LIKE A BROKEN RECORD - mountainscholar.org
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LIKE A BROKEN RECORD:
A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF POPULAR MUSIC
by
MARISSA JANELLE ZAK
B.A, Eastern Illinois University, 2017
A thesis submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the
University of Colorado Colorado Springs
In partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
Master of Arts
Department of Communication
2019
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This thesis for the Master of Arts degree by
Marissa Janelle Zak
has been approved for the
Department of Communication
by
Christopher Bell, Chair
Maja Krakowiak
David Nelson
December 16th, 2019
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Zak, Marissa Janelle (M.A., Communication)
Like a Broken Record: A Critical Analysis of Popular Music
Thesis directed by Associate Professor Christopher Bell
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study is to assess the diversity of two different categories of
popular music, Rock and Roll and Hot 100, while applying concepts from Horkheimer
and Adorno’s ‘The Dialectic of Enlightenment’. This study looked at the tempo, time
signature, key signature, song length and song format of 50 songs from each genre, 100
songs total, and compares them across genre and within genre to determine how similar
or different the songs are. What resulted was the determination that no matter the genre,
there was no major differentiation between songs. From Horkheimer and Adorno, the
concepts of pseudo-individualism and standardization are used, and from Benjamin, the
aura of the music is also discussed. It was concluded that due to the monetary success of
the music industry, consumers do not want music that is diverse, or music that is
authentic.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. INTRODUCTION…………………...………………………………………..1
Statement of Problem…………………………………………………...………1
Specific Purpose……………………………………………………………..….2
Significance of Study………………………………………………………...…2
I. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE……………………………………….…..4
Critical Theory and the Culture Industry……………. ………………………...4
The Culture Industry and Music………………………………………………..7
The Music Industry and Song Ranking…………………………………..….10
Rock and Roll……………………………………………………………..…..11
Hot 100………………………………………………………………………...14
II. METHODOLOGY…………………………………………………………..18
Sample………………………………………………………………………..18
Procedure………………………………….…………………………………18
Tempo………………………………..…………………………………..18
Time Signature……………….…………………………………………..19
Song Length………………….…………………………………………..19
Key Signature……………………………………………………...……..19
Song Structure……………………………………………………..……..19
Measurement…………………………………………………………………20
III. RESULTS……………………………………………………………………21
IV. DISCUSSION…………………………….………………………………….34
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Pseudo-Individualism……………….……………………………………….37
Authenticity………………… ………………………………………………42
V. CONCLUSSION……………………………………………………...……..48
Limitations……………………………………………………………...……48
Future Research…………………………………………………………...…49
References……………………………………………………………………51
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LIST OF TABLES
TABLE
1. Active Rock 2014 Song Data…………………………………………………….21
2. Active Rock 2015 Song Data…………………………………………………….22
3. Active Rock 2016 Song Data…………………………………………………….23
4. Active Rock 2017 Song Data…………………………………………………….24
5. Active Rock 2018 Song Data…………………………………………………….25
6. Hot 100 2014 Song Data…………………………………………………...…….26
7. Hot 100 2015 Song Data…………………………………………...….………....27
8. Hot 100 2016 Song Data……………………….…………………......………….28
9. Hot 100 2017 Song Data…………………………………………………...…….29
10. Hot 100 2018 Song Data…………………………………...…………………….30
11. Tempo Category………………………………………………………………….34
12. Key Signature…………………………………………………………………….34
13. Major and Minor…………………………………………………...…………….34
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
According to Nielsen, the content that is most likely playing if someone were to
turn on the radio would be some kind of music (2018). If someone sits in a waiting room
or walks through a store, music is probably there to accompany the shoppers (Yalch,
Spangenberg, 2000). If someone has their headphones in while sitting at their desk,
taking a walk, or working out, music notes are more than likely pouring out of their
mobile device, through their headphones and into their ears (Edison Research, 2018).
Music is very pervasive in today’s society, and almost everyone has an opinion on
what genre of music is the best, as evident in album sales as well as radio station
performance. Every week, Billboard.com puts out list after list of the newest and greatest
songs that make it to the top of the charts for a variety of genres, from Rock and Roll to
Pop to Holliday music. However, even though these new songs have different titles and
come from a variety of artists, are they really that new, or has the world already heard
them before?
Statement of Problem
Horkheimer and Adorno (2002) expressed a concern that every artifact that the
cultural industry has to offer is lacking in any originality. They claim that thanks to
standardization in the culture industry, very little individuality can be detected between
different television shows, movies, music and more. Applying this concept to modern
music may seem unrealistic to some people; there are new songs released every day and
new artists being added to every genre almost as often, so how can music all be the same?
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Every song, whether it comes from Beethoven, Ariana Grande or Metallica, can
be reduced down into some individual parts, and it is their individual parts that, when
fleshed out and compared, can begin to seem all too similar. These aspects of music
might fly under the radar for some listeners who might be unknowingly buying into the
same song over and over again. Some people, however, are quite keen to the small
musical elements that make up every song.
Specific Purpose
This study aims to determine if two different genres of music from two Billboard
lists, Hot 100 (sometimes referred to as Pop or Top 40), and Active Rock, fall to the
concepts of Critical Theory that Horkheimer and Adorno talk about. The two genres will
be compared against each other as well as themselves to see if the songs and genres are
very similar or maintain some sort of individuality in modern times.
Significance of the Study
While television and film often take the center stage in media studies, music is
something that lacks the quantity of modern research that some other media have. This
study will hopefully bring a medium that is often thought of as a passive activity
(Pluskota, 2015) into the focus of other scholars in media and critical studies. It is already
known by many scholars that one Western film will be nearly the same as another
Western film due to formula and clichés (Andrae, 2005), but will one Rock and Roll song
mirror another Rock and Roll song for the same reasons?
