I must admit, I am not an expert in pop music to put it mildly. I listen to other things. However even from my perspective, what I have heard of pop music sounds like its gone down in quality in the last decade or two.
I have noticed three trends in modern pop music: 1, It's more bland and with less variety. 2, It's more depressing. 3, It's over sexualized even when the context is not appropriate.
There seems to be evidence in studies for all three points.
I can't easily find a study on music being more sexualized but I have noticed that modern pop music listened by young girls is oddly sexualized. I had a family member who wanted to take their 6 your old daughter to a concert of a famous female pop star when I looked them up, the content was surprising sexual for someone with young girls as their fans. And when lyrics are sexual even though the music style sounds like it is not appropriate for that. Why is that?
I can understand music being more depressing (it may be a sign of the times) but I don't know why people lapped up music that is lower in quality. Why has that happened?
Edit:
I just found this paper:
So it seems like the 2000s brought on the beginning of this change. The paper was written in 2014, so I suspect it's more pronounced now.
I have noticed three trends in modern pop music: 1, It's more bland and with less variety. 2, It's more depressing. 3, It's over sexualized even when the context is not appropriate.
There seems to be evidence in studies for all three points.
Thus, beyond the global perspective, we observe a number of trends in the evolution of contemporary popular music. These point towards less variety in pitch transitions, towards a consistent homogenization of the timbral palette, and towards louder and, in the end, potentially poorer volume dynamics.
NEW YORK (AP) — A study of hundreds of thousands of popular songs over the past three decades has found a downward sonic trend in happiness and an increase in sadness, as the chirpy band Wham! gave way to the moody Sam Smith.
I can't easily find a study on music being more sexualized but I have noticed that modern pop music listened by young girls is oddly sexualized. I had a family member who wanted to take their 6 your old daughter to a concert of a famous female pop star when I looked them up, the content was surprising sexual for someone with young girls as their fans. And when lyrics are sexual even though the music style sounds like it is not appropriate for that. Why is that?
I can understand music being more depressing (it may be a sign of the times) but I don't know why people lapped up music that is lower in quality. Why has that happened?
Edit:
I just found this paper:
The study sample consisted of the top 40 songs of Billboard Year End Hot 100 single songs for every 5 years from 1971 to 2011 (N = 360). There was a linear decrease over time in the proportion of songs with a love theme and in the proportion of songs with a combination of lust and love themes. In contrast, there was a significant increase in the proportion of songs with a theme focusing on lust in the absence of love.
Hall et al. (2012) found that sexualization did not increase from 1959 to 1999, then jumped substantially in 2009; consistent with this pattern, we observed a notable increase in lust only themes from 2001 onward. Our findings build on those of Hall et al.'s (2012) by suggesting that the increase in objectifying sexual content is not a function of a general increase in sexual content, but rather stems from a drop in romantic content and a disentangling of sexual content from romantic content.
So it seems like the 2000s brought on the beginning of this change. The paper was written in 2014, so I suspect it's more pronounced now.
Last edited: