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Careless Whisper
On the topic of music, does anyone know of any good blogs/videos aimed at laymen that explains why current pop music sounds the way it does?
I just happened into this youtube video from Justin Hawkins (of The Darkness fame) where he goes over a research paper (I believe this one) that gives three (apparently) fairly well researched factors for at least a part of that. The factors are decreased harmonic complexity, lack of timbral variation and lack of dynamics. I'm not qualified to really comment on harmonic complexity but the lack of timbral variation and (complete) lack of dynamics are some of main reasons I listen to very litte music made after the mid 90s. It's not an accident that after that started the era of Digital Audio Workstations and ubiquituous multiband compressors & brickwall limiter use.
Wings of Pegasus has made lots of videos where he analyzes and shows by example how autotune overuse is now the norm, with even reissues from classic singers being autotuned "because that's what you're supposed to do". This definitely affects the way music sounds now.
Billy Hume tackled the question of copy pasting and quantization in modern recordings in a pretty decent video. Yet another factor that makes everything samey sounding.
I'm tempted to write a "this is why modern music sucks" post but I suspect I'd just be shouted down by people who claim it's all because "You just listen to the music that you liked in my formative years!" (plot twist: I only found the majority of the music I like nowadays when I was in my late 20s or older, when it had already been out of style for decades).
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