For the first time, MusicRadar asked me to write about a couple of scientific papers rather than a song or album. The basic argument of both papers is that popular music is getting simpler over time.
The papers have some limits to their data sets and methodology that should lead you to take their sweeping conclusions with a grain of salt. The meta-level point is that anytime anyone else wants to pay me to critically explain academic papers in plain language, I am open to it.
Update: a colleague pointed out that this post is ableist, which is true. I was trying to satirize the clickbait-y framing of the MusicRadar assignment and don’t think I succeeded.
I read the book excerpts, and they are very good! He explains things well. But understanding music does not give him (or anyone) the ability to objectively assess how good a song is. As my grad school advisor always said, “Good for what? Good for whom?”
As I’ve mentioned in the last reply I highly recommend reading the book (half the book is available for free on his site) to get a full picture and context of the importance of what he’s presenting and why it’s both valid and relevant.
I disagree and highly recommend you fully read both the GSSL about information and the How Music Really Works excerpts on his site for the context of the importance of what the author is getting at (half the book is for free and the rest is via either pdf or text, avoid Amazon and look directly at the site instead because resellers have overpriced things). Even experts such as yourself could use an educational top-up :)
The phrase “intrinsic excellence” is the giveaway not to take this seriously. It gives the lie to the claim later on that the list isn’t meant to be definitive. If these guys think that they have identified intrinsic excellence, then they think they are being objective. They aren’t. Excellence is not intrinsic. It lives in the listener’s mind. Pretending otherwise is a bad look for an educator.
The book looks good, I’m sure this guy and the scholars and critics are all well-informed and thoughtful, but there is no committee you could form that could definitively assess which songs are the best, because it’s subjectivity all the way down. It’s just not a good idea, it doesn’t matter how well it’s executed.
Here’s an excerpt for your information:
“The Gold Standard Song List’s main purpose is educational—a resource for readers of How Music REALLY Works!, 2nd Edition, which cites a large number of the GSSL songs as examples to illustrate excellence in various aspects of songwriting and performing.
Songs were selected both for intrinsic excellence in the context of the genre and for their educational value to songwriters and performers seeking to improve their skills in various genres of popular music.
Songwriting doesn’t get any better than the songs on the GSSL. However, the GSSL is emphatically not intended as a comprehensive or definitive list of the 5,000 “greatest songs of all time.
“How Music REALLY Works!, 2nd Edition cites hundreds of Gold Standard songs, groups of songs, and recorded performances to illustrate points of excellence in both songwriting artistry and technical skill.”
From what I’ve read they are a collection of music scholars and critics. The author published it as a companion to his first book “How Music Really Works” which is an essential resource for explaining the foundations of music and songwriting and how they affect the brain and create listener interest using empirical research and presented in an easy to read format for the layperson: https://www.howmusicreallyworks.com/
I’m surprised you haven’t heard of the book? The author has a background in music, biology and genetics, sociology and musicology research related subjects that look to be expanded in his upcoming book: https://www.songmatrix.com/
I am broadly hostile to the idea of a definitive list of “great” songs. First of all, it only ever means “songs that I, the person making the list, think are great.” If I, the person making the list, am claiming that my list is objectively or definitively correct, that just indicates a lack of humility on my part. Second of all, what is this list supposed to prove? “If you agree that these songs are the best, you are as smart and sophisticated as I am.” Or, “If you don’t agree that these songs are the best, then you are not as smart or sophisticated as I am.” If the goal is education, this is bad pedagogy. Telling people that they like the wrong music is not effective. It is effective to say, “I love these songs and here is why”, but claiming that “I love these songs and they are therefore the best” is off-putting.
The criteria are interesting but ultimately it comes down to the tastes of “the H.U.M.S. Committee”, whoever they are. I assume, the author and half a dozen of his friends?
According to the publisher of the list, there’s criteria about what songs were included and why. Highly recommended reading: https://www.goldstandardsonglist.com/
Quality and excellence according to who? What songs are we comparing? Every song that was written or released? Everything in the top 40? Everything in every genre or just mainstream pop? Or are we comparing the best songs of each era? But then best by what standard? Like, I think there is more craft in a single randomly chosen Kendrick Lamar verse than in all of Led Zeppelin’s lyrics put together, so can I argue that lyrics are better since 2000? Or is that an unfair comparison? But then what comparison is fair?