In the last handful of years, music, particularly popular music that is heard on the
radio, has been accused of sounding all too much the same. Studies show that as music
becomes more popular, it also begins to homogenize and sound like things that
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consumers have already heard before (Barnes, 2015). For some people, this is no
mystery, and it has even become a point of comedic effect. The Australian comedy music
trio, The Axis of Awesome, makes fun of this with their song ‘4 Chords’, where they
identify 47 popular songs that use the same four chords in succession (Davis, B., Naimo,
L., Raskopaolos, J., 2011), and comedian Rob Paravonian points out that this chord
progression dates back as far as the 1600s with Pachelbel’s ‘Canon in D’ (2006).
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CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
Critical Theory and the Culture Industry
It was Horkheimer and Adorno who first posited the idea of the Culture Industry
in their book, Dialectic of Enlightenment (2002). Here, they explain that everything that
could be counted as a cultural artifact, be it film, television, music and so on is nothing
more than a carbon copy of something else. Every new film is a copy of the last
successful film that came out; every television show is the same with only slight changes
in characters; every song could easily be swapped out for another song and there would
be no difference. Culture, they say, is no longer well-thought-out art, but “trash” that
businesses constantly pump out to make a quick buck off of those consumers who are
none the wiser (p. 95), and no matter what anyone tries to do, there is no way to escape
this phenomenon.
The concept of the culture industry gave rise to two supporting terms:
standardization and pseudo-individualism. Standardization makes everything very
familiar to consumers and makes it easier for the consumer to know if they like or dislike
that particular cultural product. Genres of music and television shows and plot tropes of
films are examples of what standardization gives to the culture industry. If there are
horses and cowboys and the setting is in the American West, then it is definitely a
Western film or television series. If there are two main characters, one male and one
female, and a series of silly yet serendipitous events happen to bring them into a romantic
relationship, then it is more than likely a romantic comedy. According to Andrae (1979)
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“gags, formulas, and clichés were calculated for their effects by special teams of experts,
the lengths of stories rigidly adhered to, and the endings of films wholly predictable from
the outset” (p. 5). Standardization begets formulas, and formula begets the very core of
the culture industry, with pseudo-individualization keeping the consumers of the culture
industry blissfully blind to the formulaic content that they are consuming.
Pseudo-individualism is what makes cultural products just different enough to
pass for something completely new and unique, and if standardization were to be realized
by the consumer public, there could potentially be some sort of resistance. That is why
standardization must be hidden in the culture industry by way of pseudo-individualism.
Pseudo-individualism keeps consumers eager for more by helping them forget that the
thing they want to see next is something that they have more than likely already
experienced (Adorno, 2002). In two Western films, there might be a lone wolf cowboy
trying to hunt down a band of bandits in order to keep a town and a particular saloon girl
safe from harm; but as long as the towns have different names and the shady cowboys
have different, vague backstories, there is no doubt in the consumer’s mind that they are
two equally unique and special movies. There could be two romantic comedy movies that
feature two attractive lead characters who fall in love, live in ecstasy and then hit a rough
patch in their relationship before making up, but as long as one takes place in a city and
one takes place in the tropics, two completely new movies have just been created. Adorno
(2002) says that “every detail is substitutable; it serves its function only as a cog in a
machine” (p. 7). Just like the interchangeable parts in an automobile, there are
interchangeable parts in a film or television show. As long as the skeleton of the product
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is sound and proven to work, new, small details can be added to the framework and be
quickly sent out into the consumer public as a completely new and unique product.
According to Adorno (2002), the culture industry also gives the masses the
artifacts they create as a way of pacifying the masses. Adorno says that, for example,
music played over the radio has a “soporific”, or sedative effect on people, “to keep
listeners from criticizing social realities” (p. 231). The more that people listen, the less
they are willing to do anything else. This concept is the stark opposite of what Lasswell
called the theory of Uses and Gratifications. Uses and Gratifications states that media
consumers are quite particular about the media that they consume; they aren’t the passive,
mindless consumers that Adorno believes them to be (Littlejohn, Foss, Oetzel, 2017). To
Adorno, people have no choice or free will when it comes to culture and media; no one
has a choice; no one knows that they don’t have a choice, everyone stays happy.
What is it that the masses necessarily need pacifying from? The exact thing that
pacifies them in the first place. Adorno believes that if consumers were to figure out the
scheme of the culture industry, that is standardization and pseudo-individualism, people
would be less than pleased to know that the media and the products that they have been
consuming all their lives, is nothing more than a copy and paste of what they saw last
week and the week before, and that the culture industry is the broken record that divvies
it out and takes their money for it.
What happens if people were to ignore the culture around them? In this case, what
would happen to someone if they were to completely ignore today’s television shows,
films, music and books? These people are outsiders in the eyes of the masses; they
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contribute nothing to conversation and are considered sub-par when compared to people
who bathe themselves in popular culture (Adorno, 1971). When a cultural product is sold,
the consumer is buying more than just a film or a song; they buy a sense of belonging; a
passport into the conversation. Eventually, even the most dogmatic of individuals is
pulled into the masses, whether they are consumers of media or the ones who create it.
