No, Not All Popular Music Sounds the Same.
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I often hear people say that popular music isn't really worth listening to because it all sounds the same. And so I thought, is that really true? And after going through 475 of the most popular singles of the past two decades, I found that no, no, it's not.
So, how does it sound? To figure that out, I did two things. First, all the relevant genre tags were copied from Wikipedia and categorized into seven basic genres: pop, rock, R&B, hip-hop, dance, and other, for genres that didn't occur as frequently, like country or reggae. After that, I listened to each song and categorized them by energy, mood, tempo, and a general grouping for style, since a modern song of the pop genre like Camila Cabello's "Havana" uses a trap-like beat, despite not being a trap song. For this reason, I tagged it and songs like it as having a trap style. Overall, here's what I found. You can generally look at the past 20 years in the context of five distinct stylistic periods, the first of which began in 2000.
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Building on the popularity of '80s and '90s R&B groups like Boyz II Men and New Edition, the R&B of the early 2000s not only dominated the charts for a solid three years, it was also seemingly able to influence almost every other genre at the time, while also taking cues from those genres. As an example, Eve's 2001 hit "Let Me Blow Ya Mind" could easily be described as being hip-hop, R&B, and pop, considering its featuring of Gwen Stefani.
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What I found really interesting about tracks from this period is just how slow they all were, which, when I thought about it, was probably something I should have expected, considering R&B's long-time reliance on relatively slow, drawn-out, and emotionally heart-crushing songs like Ralph Tresvant's 1990 hit "Sensitivity" or New Edition's 1988 hit "Can You Stand the Rain".
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2:23 In the early 2000s, this style of song, called a ballad, would not only continue to flourish on the charts with hits like Alicia Keys' "Fallin'" and Usher's "U Got It Bad", but would be something that would permeate other genres as well, like country, pop, and even rock and roll. Although these low-energy songs were largely the norm for this period, they weren't entirely, especially considering the dip into reggae that Shaggy provided, alongside several other higher-energy rock hits of the period. But, they'll become relevant later. Even so, by 2004, Usher would tap into some of these smaller trends to release the year's number one hit with hip-hop artist Lil Jon.
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3:03 The year would prove to be pivotal for popular music, as it would be the first time the crunk subgenre would appear more than once in Billboard's top 25, it appearing exactly once for the first time in 2003, again because of Lil Jon.
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It would also prove pivotal in that this would be the first time that hip-hop and R&B would occur with about equal frequency on the charts, hip-hop overtaking it in 2005. But even then, though R&B would persist into the present day, it wouldn't be until 2017, 12 years later, that it would regain any semblance of the popularity it once had.
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In the meantime, crunk and gangsta rap would become the norm, musically focusing on deep, bumping basses, biting synthesizers, and the incorporation of a clap into the beat, while typically discussing things like party culture, drugs, the necessity of class consciousness in late capitalism, and just generally having a good time.
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4:06 But that wasn't all I noticed.
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What's also interesting is that the trope of hip-hop braggadocio, or just listing off a bunch of things that make the artist better than everybody who's listening to him, really begins to take off during this period. Though it first appears in 2002 thanks to Eminem, you see it a bit more in 2004 and 2008, without any one artist really dominating it. What's really interesting about these two trends is that they're kind of indicative of a broader trend that I noticed towards medium to high-tempo music, as opposed to the lower-tempo, sensual ballads that were seen before.
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Overall, the ballad style really did begin to die in about 2005, thereafter never quite reaching the same heights it ever had. 2004 had "If I Ain't Got You" by Alicia Keys, "The Reason" by Hoobastank—terrible name—Usher's "Confessions", and "Here Without You" by 3 Doors Down. 2018 had Ed Sheeran's "Perfect", and that's about it. Of course, Adele repopularized the style a bit after 2011, but from 2005 until then, the style would largely go away, pop music itself becoming the most frequently occurring genre of the period, electro-pop consequently being two of the most popular subgenres of 2005 to 2011.
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5:20 This begins the period that most people about my age still think continues to be relatively relevant in 2019, even though it's really not. People like the Black Eyed Peas, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Kesha, Pitbull, Katy Perry, all of their major hits were from within this period, and just about all of them were either influenced by electro-pop, synth-pop, or some other electronic, synth-heavy musical genre. In my mind, the Black Eyed Peas really seem to be at the forefront of this shift, and that's not only because their two hits "Boom Boom Pow" and "I Gotta Feeling" peaked at 1 and 4 in 2009 respectively, but because they were the first actual group to make it into the top 25 using dance-pop as a distinctive style, that is, with their 2005 hit "Don't Phunk with My Heart".