If you compare the songs being released since the 2000s-2020s to the first century from 1900 to 1999, there is a dramatic decrease in quality and songwriting excellence. There is a fantastic resource called the “Gold Standard Song List” that’s online and available for free by Roedy Black Publishing (should be the first result in a google search). When you look at the list of songs on there, you’ll see the dramatic difference in quality and attention to craftsmanship in the writing.
Yeah, I don’t think there’s anything inherently good about complexity.
As you can see from all the Grateful Dead analysis on this blog, I am deeply interested in 1960s and 70s rock and have a lot of affection for it, but I don’t think it’s any better than anything that went before it or came after it. I appreciate the spirit of adventure in the hippies’ music, but their actual playing can be abominable. The standards for musicianship are hugely higher now than they were back then. I also don’t think there’s any direct relationship between complexity and quality. I am a hip-hop lover, and one of the things I love about it is its economy, directness and focus. It can make rock sound self-indulgent and shallow. Is the culture in general better or worse now than it was in 1970? I couldn’t say. I wouldn’t go back, on balance.
What is the difference between critical and structural? If the notes on the page are the structural elements of a Kendrick Lamar song, then it has no structure at all. There are certainly people who believe that to be true, but I am not one of them. The idea that one musical parameter is more fundamental than another is a cultural convention. It seems silly to me to apply the conventions of Western European historical music when trying to understand rap, it’s like analyzing Beethoven in terms of his percussion parts.
Pop can be dumb and crappy musically,not all, Then look at some one chord BLUES, it can be intense, enough too make you cry.J.L Hooker, or J.Hendrix on slow version of Voodoo Chile,,one chord,a lot of pop guitar players couldn`t touch some of that one chord stuff, ya ya..
> The authors recognize: “our focus on MIDI data inherently limits the scope of our analysis to structural aspects of music, such as note transitions and melodic complexity. Other critical dimensions, such as lyrics, timbre, production techniques, and cultural context, remain unexplored.” In Bach, note transitions and melodic complexity are indeed the structural aspects of music. Is that true for Jimi Hendrix or Kendrick Lamar? I would argue that for those artists, the other critical dimensions are the structural elements.
While yes, the MIDI analysis is very limited, I don’t quite agree with this. I would say that eg timbre, phrasing, flow and cultural context are essential in Hendrix and Lamar and could be called “critical” aspects, that’s not the same as saying they are “structural”. I don’t think these aspects could be called structural, except maybe timbre in some cases.
I found this to be a very interesting column. My feeling is that a lot of things are getting simpler. Nicholas Carr wrote a fascinating book about fifteen years ago, called “The Shallows: What the Internet is doing to Our Brains. His thesis is that click culture is shortening attention spans and leading to less deep analysis of things. And more recent writers are stating that the advent of AI is going to greatly accelerate these trends. Anna Lembke, in her book “Dopamine Nation” addresses the same subject in a slightly different way, more from a psychiatric viewpoint. As an amateur musician, I know that to really learn to play music requires a lot of what the Germans refer to as “sitzfleisch,” or the ability to put your butt in a chair and spend a lot of time learning something. As David Crosby said, “You have to put in your ten thousand hours to become a decent guitar player.” My feeling is that fewer people have the ability or willingness to do this. I am 69 years old, and was at Woodstock, and I have gotten used to the eye rolls when I give my humble opinion that in the 60’s and early seventies the level of musicianship and talent was higher in pop and rock than it is today. “Old farts always think their music was better.” Of course we have great musicians and song writers today, but I feel that it is not the same.
So I was pleasantly surprised when I saw a video on you tube by FIL of “Wings of Pegasus.” He is extremely knowledgeable about music and analyzes different types of performances. He has a Woodstock series, in which he analyzes musical performance from the 69 festival. He analyzed a performance by Johnny Winter, and stated that in his opinion the level of musical talent was a lot higher back then, and there was a “deeper bench.” And FIL is a younger guy who was not born when Woodstock took place.
Just sayin’.
Is music research getting dumber, because more mathematicians are analysing it? Has the number of non-musicians writing academic papers about music increased in the last 50 years? Has the number of nonsensical statements in music research studies increased at the same rate?