The Culture Industry and Music
The rules of the culture industry are not just limited to those artifacts that can be
viewed on a screen, as the music industry has fallen equally victim to the accusation of
standardization and pseudo-individualization. Despite the Copyright Law of 1909, which
gave protection to those who wrote and composed music, (Peterson, 1990) there is no law
in existence that prohibits one artist from creating a piece that is incredibly similar to
someone else’s work. Adorno (1971) calls standardization a fundamental characteristic of
popular music, even when there is an effort to make content that is unique and one of a
kind. He goes on in this particular article to discuss jazz music, the new and popular
music of the time, to the likes of Beethoven, Bach and other classical, “serious”
composers, claiming that the latter was free from standardization and pseudo-
individualization, but that its true individuality would be lost on the common listener who
associated with more popular genres of music.
Adorno found that the low risk of similarity was something that many artists
were, and still are attracted to. “As one particular song scored a great success, hundreds
of others sprang up imitating the successful one” (p. 18). This is because, as Andrae
(1979) and Adorno (1996) point out, the ultimate goal of the culture industry is to make
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as much money as possible, not to make people happy or spread the so-called art of the
creator. And when something is proven to work and make a profit, there is no reason to
deviate from said successful formula. This is also why covers of previously successful
songs do so well on the market and why only the most successful songs get covered; they
already did well once, so the odds of them doing well again are higher in comparison to a
brand-new song (Babich, 2018).
According to Ahlkvist and Fisher (n.d.) the success and failure of certain music is
not completely at the fault of the creators of the song; the radio stations that new songs
get played on also play a part in the amount of air time and exposure a song get, or if it
even has a place at their station at all. The size of the radio market affects what kind of
songs get added to the roster of music. Larger radio markets, such as those in the Top 50,
utilize market research and consultants to decide exactly what music gets the most
airtime on their station. This helps to maximize the number of listeners to a station and
garner more funds from advertisers. This can, however, minimize the variety of music
that gets played to a particularly large audience, such as those who live in cities like New
York, Los Angeles or Chicago. Radio stations smaller markets, on the other hand, who
have less money to lose and less competition with other stations, can afford to play fast
and loose with the songs that they allow over their airwaves. They can play songs that
might be considered risky and less formulaic than those played in larger markets. Radio
stations in smaller markets also have the ability to utilize the feedback of their listeners,
whereas those who live in larger markets will have a harder time getting their voices and
opinions heard about the music that gets fed to them. This has a great effect on the way
songs are perceived and also how they are ranked on popular music charts.
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It should also be considered the fact that FM radio, where much of today’s
popular music gets heard, is in constant competition with other broadcast media such as
Satellite radio, and music streaming services such as Spotify and Pandora. According to
Edison Research in 2018, AM/FM radio, while still the most popular form of in-car
media, is slowly declining in popularity year by year, as satellite radio and other online
audio sources steadily make the climb upward. In what Adorno (1996) refers to as a
“Darwinian” style survival of the fittest (p. 234), radio tends to play the music that is the
most likely to attract listeners and take them away from other attractive audio options.
Popular music attracts a large audience; and large audience attracts advertisers;
advertisers bring the money to keep the stations alive and running.
There were other, more lucrative ways of getting music to be popular through the
radio. Peterson and Berger point out that music production companies used to have more
of a corporate connection with broadcasting firms and would use that to their advantage
when it was time to push the newest singles (1975). It was not uncommon for radio disk
jockeys to be paid money under the table to hock a new song and give it some extra
airtime, letting their influence on the music world act as persuasion to the listeners who
had no idea that a monetary transaction had been made. Better known as “payola,” this
act was made illegal in 1960 with an amendment to the Federal Communication Act that
required full disclosure if extra airtime had been purchased for specific music (Kelly,
2016).
Some scholars believe that the number of musicians producing music at a given
time, or the market density, has an effect on how diverse the music they produce is.
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Peterson and Berger (1975) found that a higher concentration of musicians at a given
time leads to a decrease in music diversity, in part due to the vertical integration and the
oligopolistic nature of the music industry. On the other hand, Alexander (1966) believed
that a moderately concentrated market provides the most diversity in the music industry.
The Music Industry and Song Ranking
The commercial music industry started in the 1880s, where the primary focus was
on the publication of sheet music, the theater circuit and touring music performances
(Anand & Peterson, 2000). Billboard magazine, which is now the most popular magazine
in the music industry (Lopes, 1992), came into being not very long after. Previously,
Billboard only gave its readers little bits and pieces of information about the music
industry and those musical artists that were big and in the spotlight. Now, Billboard has
essentially set the standard that musicians must live up to in order to be successful. When
the 1940s and 1950s came along, the music industry started to shift its focus and became
more concerned with recorded music over printed music. In response to this, Billboard
started to create what it is now most famous for; its Top 40 list for popular music singles.
With how effective this method of measuring the success of music was, the Top 40 list
format started to be used by other organizations as well, such as record stores, music and
recording agencies, radio stations, as well as other magazines in the music industry.
The Top 40 list was not the only list that Billboard magazine started out with.
Other lists like “best seller in the stores,” “most played by jockeys,” and “most played in
juke boxes” also populated people’s opinions to inform them if a song was popular or
not. These lists, however, all consolidated into what is now the “Hot 100” list, which still
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keeps people up to date about what singles are the most popular of the week from any
genres. Other than this list, Billboard keeps track of the top songs in a variety of genres,
such as rock, pop, country, holiday and more. They also have the Billboard 200 chart,
which keeps track of album sales, as well as various “greatest of all time” charts
(billboard.com).
Rock and Roll
The 1950s gave rise to more than just the change in Billboard magazine’s format
and its place in the music industry. It was in the 1950s when Frank Sinatra, Nat King
Cole, Johnnie Ray and Doris Day gave way to the likes of Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly,
Chuck Berry and Bill Haley, thus giving birth to the revolution of Rock and Roll. Up
until this point, the culture industry was missing a crucial demographic of people from
which to make money: the youth of America (Peterson, 1990). Fortunately, Elvis’s
swinging hips and Bill Haley’s Comets gave the culture industry a way right into the
pockets of the youth culture.
