Althouse: "In 2017, a Californian mathematician called Natalia Komarova was so shocked by the negativity of the songs her daughter listened to, she decided to investigate."

July 9, 2020

"In 2017, a Californian mathematician called Natalia Komarova was so shocked by the negativity of the songs her daughter listened to, she decided to investigate."

"Using the research database AcousticBrainz - which allows you to examine musical properties like tempo, key and mood - she and her colleagues at the University of California Irvine examined half a million songs released in the UK between 1985 and 2015. They found a significant downturn in the positivity of pop songs. Where 1985 saw upbeat tracks like Wham's Freedom, 2015 favoured more sombre music by Sam Smith and Adele. '"Happiness" is going down, "brightness" is going down, "sadness" is going up,; said Komarova of her results, 'and at the same time, the songs are becoming more "danceable" and more "party-like."' So it looks like, while the overall mood is becoming less happy, people seem to want to forget it all and dance." Inother words, Komorvoa had identified the rise of the 'sad banger,' a song whose instrumental sets you up for good times, only to sucker punch your heart with lyrics of Biblical sadness.... By 2017, the average tempo of a hit single in the UK was 104 beats per minute, down from a high of 124bpm in 2009. In the US, where hip-hop is more prevalent on the charts, it fell as low as 90.5 bpm.... Just three years later, the trend is in reverse...."

The average tempo of the Top 20 in 2020 is 122 beats per minute.

From "Pop music is getting faster (and happier)" (BBC).

32 comments:

JPS said...: Reminds me of Rob, in High Fidelity:

"What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?"; 7/9/20, 5:00 AM
Darrell said...: A sure sign that Trump will get a second term.; 7/9/20, 5:45 AM
JMR said...: If you're interested in the the cycles of pop songs, you might check out Akinokure's website. http://akinokure.blogspot.com/?m=1; 7/9/20, 5:46 AM
Heartless Aztec said...: BPM click tracks in studio headphones as an indication of societies happiness index?; 7/9/20, 5:54 AM
Kai Akker said...: Anyone who can read through that hefty dose of painfully trivial facts is more devoted than I. I got to Robyn and then some LGBTQ reference for which there was no context and gave up. I scrolled down to the end and was amazed to discover I had only made it one quarter of the way through, at best. Wham!; 7/9/20, 6:03 AM
tim in vermont said...: I am always interested when I hear of a female “mathematician” since they seem to be a very rare breed, but this doesn’t sound like the kind of stuff a mathematician does. A mathematician came up with the basis for the fast Fourier transform, for example, and computer “scientists” created the working code from that work, and a lady who knows how to use these tools applied them to a problem that interested her. Maybe you could say it’s “applied math” but applied math is math that is done and dusted applied to real world problems. Nothing horrifies a mathematician more than for somebody to find a use for his work, is an old joke a math teacher once told in class.; 7/9/20, 6:04 AM
Laslo Spatula said...: Happiness is a Warm Gun BPM: 139.

Higher than I expected.

I am Laslo.; 7/9/20, 6:15 AM
Earnest Prole said...: If you're investigating a downturn in positivity, perhaps you should check out Neil Young's "Tonight's the Night," Van Morrison's "TB Sheets," and Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit."; 7/9/20, 6:33 AM
Kevin said...: New York, London, Paris, Munich

Everybody talk about pop musik; 7/9/20, 6:48 AM
Wince said...: The Josie and the Pussycats movie cleverly explained it 19 years ago...

"The Chinese guy knows what I'm talking about."

[Wink]; 7/9/20, 7:06 AM
gilbar said...: People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss.

I always like it, when people complain about violence in rap music
Are there a LOT of rap songs about
shooting a man in Reno; Just to watch him die?
driving around looking for your rival's car, so that you can vandalize it?
pouring kerosene on your man and his girlfriend while they are sleeping and lighting it?
Early one mornin' while makin' the rounds, I took a shot of cocaine and I shot my woman down?
I went right home and I went to bed I stuck that lovin' .44 beneath my head?; 7/9/20, 7:31 AM
Fritz said...: JPS said...
Reminds me of Rob, in High Fidelity:

"What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?"

Oh, a Taylor Swift fan?; 7/9/20, 7:33 AM
Churchy LaFemme: said...: You take the grey skies out of my way (hoo, hoo)
You make the sun shine brighter than Doris Day
Turned a bright spark into a flame (yeah, yeah)
My beats per minute never been the same
'Cause you're my lady, I'm your fool (ha-ha, ha-ha)
It makes me crazy when you act so cruel (ha-ha, ha-ha)
Come on, baby, let's not fight (ha-ha, ha-ha)
We'll go dancing, everything will be all right (ha-ha); 7/9/20, 7:39 AM
Sebastian said...: "Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?"

Now imagine the misery of hip-hop.; 7/9/20, 7:48 AM
tim in vermont said...: “The Josie and the Pussycats movie cleverly explained it 19 years ago...”

