Do current pop songs have weaker melodies than older songs?

[repoman]

Does hum-ability of a song long after you have heard it mean the song has a strong melody?

If current (say last 20 years) songs have weaker melodies what do they have more of instead?

If you take a song with a strong melody it doesn't even need a lot of other frills.

I realize that there is a lot of filtering I may be doing. I know a lot of strongly melodic songs from even decades before I was born, but I don't know the whole hosts of songs from back then that had terrible or lacking melodies.

 

[Jayjay]

I think we all tend to be biased to songs we heard in our childhood and teens. I don't trust anyone's personal feelings about what songs have "stronger" or "weaker" melodies in this regard, including my own. Though it might be interesting if someone would quantify what hum-ability or "strong melody" are and make an objective comparison of songs of various decades.

 

[repoman]

Take these old Japanese songs. I don't understand the lyrics, but I like this music and it is new to me and likely to everyone else here.





I would consider them to have a very strong melodies - maybe to the exclusion of other aspects that songs can have. The second is almost a melody slave.

 

[zorq]

While I like them, I disagree that those Japanese songs would sound nearly as good without their accompaniment.

Consider the songs that have such strong melodies that pretty all they need to carry them is their melodies. These are usually children's songs like "Twinkle twinkle little star" or "ring around the rosie" or "Round and round the mulberry bush" or "The wheels on the bus." These songs exist as children's songs because they have melodies that children can remember easily and that children enjoy singing without accompaniment.

Other examples include "Jingle bells," and commercial jingles like the "Oscar Mayer bologna song."
Another melodic song that just about everyone knows the melody to but not many know the lyrics to is Beethoven's "Ode to joy."

What do these songs have in common besides their memorable melodies and popularity among children?

Could the key to finding strong melodies lie in analyzing these songs and song like them?
What do these songs have in common?

Is it possible that most of the "best" melodies have already been discovered?

 

[Ford]

Do current pop songs have weaker melodies than older songs?


I don't think so.


A big chunk of my music collection is the Billboard Top 100 from roughly 1955 until 2005. I've got every hit for a half century, and when you step back and view it from a distance, a lot of it isn't any better or worse than today's pop music.

Is Neil Sedaka really better than Bruno Mars?

 

[Underseer]

Does hum-ability of a song long after you have heard it mean the song has a strong melody?

If current (say last 20 years) songs have weaker melodies what do they have more of instead?

If you take a song with a strong melody it doesn't even need a lot of other frills.

I realize that there is a lot of filtering I may be doing. I know a lot of strongly melodic songs from even decades before I was born, but I don't know the whole hosts of songs from back then that had terrible or lacking melodies.

The older songs sound better to you because you were younger and happier when you first heard them.

Pop music has pretty much always been shallow pablum intended to appeal to hormone-charged teenagers with short attention spans. If you want better melodies, listen to classical music or something.

 

[Derec]

If current (say last 20 years) songs have weaker melodies what do they have more of instead?

Twerking?

 

[Bacillus anthracis]

Do current pop songs have weaker melodies than older songs?


I don't think so.


A big chunk of my music collection is the Billboard Top 100 from roughly 1955 until 2005. I've got every hit for a half century, and when you step back and view it from a distance, a lot of it isn't any better or worse than today's pop music.

Is Neil Sedaka really better than Bruno Mars?

You make a good point. People tend to overstate how great music was during X period or decade. But I realized just how wrong this was when I played in a cover band.

I would go through all the old Billboard 100s from the past looking for songs to cover. And it was then that it hit me just how shitty the vast majority of music was from the 1970s, one of the more venerated decades for music. The same can be said of every single decade.

That said, the popular music of today is so scientifically produced that it all tends to run together. They know what hooks/melodies the human brain gloms onto and that's how they go about making music.

Whatever.

 

[ideologyhunter]

'Honey I'm Good.'
Bleeeeeeeeeeahh.
Break out the clog dancin' shoes.

 

[bilby]

Do current pop songs have weaker melodies than older songs?


I don't think so.


A big chunk of my music collection is the Billboard Top 100 from roughly 1955 until 2005. I've got every hit for a half century, and when you step back and view it from a distance, a lot of it isn't any better or worse than today's pop music.

Is Neil Sedaka really better than Bruno Mars?

You make a good point. People tend to overstate how great music was during X period or decade. But I realized just how wrong this was when I played in a cover band.

I would go through all the old Billboard 100s from the past looking for songs to cover. And it was then that it hit me just how shitty the vast majority of music was from the 1970s, one of the more venerated decades for music. The same can be said of every single decade.

That said, the popular music of today is so scientifically produced that it all tends to run together. They know what hooks/melodies the human brain gloms onto and that's how they go about making music.

Whatever.

It's evolutionary. The stuff that is good in any era gets remembered, and the vast majority of total dross gets forgotten. At any point in history, people can look back and see only the good stuff from the past; but they can look around and see that most contemporary music is shite.

It was true in the '60s, it was true in the '70s, and it's true today - the music in the past was great, but the majority of today's songs are crap.