Regev (1994) talks about Rock and Roll music as a whole and its place as art in
our culture industry. He speaks of various critics who hold Rock and Roll music in the
highest regards when compared to other forms of mainstream music, placing it among the
works of “serious” music composers such as Bach and Beethoven. This is in contrast to
other critics who think of Rock and Roll as nothing more than musical incompetence and
rugged, disruptive noise (Straw, 1984). Different than classical music, however, Rock and
Roll music was, and is, oftentimes, seen as counterculture, creating multiple subcultures
that were meant to disrupt the norm of society (Kellner, Durham, 2012).
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Modern day Rock and Roll music and its respective sub-cultures are often easily
identified. Straw (1984) notes extended guitar solos and longer than average song lengths
as two hallmarks of the genre. He also mentioned that the visual aesthetic of Rock and
Roll was quite important, as the live shows present a considerable amount of flashiness,
the album covers are often elaborate with shocking imagery, and the fans of the genre can
be seen with long hair, tattoos, and are clad top to bottom in leather and/or denim.
Schulzke (2014) points out that much of the culture industry, be it music, video
games, comic books and so on, make people feel as though they belong to a group. By
having a sense of belonging to a larger culture or sub-culture, there is a sense of approval
or gratification that is earned. This sense of belonging can be observed in a number of
ways, such as bonding over shared interests or even bonding over shared dislikes. In the
1970s, it was well-known that if someone was a Rock and Roll aficionado, it more than
likely meant that the disco scene was something that they avoided and mocked (Straw,
1948). Even though disco has more than passed its heyday, there is still a camaraderie
found in the Rock and Roll community via the mockery of other genres. Many
documentaries, such as Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey (Wise, Dunn, McFadyen,
Feldman, 2006) and several episodes of Behind the Music (Gay Rosenthal Productions,
1997) feature interview after interview with fans and musicians alike singing the praise of
their favorite genre of music all while putting others to shame, because even though
people love to love, people also love to hate.
As tight knit as this sub-culture seems to be, some of the exclusivity and some of
its original ‘attitude’ seems to be fading, with a part of the blame falling on the culture
industry. Kellner and Durham (2012) note that as subcultures become more familiar to
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the general public, they become more marketable and profitable, no matter the origin of
said group. Even though Rock and Roll music and its many sub-genres like Punk and
Heavy Metal were known for being cultural jammers, as people started to get more
familiar with them, and potentially less afraid of them, the music industry began to find
ways to make money off of them. This is what Regev refers to as the “incorporation
thesis,” which is a lens that many in academia use to look at Rock and Roll and many of
its sub-genres. “A central issue in the study of rock has been the "loss of authenticity,"
the subordination of its original social meanings to the interests of the music industry and
to the hegemonic culture” (88). The incorporation thesis relates back to the original
concepts of the culture industry, pseudo-individualization and standardization, and helps
to illustrate the point that, in the culture industry, the consumer is not thought of as a
priority, but as the sole means of making money (Adorno, Radinbach, 1975).
When Regev refers to authenticity, what exactly does that mean? A basic
Merriam-Webster (n.d.) definition of “authentic” states “not false or imitation; true to
one’s own personality, spirit, or character”, or “of undisputed origin”. This term can
obviously be in reference to many artifacts. Authentic Mexican food is cuisine that comes
out of someone’s Mexican kitchen, not the local Taco Bell drive-through. Likewise,
music can have authenticity depending on the artist from whence it came. Bell (2010)
reviews authenticity in relationship to contestants on the FOX series, American Idol. The
judges from the show deem authenticity in an artist when they “inhibit a very specific
genre and excel within that genre, and must venture out of that genre only briefly and
begrudgingly, if at all” (p. 129). By that decree, the band AC/DC, with its multitude of
Classic Rock albums and anthems and nary a deviation from their Rockin’ roots could be
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argued as a very authentic Rock and Roll act, whereas Britney Spears’ cover of ‘I Love
Rock ‘n’ Roll’ does nothing in bringing the Pop Princess among the ranks of Joan Jett &
the Blackhearts.
As previously mentioned, Adorno saw most genres of music as lesser forms of art
when compared to the likes of classical music, or what he referred to as “serious” music.
A few popular artists, however, did stand out to him as someone who’s music, even as
popular as it was at the time, could sit in the same pantheon as Vivaldi and Mozart. These
artists were typically using political criticisms in their works, and often went more
against the grain when compared to what other popular artists were creating (1987).
Morris (2015) argues that some sub genres of Rock and Roll, namely Extreme Heavy
Metal (i.e. Speed Metal, Black Metal, Death Metal) would also fall under this category of
“resistant music.” “Music capable of resisting the politics of the culture industry is not
necessarily music that is very accessible to contemporary publics” (p. 290). Due to
Extreme Heavy Metal’s darker themes, loud and hoarse vocals and detuned melodies, it
is designed to be a bit off-putting to the general public and is created to be a sort of
alternative to mainstream popular music. “The negations of heavy metal model the
interests of negative dialectics in their form and content—not by expressing negative
dialectics but by dramatizing the contradictions of late capitalism that the practitioners
and fans clearly experience” (p. 301).
