sure what she's been up to.

If you like knower and thundercat there is a ton of great music that in that intersection of funk, pop, contemporary jazz. I was trying to stick to more "straight pop." Anyway with those guys I don't think the musicianship or sophistication is remotely in dispute.

But is it wrong to say that Jackson's solo album were also pop ?

No who's saying it is?

Well afaik it seemed to be at least half pop

I think you posted the wrong youtube link

oh god thanks, different kind of music but not what i intended indeed

Sevdaliza is _so_ good.

yes!

Dua Lipa has amazing arrangements for example.

There is a great podcast called Switched on Pop, which delves into music theory behind pop hits and their songwriting and arrangements, and analyzes them to show what makes them great. It will give you fresh perspective on how much thought and talent goes into some of these songs. https://switchedonpop.com/

Switched On Pop are the big dogs in this space but i'd love if anyone has lesser known musicologist pods to share that do similar things!

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