Pop music is getting sadder. Whatever happened to taking a sad song and making it better?
Pop music is becoming sad. That isnt a comment on the artistic merits of todays popular music vis-a-vis the good ol days of The Beatles,but the findings of a recently published study that evaluated the Top 40 as seen by Billboard magazine from 1965 to 2009. Conducted by a Canadian psychologist and a German sociologist and published in Psychology of Aesthetics,Creativity and the Arts,it says that hits have become longer,slower and sadder because an increasing percentage of them are written in minor mode,which adults and children instinctively associate with gloom and despair.
All this sadness apparently conveys mixed emotional cues and indicates that our tastes have become more complex,says the study. The songs are more nuanced and sophisticated now,doing away with the hitherto rigid distinction between commercial success and art-house cred,like Radioheads mass appeal highlights. But that doesnt explain Lady Gaga,or her Poker Face,or the less-than-Shakespearean Fun,fun,fun,fun/ Lookin forward to the weekend from Rebecca Blacks viral hit Friday.