Hot 100
Unlike Rock and Roll, Hot 100 (also referred to as Top 40) music is not as much
of a genre as it is a different kind of classification for music, or a category. Hot 100
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Refers to the 100 songs in a given week or year that are the most popular based on radio
airplay, sales, and streaming (billboard.com). This loose category is sometimes referred
to as pop music, where the “pop” simply stands for “popular,” reflecting its success at a
given point in time. This should not be confused with Pop music as a specific genre, for
example what Michael Jackson and Madonna are known for. Even though this genre does
often fall into the Hot 100 category, the terms are not necessarily interchangeable. To
eliminate confusion for the purpose of this study, the music that is considered most
popular at a point in time will not be referred to as Pop, but as Hot 100 music, and this
music will be the second focus of this study.
The fact that Hot 100 is not a specific genre of music brings into question what
genres are rising to the top during certain times, as genre popularity has changed greatly
over the years. 1960 brought early Rock and Roll and Rockabilly into their end-of-the-
year Top 10 with Elvis and Chubby Checkers; 1970 was spotted with soul via Diana Ross
and Freda Payne; 1980 was topped off with Rock and Roll hits from the likes of Queen
and Pink Floyd; 1990 brought in pop hits form Madonna and Wilson Phillips; and
country hits from Lonestar and Faith Hill rounded out the end-of-the-year hits for the
year 2000 (musicoutfitters.com). No list looks the same from one decade to the next, as
year in and year out, changes in music preference are easy to spot on the Top 100 list.
Even though music in the Hot 100 category can range in genre, from hip-hop to
pop to R&B to Rock and Roll and anything else that manages to climb to the top, there
are some similarities that tend to bring these songs together. Lyrics to these songs are
seen to be rather predictable and have been known to fall into a few categories
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(Christenson et al, 2018). The three most prevalent lyrical themes in Hot 100 music are as
follows: love and romantic relationships, explicitly described sexuality, and lifestyle
relating to partying, dancing, substance abuse and conspicuous consumption. Christenson
et. al. found that from 1960 to 2010, love and romance has been a consistent theme that
finds its way into the lyrics of many of the country’s favorite songs. Vianinni and Meyers
(2002) also noticed this trend in music and see it as a lazy writing device for lyrical
content. Two other popular themes, however, have risen through the ranks throughout the
years (C. Hanba, D. Hanba, 2018). From the 1980s to the 2010s, there was a significant
rise in the mention of alcohol, marijuana and opioid consumption in Hot 100 music, and
were mentioned in at least 50% of the most popular songs in 2018.
It’s easy to look at the Billboard end of the year chart and see what genres of
music are popular in the ears of the public and what genres do not get a lot of attention.
The mid 2000s started a trend that is still seen today in the end of the year top 10. It was
around that time where Hip-Hop, Rap, R&B, Pop, and dance music started to take control
of the radio airwaves and took many people’s attention. These genres are still prevalent
today, as Billboard shows that they are still heavily favored by the masses.
Rock and Roll music is no stranger to the end of the year top 100 charts, though it
has been a while since it was included in the top 10. As previously mentioned, 1960 had
Elvis and Chubby Checkers, and 1980 had Queen and Pink Floyd, but after 1990, there
was a distinct lack of any song that could be classified as Rock and Roll, as R&B, hip-
hop and rap music made its way to the top in its stead. This is a pattern that has persisted
into modern day; even though the artists have changed and there are new faces delivering
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the music, Rock and Roll has faded from anywhere near the top. Looking at the end of
the year top 100 charts, 2010 was the last year to include any Rock and Roll music at all,
as it was faded out in popularity in 2011 (Billboard).
Research Question
Literature shows two contrasting ideas about rock music in the culture industry.
Per Horkheimer and Adorno, all popular music that is produced is nothing more than a
copy of what was first popular (2002). However, other scholars (Regev, 1994) point to
those who believe Rock and Roll music to be the exception to that assumption. This study
attempts to find which school of thought has more truth.
The study seeks to answer the following research questions:
RQ1: Do the sample songs from the Active Rock category have many qualities in
common with each other? If so, which qualities are they?
RQ2: Do the sample songs from the Hot 100 category have many qualities in common
with each other? If so, which qualities are they?
RQ3: Are there a lot of similar qualities between songs from Active Rock and Hot 100? If
so, which qualities are they?
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CHAPTER III
Methodology
Sample
The songs that were examined were chosen from Billboard.com’s year-end charts
for both Hot 100 and Active Rock. The top ten songs from the last five years (2014-2018)
are the songs that contributed to the sample so that each genre had an equal number; 50
songs each and 100 songs total. These songs are considered to be the most popular and
successful in that category for that particular year by Billboard, based on radio airplay,
physical and digital sales, and music streaming time (Billboard.com). These ratings thus
give a good representation of what that genre has to offer.
These two music genres were picked due to their difference in popularity on FM
radio stations. Contemporary Hits Radio, also called Current Hits Radio, Hot 100, or Pop
Radio, is consistently ranked as the most listened-to music radio format, whereas Rock
radio typically hangs closer to the bottom of the popularity ranking (Nielsen, 2018).
Though there is some variance in popularity depending on the age group, and different
radio formats target different audiences, there is no denying the vast difference in
listenership between the two formats.
Procedure
Each song was listened to, and the following information from each song was
analyzed and then recorded:
Tempo. Tempo is the speed at which a song is performed, and is measured in
Beats Per Minute, or BPM. The higher the BPM, the faster the song will go. The songs
were sorted into one of six tempo categories or intervals: Andante (70-83 BPM),
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Moderato (84-97 BPM), Allegro (98-132 BPM), Vivace (133-150 BPM), Allegrissimo
(151-167 BPM), and Presto (177+ BPM). These are common music terms that are
typically applied to music that is written out, but they can be applied to the audio format
as well. Tempo was also measured on a ratio scale in order to run a t-test analysis.
