Evolution of pop music, 1960 to 2010

Queen Mary University of London and Imperial College London scientists have conducted a study based on 17,000 Top 100 Billboard hits over 50 years.
The study was led by Dr Mattias Mauch.
In brief the study concludes that there were three revolutionary periods: 1964, with the so called Brit invasion; 1983, with new technology such as synthesisers and drum machines; and 1991, when rap and hip hop went mainstream, a after funk and disco had introduced new chord sequences earlier.
I haven't read the whole study but it is bound to be controversial, including on whether groups like the Beatles were genuinely revolutionary, or carried on an already developing trend towards their kind of sound; the role of mega sellers and stadium fillers like Bon Jovi and Springsteen in the 80s; and whether rap and hip hop actually saved the charts.
See the BBC website for the story. Regards.

 

In terms of "modern" popular music i don't see how you can start in 1960. The British Beat Group revolution started in 1958 courtesy of Cliff Richard (yuck) and The Drifters/Shadows.
All of the kind of popular music we think of from that period was the result of the rock n roll / rhythm and blues scene in the USA in the 50s. Those were far more revolutionary times than 1964.
Maybe 1966 was more revolutionary than 1964 because it marks the point where the UK and US bands really started to move away from their 1950s influences and began creating their own new music.
I guess we could argue about this for the rest of our lives.
Did funk and disco really introduce "new chord sequences" - anyone care to expand on that theory - sounds like bollocks to me.

 

Do you have a link to the article? I'm a lazy bark.

 

Agree about 1966. Ignoring the revolution brought about by psychedelics (marijuana to acid) is a serious mistake. The idea of experimentation by using the recording studio as an instrument created a new and very modern approach to production and composition No ,say Tomorrow Never Knows, no Hip-hop.
I might add that funk began with James Brown but it is the tripped out Jimi Hendrix and 1966-67 Sly and the Family Stone that tore the envelope

 

Yes, but...did Mr Mauch read this thread, too?
Seriously speaking, the evolution and the history of pop music currently fascinates me a lot.
Thanks to @Dhreview16 for this post.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-32599916

Lots of findings that people here will not like.... the closing sentence is probably going to make some people weep

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

 

You can download the whole original research in .pdf format (29 pages) here.

 

Thanks Dhreview16! An interesting read!

 

This study contains some very interesting food for thought, for example (based on this research):

• In the early 1960s, chords called dominant sevenths, found in jazz and blues started to die out.
  
• In 1964 the invasion of British bands - from the Beatles to the Rolling Stones - introduced a radical new sound.
  
• The minor seventh chords were introduced through funk, soul and disco in the 1970s.
  
• New technology, synthesisers, samplers and drum machines, drove a second major style shift in 1983.
  
• The introduction of arena rock in the 1980s meant that, for a while, music lacked diversity.
  
• In 1991 rap and hip-hop went mainstream: this was a real revolution because rap and hip-hop don't use a lot of harmony. The emphasis is on speech sounds and rhythm.

It is worth mentioning that the research refers only to the investigation of the US Billboard Chart from the period that goes from 1960 to 2010.
This research does not refer to the whole history of pop music around the world.

 

Haven't read the study yet, but I don't think anything about these statements or observations should be anything other than obvious and non controversial when it come to the history of top charting pop music in the US from 1960 to the present.

The one thing I'm not sure about -- and maybe it's a matter of not understanding definitions being used in the study -- is the assertion about arena rock. To me arena rock, when it comes to literal rock in arenas as well as to a certain style of bombastic rock music, emerged in the '70s. I think of Led Zeppelin and Boston and Queen as arena rock bands, maybe the epitome of arena rock bands. If the study is using the phrase to describe the style of music played by Journey and REO Speedwagon and Heart in the early '80s, well, maybe that was something distinct as a style, but again I think no only did the bands originate in the '70s but the style -- which btw, I abhor -- I think is one that Toto really pioneered as much as anybody, another band founded in and with its first hit in the '70s (albeit the late '70s). I'm not sure I agree with the notion that arena rock was introduced in the '80s.

 

Sorry to be a cynic, but in 2015, is this kind of a study really where science is headed?
Who pays Dr. Mauch and his "researchers" anyway? The BBC? The RIAA? Tabloids?

Does this "pop" science research really do any good for the world? I mean, there was just an ebola outbreak last year, for example. Pop music, ultimately, is just entertainment - right?

