Hip Hop saved music... lol

[Van-Blurten]

It makes you wonder if research students are all speed balling :)

 

From the BBC

 

 

The evolution of western pop music, spanning from 1960 to 2010, has been analysed by scientists.

A team from Queen Mary University of London and Imperial College London looked at more than 17,000 songs from the US Billboard Hot 100.

They found three music revolutions - in 1964, 1983 and 1991 - and traced the loss of blues chords from the charts, as well as the birth of disco.

The study is published in the Royal Society Open Science journal.

The team also refuted claims that pop music is starting to sound the same.

Dr Matthias Mauch, from Queen Mary University of London, said: "What is really fascinating to see is how has diversity has changed - we can measure whether the charts have become more bland.

 

I think that hip-hop saved the charts Dr Matthias Mauch, Queen Mary University of London

"Many people claim music is getting worse and worse, and we didn't really find anything like that. There is not an overall trend for the composition, the musical ingredients of the charts, to become less diverse."

The researchers looked at the different characteristics of music, including harmony, chords changes and timbres (the tonal quality of the music), and then analysed how they changed over time.

In the early 1960s, chords called dominant sevenths, found in jazz and blues started to die out.

Instead, in 1964 the invasion of British bands - from the Beatles to the Rolling Stones - introduced a radical new rocky sound.

The researchers say this was this the first of three stylistic revolutions - periods of extremely rapid change within the charts.

New technology, synthesisers, samplers and drum machines, drove a second major style shift in 1983.

 

The third, in 1991, came about when rap and hip-hop went mainstream.

"The third revolution is the biggest," explained Dr Mauch.

"This is so prominent in our analysis, because we looked at harmony - and rap and hip-hop don't use a lot of harmony. The emphasis is on speech sounds and rhythm.

"This was a real revolution: suddenly it was possible that you had a pop song without harmony."

The researchers say that some musical changes were slower to become embedded within the charts, but still had a big impact.

"The minor seventh chords were introduced through funk, soul and disco in the 1970s," said Dr Mauch.

"That didn't cause a revolution, but these chords were not present before - and they haven't gone away since. New songs still heavily use these chords."

The researchers found that music constantly evolved and change throughout the 50-year period.

However, there was a blip - the introduction of arena rock in the 1980s meant that, for a while, music lacked diversity.

Dr Mauch said: "A lot of hair metal and stadium rock, like Bon Jovi and Bruce Spingsteen, came into the charts, and they had a bigger share of the overall charts.

"But then rap and hip-hop came in. I think that hip-hop saved the charts."

 

I think we can all agree that there were various stages of music prominence, but man hip hop and rap basically stripped the music out of music, used a beat machine with loads of bass and talked over the top of it.

 

I call for drug free universities :)

[firekorn]

I think we can all agree that there were various stages of music prominence, but man hip hop and rap basically stripped the music out of music, used a beat machine with loads of bass and talked over the top of it.

 

I call for drug free universities :)

 

I think we can agree that bashing one genre is not a good way to go...

 

But it's true that saying hip-hop saved the music is a really weird statement, in fact saying that any genre is saving music is a weird statement.

[Van-Blurten]

 

I think we can agree that bashing one genre is not a good way to go...

 

But it's true that saying hip-hop saved the music is a really weird statement, in fact saying that any genre is saving music is a weird statement.

 

 

It wasn't my intention to bash any type of music, just to bring attention to the absurdity of the statement.

My music collection contains such greats as chants and dances of native americans, benedictine monks and on and on, I don't think I can in any seriousness bash any type of music :)

[firekorn]

@@Van-Blurten

 

but man hip hop and rap basically stripped the music out of music

 

That's not bashing?

 

I'm not questionning your music taste and i agree that the statement is absurd but you are bashing (or at least it looks like it) in your comment. Just pointing out a fact.

[Van-Blurten]

@@Van-Blurten

 

but man hip hop and rap basically stripped the music out of music

 

That's not bashing?

 

I'm not questionning your music taste and i agree that the statement is absurd but you are bashing (or at least it looks like it) in your comment. Just pointing out a fact.

 

That's not bashing, its a statement of fact. With the exception of the bass beat, they omitted practically all others parts music and used vocals to fill the gap in rhythm.

[Amin]

I'm not trying to bash any genre but IMO the rock scene has to undo what grunge did to it in the 90s, after that it can reclaim the charts and "save" music just like hip-hop did :lol:

[firekorn]

It doesn't mean that it is less musical even if there is less part in it. Classical music is a perfect representation of that with the multiple composition you can find for piano/any other instrument, for a reason that i miss doing a voice/drum/bass is sundenly less musical than a simple piano/voice composition...

[Antithez]

I'm not trying to bash any genre but IMO the rock scene has to undo what grunge did to it in the 90s, after that it can reclaim the charts and "save" music just like hip-hop did :lol:

 

You're right. And what it's funny is that grunge had to undo what hair-metal did to rock to access the charts. Every new genre is a reaction to the one in place.

 

Hip-hop, like all the genres before them, uses past music to make his own. So it brought something fresh, using old music, like all new genres before.

But it's true that a lot of actual music has evolve because of hip-hop. Just for example, the black Keys have a more bassy sound, it has influence metal in this nu-metal thing (though it was 10 years ago). And its influence is bigger in pop music. Compare the mix in a 90s big single like Wet Wet Wet "love is all around" and now, any coldplay song. The bass and drumkick are in front of the rest in the mix.

 

What it's strange is they're not saying it saves the music, but it saves the charts. And for me, people will always buy or stream or listen to music, whatever it is.

 

And i call for more drug in university.  :D