We already knew this. It's because almost all pop songs use the same four-chord structure. I even started a thread on it a couple months ago.

There are dozens of videos on YouTube where guitarists play 20 - 50 current songs in a row using the same four chords.

The real problem is that the middle eight is gone. The middle eight is that part in the pop song of old where minor chords are used. It's usually the part right before the guitar solo.

Someone's going to start writing songs with a middle eight again and make a lot of money, simply because it's going to sound new.

Nothing we havent known for over the last 15 years

vainandy said:

Hell, I don't know how it could be considered too loud since there's nothing in it such as drums or bass to make it loud. Unless they're talking about a bunch of idiots yelling a bunch of thuggish bullshit on top of it, other than that, it's as soft and dull as some damn classical music.

As for it all sounding the same, hell, any fool with ears can hear that. However, I am glad they wanted to do a scientific study on it though to prove that today's music actually IS a bunch of bullshit and it's not simply just a matter of "every generation hates the next generation's music" which is a favorite excuse of those that live in denial and don't want to accept that today's music actually IS bullshit.

Hey Andy, I see what you're implying here about the drums having a lack of punch, and it actually does relate to what the article was saying about the loudness wars.

What happens during the mastering process in order to make the whole song "louder" straight off the CD/file/whatever, is that the "peaks" of the drums MUST be lopped off in order to turn the entire volume of the track up. This is because there is a technical ceiling which no musical peak will be able to go past. The drums by nature are comprised of short, sharp peaks (compared to other instruments involved in the styles of music that we generally listen to) and that's why the drums are the first things to get lopped off when "limiting the peaks".

The result of this process to the general listener is:

Most CD's mastered in the last 10-15 years will be loud as fuck when you pop it in your CD player and press play. If you pop in a CD from the 80's/90's right after, it will generally sound a lot quieter and you will reach for your volume knob to compensate and turn it up.

If you had two identical stereo systems set up next to each other, one of them with a newish CD from the "loudness wars" era and the other with an older "quieter" CD, then you matched the volumes approximately using your ears by turning up the "quieter" CD to compensate, you would most likely find that the "quieter" CD sounds more spacious, punchy and generally pleasing than the "loudness wars" era CD.

IMO the "loudness wars" era has ruined alot of good pieces of music to the point where it's unpleasant for me to listen to, despite thinking the song has been well written and produced. It's a shame.

There is an organisation started by some audio engineers who feel a similar way, called "Turn Me Up", who are pushing to bring back dynamics into recorded music.

http://turnmeup.org

Hopefully, in the long run, many albums that have been ruined by the loudness wars will be remastered to be more punchy and listenable.

iTunes already has a feature called "sound check", which tries to balance out the relative volumes of different songs. It is not a simple thing creating an algorhythm that is effective, so there are def improvements to be made. The main reason is that human brain is tailored to hear certain frequencies as louder than others and also the human brain hears short peaks as being quieter than they actually are.

So for a random example, you can imagine how complex it is to find a scientific way to match the loudness of two songs, one of which has loud short sharp drum peaks, bass, screaming keyboards and guitar; the other song which has just acoustic guitar and vocals and perhaps regular moments of near silence.

official NOW, perhaps

THE TRUTH since the early-00's

vainandy said:

Hell, I don't know how it could be considered too loud since there's nothing in it such as drums or bass to make it loud. Unless they're talking about a bunch of idiots yelling a bunch of thuggish bullshit on top of it, other than that, it's as soft and dull as some damn classical music.

As for it all sounding the same, hell, any fool with ears can hear that. However, I am glad they wanted to do a scientific study on it though to prove that today's music actually IS a bunch of bullshit and it's not simply just a matter of "every generation hates the next generation's music" which is a favorite excuse of those that live in denial and don't want to accept that today's music actually IS bullshit.

Harlepolis said:

When I first joined this board, a certain "DavidEye"( ) said something to the effect that the common denominator between most recent songs is the loud bass. I never forgot that, because the minute I put on the radio, what do I hear? Exactly what he said.

Mind you, this was during the org's "black & purple" era exactly 10 years ago. I guess its still the case today.

Damn, have I been surfing this site for ten years? I really need to get a life.