 

It has nothing to do with this topic, but I can not resist: "Arena Rock is The New Wave" was etched in the dead-wax of the 1st pressing of the album "Double Nickels On The Dime" by Minutemen (1984).
Sorry for this useless digression.

 

aren't dominant sevenths like for example c e g bflat or g b d f ? Can anyone show me how those started to die out in the early sixties especially given the rise of the influence of Chicago blues on the Brit invasion bands and rock n roll in general. I mean The Beatles et al used them all the time on covers and their own songs.

How was what the Stones did in 1964 in any way radical ? I'm not sure The Beatles were all that radical either - they were brilliant but in many ways they were a summing up of what had gone before with a British Beat Group thing - not really radical compared to say The Crickets or The Shirelles or The Everly Brothers. Now Tomorrow Never Knows - that was and is radical.

minor seventh chords introduced thru funk soul and disco ? - Brian Wilson used them lots as did many others. They're a great device for opening up harmonic possibilities.

I don't have a problem with people doing this kind of research but if those are some of the conclusions then they must have fed the wrong data in.

 

It is an interesting idea, but I think, as do others here, that some trends were ignored, some mis-identified, and some observations wrong. As Ash points above, dominant sevenths did not disappear from 60s music. She's A Woman, dominant sevenths. Wolly Bully, dominant sevenths, She's About A Mover, dominant Sevenths, Heart of Stone, , Shapes of Things, dominant sevenths. Then later you have the blues rock explosion, and there were dominant sevenths everywhere (except, apparently, the Billboard charts in the US).

I think the major revolution with the Beatles era was that bands began writing their own hits and album fillers more as a rule than as an exception. I know Buddy Holly and Eddie Cochrane did this in the late 50's, but that seed sprouted in the 60s.

I do agree about the major shifts happening when they said, but I also agree that the use of the studio as an instrument and tool to be used in the composition is an important revolution that happened in 1967 - just as important as the introduction of synths and drum machines created the new music of the early to mid 1980s.

 

Bumping this so all threads on this topic are on the same page.

 

OH MY GOD SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING!!!!

 

2 articles the same day in different papers downplaying the Beatles influence? odd.

And since we're continuing here, the first rap hit was an actual cover of Aerosmith's Walk This Way, so how exactly is rap so revolutionary, while the British Invasion was derivative?

 

They're desperate to dethrone The Beatles. Can't and won't ever work.

 

The only thing that matters in music is how I feel about it personally. No study will ultimately sway me one way or another. I choose for myself in the end and always will.

 

Also follows the heels of Paul saying working with Kanye was like working with John. Yeah right.

 

If it were true that the Beatles were not hugely influential, they wouldn't even be studying them in the first place. The fact that they are still written about and studied so often just goes to show how influential they were and still are.

As I mentioned in the now closed thread on this subject, the Beatles huge cultural impact is ignored by the study, as are their amazing array of studio production innovations.

The Beatles reintroduced certain genres back into mainstream pop, whilst also introducing others for the first time. They were incredible 'musical magpies', but they were also innovative, and they played a part in the formation of 60's country-rock, folk-rock, psychedelic rock and simply 'rock music' as opposed to rock'n'roll.

As I also pointed out in the other thread; yes, Rap and Hip Hop have been very influential, but they also didn't simply come out of nowhere; the Beatles and Stones built on the work of Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry, but Rap built on the work of funk music and other genres of dance music.

I am hoping that Paul's collaboration with Kanye will encourage more collaboration between rock acts and hip-hop acts; Broken Bells are an example of how they can work very well together. At the end of the day, it is all pop music, and cross fertilisation usually leads to interesting art.

 

I'm not a scientist but I'll trust Robert Christgau's musings on this subject more (and I love to disagree with Christgau).
"Enough of your borax, Poindexter!"

 

So the study shows that billboard chart music has essentially been more like rap music over a longer period of time than anything else. Is that a surprise? Emphasis on beat and speech over melody and harmony seems to have been pretty dominate over the last 25 years.

The study seems kind of pointless though. And depending on how they define the criteria it is going to be biased one way or another. If the billboard hits from say 1960 to 1982 for instance contained songs that could be catagorized more widely, then certainly the influence of the Beatles would seem less than that of hip hop compared to the hits from 91-10. Also what is the Beatles sound? Are they comparing the invasion sound of "Please Please Me" or the psychedelic sound of "Strawberry Fields Forever" or the sort of neo-soul rock of "Hey Jude?"

Very silly.

 

That was in '86. There had been Rap hits for about 7 years by then ("Rapper's Delight" probably being the first).