Highly underrated film. Really.; 7/9/20, 7:48 AM
Fernandinande said...: '"Happiness" is going down, "brightness" is going down, "sadness" is going up,; ... 'and at the same time, the songs are becoming more "danceable" and more "party-like."'

It's almost as if their metrics don't measure what they think they're measuring.

And oh, my, those example songs sure were boring, as if studio musicians were playing songs designed and written by committees and intended for little kids' birthday parties.; 7/9/20, 7:56 AM
Leland said...: I was in a band that played lots of military marches, usually at 107bpm, but the nominal rate for Washington Post March is 120bpm. Speaking of music, Washington Post, and feel-good: The secret math behind feel-good music - from Oct 2015.; 7/9/20, 8:06 AM
Iman said...: The average tempo of the Top 20 in 2020 is 122 beats per minute.

To match the speed of our going to Hell in a Handbasket; 7/9/20, 8:07 AM
MadisonMan said...: I always wonder why people choose start/end points in analyses. Why not start back in the 70s? Because Brit Punk Rock was too negative and you couldn't prove your thesis? Just bump your timeline start up into the cheerful mid-80s.; 7/9/20, 9:02 AM
The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...: Nothing new. Some of the pop music songs of the '40's and '50's are pure exercises in emotional masochism.; 7/9/20, 9:20 AM
rcocean said...: When I go into the coffee shops for my AM jolt, the baristas usually have some rap song blaring away. They lyrics - are far as I can make out - are usually quite crude, something along the lines "I'm going to do you, I'm going to screw you, bump, bump".
Rinse and Repeat 20 times.

the songs have a good beat, and are probably more enjoyable if you don't speak English.; 7/9/20, 9:33 AM
NCMoss said...: Frank Zappa had some bizarre yet upbeat music. Don't eat the yellow snow (137 BPM). "Great Googly-Moogly"!; 7/9/20, 9:34 AM
rcocean said...: Feeling Groovy vs. Sitting on the Dock of the bay. Boomer happiness vs. sadness.

Didn't the 50's have a lot of sad songs about Teens dying in car cashes?; 7/9/20, 9:35 AM
Iman said...: I wore my. 44 so long, I done made my shoulder sore.; 7/9/20, 9:45 AM
reader said...: A few years ago at a DAR meeting there was a presenter that discussed WWII and music propaganda. The familiar songs (for the German soldiers) were changed in tempo and tone to slowly eat at the morale of the soldiers. Marlene Dietrich was involved.

...

2. Marlene the Spy

In 1937, Dietrich – who was then a German citizen – was approached by Nazi representatives and asked to star in propaganda films for the Third Reich. Supposedly, Adolf Hitler himself personally requested that she support the cause. Dietrich, who was staunchly anti-Nazi, refused. Two years later, she renounced her German citizenship and applied for U.S. citizenship – and the Nazis branded her as a traitor. In British wartime radio broadcasts sent over German airwaves, Dietrich spoke directly to her former countrymen: “Hitler is an idiot.”

Dietrich also worked with the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (O.S.S.), the predecessor of today’s CIA, to record a series of anti-Nazi albums, using propaganda to weaken the morale of Nazi troops. The broadcasts of these songs and interviews were meant to create tension between the Axis Powers. The U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey “discovered that the programs were just as devastating to German morale as an air raid.” As these broadcasts continued, more and more Germans and Italians began to doubt Nazi and fascist propaganda, and despite Nazi efforts to outlaw the albums, Dietrich’s “Lili Marlene” song was a hit among Nazi troops.

https://www.uso.org/stories/2414-marlene-dietrich-most-patriotic-women-in-world-war-ii; 7/9/20, 10:31 AM
Birkel said...: Movies were dirtier and grittier in the 1970s when LA and NYC were going to shit.
And then Reagan brought joy and optimism: less Deer Hunter, more Top Gun.

Now that LA and NYC are going to lose a few million inhabitants, perhaps they will have less influence on our culture as they once again return to their primal state of shittiness.; 7/9/20, 10:37 AM
Yancey Ward said...: She blinded me with science.; 7/9/20, 10:49 AM
reader said...: The 1950s songs were part of the splatter platter.; 7/9/20, 11:03 AM
William50 said...: Hey Joe, where you goin' with that gun in your hand?
I said hey Joe where you goin' with that gun in your hand?
I'm going out to find my woman now, she's been runnin' around with some other man
I said I'm going out and find my woman now she's been runnin' around with some other man

Well hey Joe now what are you gonna do?
Well hey Joe tell me what are you gonna do?
Well I guess I'll shoot my woman now, that's what I'll do
Well I guess I'll shoot them both before I'm through

Hey Joe by The Leaves; 7/9/20, 11:18 AM
Oso Negro said...: There was a clear point of inflection in pop music between 1967 and 1968.; 7/9/20, 11:19 AM
Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...: "...A Californian mathematician called Natalia Komarova...."

What then is the name of the California[n] mathematician?; 7/9/20, 11:46 AM
Leora said...: I wonder how it correlates to the stock market.; 7/9/20, 11:58 AM