Time Signature. Time signature measures how many beats are in one measure of
music. By ear, time signature can be determined by listening to which beats in the song
are emphasized. The most popular time signature is 4/4 time, which means there are four
quarter notes per measure, however there are many other time signatures that can be used.
Song Length. All song lengths were taken from the iTunes store, a popular
destination to purchase digital music which also provides basic information about the
artist and their songs. Length was measured in seconds as opposed to minutes and
seconds (i.e., 3:25 = 205 seconds).
Key Signature. The key signature of a song designates what kind of notes,
particularly sharps and flats, that will be played in the song. Certain key signatures tend
to give the song a certain tone or mood.
Song Structure. The structure of the song is how the song is put together. How
many verses are there and where are they placed? Is there an instrument solo? Is there a
bridge to the chorus, etc.?
Song tempo, time signature and key signature will be ascertained from
tunebat.com, a music database meant to “help DJs, producers, musicians, and music
enthusiasts find key and BPM info, as well as much more for 40M+ songs”
(tubebat.com). The song formulations will be done by ear and by looking at the lyrics of
the songs on genius.com.
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Measurement
Once the data was collected for each song and organized, the researcher compared
and contrasted the characteristics of the songs. The information was also put into the
SPSS Statistics software.
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CHAPTER IV
Results
All song information can be seen on Table 1
Table 1: Active Rock 2014 Song Data
Song Tempo Time Signature
Length Min:sec/sec
Key Signature
Structure
Heaven Knows- The Pretty Reckless
84 4/4 3:44 244
D Major V1, chorus, V2, refrain, bridge, V3, refrain, bridge, V1, refrain
Shephard of Fire- Avenged Sevenfold
128 4/4 5:22 322
D Major Intro, V1, chorus, V2, chorus, guitar solo, spoken interlude, bridge, chorus
This is the Time (Ballast)- Nothing More
110 4/4, 3/4 3:40 220
B Minor V1, pre-chorus, chorus, V2, pre-chorus, chorus, bridge, chorus 2, chorus 3
Words as Weapons- Seether
110 4/4 4:00 240
F Minor Intro, V1, V2, pre-chorus, V3, V4, pre-chorus, chorus, pre-chorus, pre-chorus, chorus
Take Out the Gunman- Chevelle
85 4/4 4:18 258
F major V1, chorus, V2, chorus, guitar solo, bridge, chorus, outro
Painkiller- Three Days Grace
89 4/4 2:59 169
A major V1, chorus, V2, chorus, bridge, chorus
Torn to Pieces- Pop Evil
122 4/4 3:16 251
C major V1, chorus, V2, chorus, chorus, bridge, chorus, chorus
Tired- Stone Sour
101 4/4 4:11 214
E♭ Minor V1, chorus, V2, chorus, guitar solo, chorus
Dead but Rising- Volbeat
108 4/4 3:34 288
G major Intro, V1, refrain, V2, refrain, bridge,
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chorus, instrumental outro
My Demons- Starset
173 4/4 4:48 214
F minor V1, chorus, V2, chorus, bridge, interlude, first half of chorus, chorus, chorus
Table 2: Active Rock 2015 Song Data
Song Tempo Time Signature
Length Min:sec/sec
Key Signature
Structure
Failure- Breaking Benjamin
155 4/4 3:34 214
D♭major V1, pre-chorus, chorus, V2, pre-chorus, chorus, chorus, outro
Footsteps- Pop Evil
92 4/4 4:22 262
F major Intro, V1, V2, chorus, V3, chorus, bridge, bridge/chorus, bridge/chorus, chorus
Follow Me Down- The Pretty Reckless
144 4/4 4:40 280
E♭major V1, pre-chorus, chorus, V2, pre-chorus, bridge, chorus,
Cut the Cord- Shinedown
89 4/4 3:44 224
G major Intro, V1, pre-chorus, intro interlude, V2, pre-chorus, bridge, pre-chorus, chorus, outro interlude
I Am Machine- Three Days Grace
75 4/4 3:20 200
D minor V1, pre-chorus 1, chorus, V2, pre-chorus 2, chorus, bridge, chorus
Angel- Theory of a Deadman
76 4/4 3:22 202
B minor V1, pre-chorus 1, chorus, V2, pre- chorus 2, chorus, bridge, chorus
Heavy is the Head- Zac Brown band ft. Chris Cornell
171 4/4, 3/4 3:59 239
A♭major Intro, Refrain, V1, pre-chorus, chorus, Refrain, V2, pre-chorus, chorus, guitar solo, chorus, refrain
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The Vengeful One- Disturbed
170 4/4 4:12 252
E minor Intro, V1, pre-chorus, chorus, V2, pre-chorus, chorus, bridge, chorus, chorus, outro
Lydia- Highly Suspect
127 4/4 4:02 242
F# minor V1, chorus1, V2, Chorus2, V3, Chorus 3, outro
Little Monster- Royal Blood
96 4/4 3:32 212
