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Comment by goto11 | Hacker News Reader

> today's music has been dumbed down in comparison.

People have been saying that as long as popular music have existed. Jazz was considered dumb and unsophisticated, crooners were considered dumb and unsophisticated, rock music was considered dumb and unsophisticated.

Each of these genres just discard previous measures of sophistication and introduce their own. The article have an interesting observation about "vertical" vs "horizontal" songwriting. Newer music is just different.

Kendrick Lamar is not dumbed down compared to Bon Jovi just because he doesn't change the key before that last chorus.

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Absolutely - the criticism of most guitarists only knowing 3 chords goes back afaik to the first bard who ever strung up a lute. I also think although we remember the songs that break molds, at any moment in history most popular music tends to be relatively simple. There's nothing wrong with that I think - just as people don't (or probably shouldn't) eat caviar and filet mignon at every meal, much of the time music serves as more of an idle distraction than some intense spiritual experience.

Supposed quote from the middle ages:

"Lute players spend half their time tuning and the other half playing out of tune"

Movable frets made of gut both allow for better tuning and require more tuning.

While I agree with your overall point, a longstanding previous trend does not indicate a present trend. This is a popular "fallacy fallacy". The metrics of evaluation can change while dumbing down still occurs.

If you look at the demographics of top 40 listeners today compared to forty years ago, the popularity of the hits are more narrowly confined to teens and young adults, particularly in the working class US and in developing Latin American countries. You can also look at the ethos of the top genres, such as rap and country, which are less broadly appealing than popular genres of the past such as rock, R&B, or even jazz.

This is driven by economics. Young people have more free time than adults, and they have greater access to music than they did in the pre-Internet age. So unless we think young music streamers have comparable taste to music-buying adults of the past, it seems likely that dumbing down to a certain point to meet the audience's expectations is more profitable than the alternative.

> If you look at the demographics of top 40 listeners today compared to forty years ago, the popularity of the hits are more narrowly confined to teens and young adults

I didn't know that. Can you point me to the source of these numbers? I would like to know more.

I didn't cite any numbers. You can look up the age discrepancies between AM/FM during the early 80s. FM was dominated by the 12-24 demo, but the music industry was attached to AM and reacted slower to audience research back then. If you prefer a qualitative approach, you can look at the charts from the late 70s/early 80s and compare them to today.

You said:

> If you look at the demographics of top 40 listeners today compared to forty years ago, the popularity of the hits are more narrowly confined to teens and young adults

So how do I look at these demographics and confirm this claim?

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