Modern Music： All Sounds Loud and Alike

It is a familiar complaint from those of a certain age： today’s pop music is louder and all the songs sound the same. It turns out they are right.

Spanish researchers carried out a computer analysis of the key features of almost half a million pop， rock and hip hop songs from 1955 to 2010. The Research shows that modern recordings are louder than those of the 1950s and 1960s. They are also blander， with less variety in terms of chords and melodies.

This is thought to be not simply due to better recording equipment but an attempt to make music that catches more attention and is suitable for playing in discos.

Researcher Martin Haro said， “Nowadays， it is more about relaxing， you don’t want to think about what the music is telling you. In the 1950s and 1960s， music was more artistic and for getting messages， things about politics.”

“However， music can only get so loud before it becomes simply unlistenable， and so the same theory argues that this is where musical styles begin to evolve： performers and composers have to find new types of music rather than make their music novel by simply making it louder， and so this is how new musical styles come about.”

analysis分析

bland平淡無(wú)奇的

in terms of在……方面

chord和弦

melody旋律

attempt企圖

disco迪斯科舞廳

artistic有美感的

unlistenable不堪入耳

evolve演變

composer作曲家

novel新奇的