F major V1, chorus, V2, chorus, guitar solo, intrlude, chorus
Table 3: Active Rock 2016 Song Data
Song Tempo Time Signature
Length Min:sec/sec
Key Signature
Structure
The Devil’s Bleeding Crown- Volbeat
110 4/4 3:58 238
G major V1, Chorus, V2, Chorus, interlude, guitar solo, bridge, chorus
The Sound of Silence- Disturbed (Originally by Simon and Garfunkle)
86 (107)
4/4 (4/4)
4:08 248 (3:05)
F# minor (F# major)
V1, V2, V3, V4, V5
Dark Necessities- Red Hot Chili Peppers
92 4/4 5:02 302
F Minor Instrumental intro, V1, V2, Chorus, V3, chorus, bridge, V4, chorus, outro
State of My Head- Shinedown
80 4/4 3:25 205
G minor Intro, V1, pre-chorus, chorus, V2, pre-chorus, bridge, chorus, outro
Take Me Down- The Pretty Reckless
111 4/4 4:13 253
D major V1, refrain, V2, refrain, bridge, refrain
Asking for It- Shinedown
144 4/4 3:30 210
B♭major V1, pre-chorus, chorus, V2, pre-chorus, chorus, bridge, chorus, outro
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Emotionless- Red Sun Rising
92 4/4 4:22 262
E♭minor V1, chorus, V2, chorus, guitar solo, bridge, chorus, chorus
Joyride (Omen)- Chevelle
91 4/4 3:37 217
C minor V1, chorus, V2, chorus, bridge, chorus
Happy Song- Bring Me the Horizon
172 4/4 3:59 239
F major Refrain, V1, V2, Chorus, refrain, V3, Chorus, V4, spoken interlude, refrain
Take It All- Pop Evil
110 4/4 3:18 198
G minor V1, pre-chorus, chorus, V2, pre-chorus, chorus, bridge, chorus,
Table 4: Active Rock 2017 Song Data
Song Tempo Time Signature
Length Min:sec/sec
Key Signature
Structure
Song #3- Stone Sour
157 4/4 4:16 256
D♭major V1, chorus, V2, chorus, guitar solo, bridge, chorus,
Little One- Highly Suspect
140 4/4 4:01 419
G major V1, chorus, V2, chorus, guitar solo, chorus, chorus, V3
Monster- Starset
98 4/4 4:16 256
D♭minor V1, pre-chorus, chorus, V2, pre-chorus, bridge, pre-chorus, chorus,
How Did You Love- Shinedown
93 4/4 3:07 187
F major V1, V2 chorus, V3, chorus, bridge, chorus, bridge, outro
My Name Is Human- Highly Suspect
140 4/4 4:18 258
D minor V1, chorus1, V2, chorus2, bridge, chorus3, outro
Lights Out- Royal Blood
90 4/4 3:56 236
C major V1, pre-chorus1, chorus, V2, pre-chorus2, chorus, guitar solo, chorus
Highway Tune- Greta Van Fleet
124 4/4 3:00 180
E major V1, refrain, V2, refrain, guitar solo, refrain
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Help- Papa Roach
92 4/4 3:34 314
G major Intro, V1, chorus, V2, chorus, bridge, chorus, outro
The Violence- Rise Against
92 4/4 3:48 228
B♭minor V1, chorus, V2, chorus, bridge, chorus
Let You Down- Seether
84 4/4 4:10 250
D major V1, pre-chorus, chorus, V2, pre-chorus, chorus, musical interlude, chorus
Table 5: Active Rock 2018 Song Data
Song Tempo Time Signature
Length Min:sec/sec
Key Signature
Structure
Bulletproof- Godsmack
162 4/4 2:57 177
F minor V1, chorus, V2, chorus, guitar solo, chorus
Devil- Shinedown
120 4/4 3:27 207
G major V1, pre-chorus, chorus, V2, pre-chorus, chorus, interlude, chorus, outro
Rats- Ghost 124 4/4 4:21 261
D minor V1, refrain, V2, refrain, bridge, guitar solo, bridge2, refrain, outro
Zombie- Bad Wolves (Originally by The Cranberries)
77 (167)
4/4 (4/4)
4:14 254 (5:06)
D minor (G major)
V1, Pre-chorus1, refrain, V2, pre-chorus2, chorus, guitar solo, bridge, chorus
The Mountain- Three Days Grace
92 4/4 3:18 198
B♭major Intro, V1, chorus, V2, chorus, bridge, chorus
Safari Song- Greta Van Fleet
176 4/4 3:54 234
D major V1, chorus, V2, chorus, guitar solo, bridge, chorus, outro
Ghost- Badflower
140 4/4 4:19 259
B minor V1, V1, chorus, V3, chorus, guitar
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solo, bridge, chorus, outro
Waking Lions- Pop Evil
143 4/4 3:51 231
F# major V1, V2, chorus, V3, chorus, bridge, chorus, chorus,
When the Curtain Falls- Greta Van Fleet
96 4/4 3:42 222
C major V1, chorus, V2, chorus, bridge, guitar solo, chorus
Sham Pain- Five Finger Death Punch
97 4/4 3:29 209
B minor V1, chorus, V1, chorus, guitar solo, V3, pre-chorus, chorus
Table 6: Hot 100 2014 Song Data
Song Tempo Time Signature
Length Min:sec/sec
Key Signature
Structure
Happy- Pharrell Williams
160 4/4 3:52 232
F minor V1, chorus, V2, chorus, bridge, chorus, chorus, bridge, chorus, chorus
Dark Horse- Katy Perry ft. Juicy J
132 4/4 3:35 215
F# major Intro, V1, pre-chorus, chorus, V2, pre-chorus, chorus, V3, pre-chorus, chorus
All of Me- John Legend
120 4/4 3:35 215
A♭major V1, pre-chorus, chorus, V2, pre-chorus, chorus, bridge, chorus, outro
Fancy- Iggy Azalea ft. Charli XCX