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6:12 Thereafter, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, and especially, I think, Nelly Furtado, would go on to release some of the biggest hits of the entire six years, songs everybody remembers like "Disturbia", "Poker Face", and my personal favorite, "Promiscuous".
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What's interesting about each of these songs are not only the way they each combine high-energy, often high-tempo beats with general pop instruments, but the distinct electronic turn they took. Now, I'm not gonna bullshit you and say synths made their way into pop first in the 2000s, that's just not true, but
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because of the influence of people like the Black Eyed Peas,
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a distinctly electronic, synth sound,
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similar to today's chiptune
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and yet also similar to the 8-bit synthesizers of '80s video games,
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seemed to become more popular than ever.
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7:14 Now, again, crunk didn't really go anywhere. It was still relatively popular among hip-hop artists at the time. But what really seemed to disappear during this period was the presence of rock music on the charts. Even at its lowest point during the period in 2008, The Fray's hit "How to Save a Life" peaked at 24, but what's really peculiar is that the most popular rock subgenre of 2000 to 2004, post-grunge, only makes one appearance here thanks to Daughtry's "It's Not Over". People like Creed, Nickelback, and Puddle of Mudd were largely replaced with pop rock and punk rock bands like Panic! At The Disco. Despite this, rock still had a bit of a resurgence since 2011 thanks to Imagine Dragons and Hozier, but even then, pop rock still appears to be the norm, especially under the influence of modern pop and hip-hop artists like Shawn Mendes and Rihanna.
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8:05 So, that leaves us with a final question. What does modern popular music sound like after 2011? Well, it's kind of hard to say. Between 2012 and 2016, you can see one or two relatively clear dominant genres each year, generally dance or pop. But beginning in 2017, hip-hop not only outpaced dance and pop, but it reduced pop to only two songs on the charts. In 2018, though pop did have a resurgence, it, dance, hip-hop, and R&B, all things considered, had about relatively equal space in the charts. The fact that pop and dance are still atop the charts, though, can't be understated, and here's why.
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From 2012 onward, a very subtle shift took place within dance and pop, away from the pop of dance-pop and to the dance of dance-pop. 2013 is the first year the charts see dance-specific genres flourish on the charts, and I swear to God, in 2016 and 2017, this style was absolutely everywhere thanks to Zedd and The Chainsmokers.
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9:10 But I think what really characterized the shift was exactly what you just heard, this chorused drop, endemic to house and EDM, but simplified to a catchy, upbeat melody, sometimes sung,
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sometimes not.
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But while it's easy to say that all music has become more pop sounding or more dance sounding due to the decline of rock and acoustic music, acoustic is still there in ballad form thanks to Ed Sheeran and Adele. What's also happened is that the space left by these genres is now allowing new genres to gain popularity.
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Even though we hear trap almost every day now, it's important to remember that it didn't appear on the top 25 until 2014, five years ago, again because of Lil Jon.
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And even then, it wouldn't appear in any significant way until 2017 thanks to Kendrick Lamar's "HUMBLE.". At the same time, modern music could not be more diverse than ever. Ed Sheeran's "Shape of You" draws from Jamaican dancehall and tropical house, SoundCloud emo rap and cloud rap from Lil Uzi Vert and Post Malone is more popular than ever, and new jack swing, a form of R&B which hadn't been on the charts since the 1990s, is appearing again thanks to Bruno Mars. Hell, Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road" proves that country is still relevant too. And that's not even counting new 2019 musicians like Billie Eilish. I-I don't know what genre her music is, but it certainly ain't trap.
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10:16 So, all in all, even though some trends are present, no, all popular music definitely does not sound the same.
This is Mr. Amazing. Thanks for watching.
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11:04 I'd like to thank Dollar Shave Club for sponsoring this video. Dollar Shave Club is a men's hygiene subscription service which sends you various grooming products in the mail, many of which are packaged into smaller trial kits for showering, shaving, and brushing your teeth. These kits allow you to use their products before purchasing any of their full-sized equivalents, or other products like deodorants or butt wipes. The shave kit was by far my personal favorite. The razor felt great and weighty in the hand, the shave butter made the shaving experience as smooth as could be, and the aftershave cream was smooth to the touch, too. As somebody who has to shave almost every day, I highly recommend it. If you're interested, you can get it, the shower kit, and the oral kit right now, each for $5, by going to dollarshaveclub.com/mramazing.
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