Music used to be a largely evolutionary thing back in the days of Johann Sebastian Bach and the Baroque era. The piano is believed to have been invented in 1655 by Bartolomeo Cristofori, about 30 years before Bach was born.
Bach explored the piano and strung notes together in a way that started the concept of two-handed counterpart and his "Inventions" were aptly named. He was simply inventing songs, and as the years progressed he got pretty good at it. Several composers came next, Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, Chopin, Liszt, Rachmaninoff, Joplin, and eventually John Williams and Hans Zimmer as we know them today.
Music composition has always catered to the ears of its listeners, and many composers didn't reach fame until after their death. The most infamous rumor I heard growing up was that Mozart was buried in a pile with other slaves --- this of course is an exaggeration to the fact that he died without any living heirs to bury him and was put in a pauper grave. That's not the point, however.
My point here is that the most dramatic and least celebrated classical musicians and composers were also the most complex. In 2019, classical music followings and interest overall are WAY way down, and that's always been my favorite type of music to play on the piano. Sergei Rachmaninoff, my favorite composer from the Romantic era, is not nearly as well known as Taylor Swift or Blake Shelton.
Here is a Rachmaninoff piece that is complex on a rhythmic, music theory, and accuracy level:
I play this piece (will put my version here soon!), and it always astounds me at the level of intimacy and precision it takes to play. One layer starts, another vanishes, another melody restarts either slightly higher or lower than the previous and interweaves music into a cohesive story--- to go from the experience of truly understanding the inner workings and harmonious nature of music to a place where we are essentially dumbing it down for the masses is a MAJOR TRAVESTY! So hear me out, this is my problem:
The world's top musicians are NOT the most musically talented they are the most well UNDERSTOOD when it comes to story, music, number of instruments, and the natural rise-and-fall of song progression.
This sociological factor has made a lot of people rich, but also fundamentally stagnant. There have always been changes in what's considered popular music. 1920's had the Charleston and marching style band music. The 40's progressed into crooners like Frank Sinatra and James Dean and the invention of Big Bang music. The 50's sparked Rock 'n' Roll music with Elvis Presley at the helm. The Beatles and The Beach Boys came to light in the 60's furthering the rock genre. The 70's had disco and really started to form the concept of "pop music" as we know it today, as well as the development of melodic metal bands. The 80's brought Michael Jackson and true pop music with heavy metal starting to form. The 90's had boy bands like N'Sync & the Backstreet Boys, Brittney Spears and Christina Aguilera plus Nirvana and different rock styles finally settling into their genres. In the 2000's rap, R&B, and hip hop entered the same realm as popular music and we've stayed lumped there ever since.
In the 2010's we started really just taking on any and all music that appealed to a mass-audience and labeling it "pop music" --- and there's our problem. Pop music can only ever truly have one definition which is 'the music that is most popular given a specific moment in time', and that gives pop music a less-than vague description. The moment in time tends to be defined by a year like 2017 or 2018 (I guess it's just easier for us to lump it that way for our memory's sake).
Pop music may have started on a napkin with no expectation of making it to a big stage, and then suddenly it's a huge hit. Other big names flop out by making music that is no longer relatable to their audience... and even others just massively disappoint because they lip-sync at concerts and don't make any of their own music. Music is evolving in the same way as humans... the only difference is that music is becoming dumber rather than smarter. (Yes, I do still think humans are getting smarter!) Our technology continues to evolve, but the sound of music generally stays the same.
We are creatures of habit, and if you consider music to be on a massive bell curve than roughly 68.2% of all music falls within the "normal" spectrum of music (i.e. home guitarists and singers). Another 13.6% make it out to be exceptional, but still rather similar to the "normal" spectrum. And finally, the 2.1% that make it BIG. There is a small section beyond exceptional that are the 0.1% and challenge and expand the musical genres they are in. This is the process by which music evolves.
A band like Led Zeppelin had such a unique sound that they developed the genre of hard rock/metal. The thing is, they were really just using elements that already existed in songs before Stairway to Heaven or Black Dog, but they expanded on the more "heavy" aspects of rock songs to garner a different sound, and it worked! They are written on many musicians biographies as an Influence for why they sound the way they do.
This brings me to the focal question of this blog: Why is music getting dumber?
The answer is simple, it's like asking "why don't we use VCR's anymore?" Smart music is obsolete. If I broke many songs down using music theory, you'd see the same things over and over in today's music:
[Verse 1]
[Chorus]
[Verse 2]
[Chorus]
[Verse 3]
[Bridge]
[Chorus]
[Chorus]
[End]
E major: I - IV - V - iii
(different chord tones used in a "key" of a song that make sense to the listener)
This is a normal song progression, but musically boring --- This would be musically equivalent to playing a D major then a G major then an A major chord on guitar and adding color with and F major. It sounds good on the guitar, but it's the same song thousands of guitarist play because of it's simplicity. The difference comes in the way you strum the notes or the melody of the vocals and lyrics.
Here is the musical progression of on of 2018's pop hits by Post Malone - "Pyscho":
I - I - I - I - VI - VI - VI - VI - I - I - I - I
Just to show that I'm not biased, here's "The Middle" by Zedd, Maren Morris, & Grey:
I - I - I - I - iii - iii - iii - VI - I - I - I - I - iii - iii - iii - VI
Compare this to the first section Chopin's Ballad No. 1 which has the following chord progression:
ii - vii - IV - I - V - I - ii - vii - I - V - I - iii - vi
I had to stop after the two minute --- there's too many changes to annotate.
Jazz is a genre you either get or don't get. It's always been labeled as a dying genre. That's because it's complicated using seventh chords, differing musical timing, and off-notes to add color to a piece. Where a musician may hear music, someone else may just hear noise.
Avant-garde rock is anti-music that offers little more than noise in itself. It doesn't offer smooth chords, rhythm, or even synchronization --- go listen to it for 5 seconds and you'll understand it immediately. Some people like it, even. Most people don't. This is what I imagine a person hears when they don't like a song, anti-music. You feel fooled and tricked by not knowing what's coming next. Music has a certain intuitive "next step" when you're composing. If you, as the listener, aren't synchronized with each step (or note) you're listening to you're not likely to enjoy the song.
So is you're ear musically savvy or musically dumb? It doesn't really matter, all that matters is you enjoy the music you listen to and that it comething you can easily comprehend whether it's a friend's plangent strumming on a guitar or the virtuous nature of Edvard Grieg at the symphony some evening. They both provoke the same statement --- this song is my song.
I do want to clarify, that just because a song is musically boring in terms of chord progression does not make it bad! I enjoy "The Middle" and listen to pop music. I just wish that complicated music would make a comeback.
Hozier's "Movement" is one of the most (ironically) moving pieces I've heard in a long time, musically speaking. It changes from sevenths to major keys to minors, and travels the entire scale throughout the song. While it has a chorus and follows the traditional Verse/Chorus/Bridge structure, it has tons of reasons to stay interested throughout the song. Can't wait to go see him in concert!