95 4/4 3:19 199
B♭minor V1, chorus, V2, chorus, bridge, V3, chorus, outro
Counting Stars- One Republic
122 4/4 4:19 259
D♭minor Chorus, V1, pre-chorus, chorus, V2, pre-chorus, bridge, chorus, bridge
Talk Dirty- Jason Derulo ft. 2 Chains
82 4/4 3:37 217
C major Intro, V1, pre-chorus, refrain, V2, pre-chorus, refrain, bridge, V3,
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pre-chorus, refrain, outro
Rude- Magic! 144 4/4 3:44 224
D♭major V1, pre-chorus, chorus, V2, pre-chorus, chorus, guitar solo, pre-chorus, chorus
All About That Bass- Meghan Trainor
134 4/4 3:07 187
A major Refrain, V1, pre-chorus, refrain, V2, pre-chorus, refrain, refrain, refrain, outro
Problem- Ariana Grande ft. Iggy Azalea
103 4/4 3:13 193
D♭minor Intro, V1, pre-chorus, refrain, V2, pre-chorus, refrain, V3, interlude, pre-chorus, refrain
Stay With Me- Sam Smith
84 4/4 2:52 172
C major V1, chorus, V2, chorus, interlude, chorus, chorus
Table 7: Hot 100 2015 Song Data
Song Tempo Time Signature
Length Min:sec/sec
Key Signature
Structure
Uptown Funk!- Mark Ronson ft. Bruno Mars
115 4/4 4:29 269
C major Intro, V1, V2, pre-chorus, refrain, V3, pre-chorus, V2, pre-chorus, refrain, bridge, pre-chorus, refrain, refrain, refrain
Thinking Out Loud- Ed Sheeran
79 4/4 4:41 281
D major V1, pre-chorus, chorus, V2, pre-chorus, chorus, chorus, guitar solo
See You Again- Wiz Khalifa ft. Charlie Puth
80 4/4 4:41 281
Bb major Chorus, V1, pre-chorus, chorus, V2, pre-chorus, bridge, chorus
Trap Queen- Fetty Wap
148 4/4 3:42 222
G major Intro, V1, chorus, chorus, V2, chorus, chorus, V1, V3, outro
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Sugar- Maroon 5
120 4/4 3:55 235
D♭major V1, pre-chorus, chorus, V2, pre-chorus, chorus, bridge, chorus, chorus
Shut Up and Dance- Walk the Moon
128 4/4 3:19 199
D♭major Chorus, V1, pre-chorus, chorus, V2, pre-chorus, chorus, keyboard solo, bridge, chorus, chorus,
Blank Space- Taylor Swift
96 4/4 3:51 231
F major V1, V2, chorus, V3, V4, chorus, bridge, chorus
Watch me- Silento
140 4/4 3:05 185
A♭major Intro, chorus, V1, pre-chorus, chorus, V2, pre-chorus, chorus
Earned It (Fifty Shades of Grey)- The Weeknd
120 3/4 4:37 277
D minor V1, pre-chorus, chorus, V2, pre-chorus, chorus, V3, chorus, outro
The Hills- The Weeknd
113 4/4 4:02 242
C minor V1, chorus, V2, chorus, bridge, chorus, outro
Table 8: Hot 100 2016 Song Data
Song Tempo Time Signature
Length Min:sec/sec
Key Signature
Structure
Love Yourself- Justin Bieber
103 4/4 3:53 233
E major V1, pre-chorus, chorus, V2, pre-chorus, chorus, trumpet solo, bridge, chorus, chorus
Sorry- Justin Bieber
100 4/4 3:20 200
C minor V1, pre-chorus, refrain, V2, pre-chorus, refrain, bridge, chorus
One Dance- Drake ft. WizKid and Kyla
104 4/4 2:53 173
D♭major Refrain, V1, chorus, chorus, refrain V2, chorus, chorus, bridge, V3, chorus, chorus
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Work- Rihanna ft. Drake
91 4/4 3:39 219
B major Refrain, V1, refrain, V2, refrain, V3, refrain, outro
Stressed Out- Twenty One Pilots
170 4/4 3:22 202
E minor V1, pre-chorus, chorus, V2, pre-chorus, chorus, bridge, chorus, outro
Panda- Desiigner
145 4/4 3:22 202
B♭minor Intro, refrain, V1, V1, refrain, V2, refrain, V1, V1, refrain
Hello- Adele 158 4/4 4:55 295
F minor V1, pre-chorus, chorus, V2, pre-chorus2, chorus, refrain, chorus
Don’t Let Me Down- The Chainsmokers ft. Daya
160 4/4 3:28 208
B major V1, pre-chorus, refrain, V2, pre-chorus, refrain, bridge, pre-chorus, outro
Can’t Stop The Feeling!- Justin Timberlake
113 4/4 3:57 237
C major V1, V2, pre-chorus, chorus, V3, V2, pre-chorus, chorus, musical interlude, chorus, outro
Closer- The Chainsmokers ft. Halsey
95 4/4 4:04 244
A♭major V1, pre-chorus, chorus, V2, pre-chorus, chorus, chorus, outro
Table 9: Hot 100 2017 Song Data
Song Tempo Time Signature
Length Min:sec/sec
Key Signature
Structure
Shape of You- Ed Sheeran
96 4/4 3:53 233
D♭minor V1, pre-chorus, chorus, V2, pre-chorus, bridge, chorus
Despacito- Lois Fonsi & Daddy Yankee ft. Justin Bieber
89 4/4 3:49 229
D major V1, V2, pre-chorus, chorus, V3, pre-chorus, chorus, bridge, chorus, chorus
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That’s What I Like- Bruno Mars
134 4/4 3:26 206
D♭major V1, pre-chorus, chorus, V2, pre-chorus, chorus, chorus
Humble.- Kendrick Lamar
150 4/4 2:57 177
D♭minor Intro, V1, refrain, V2, chorus
Something Just Like This- The Chainsmokers & Coldplay
103 4/4 4:07 247
B minor V1, pre-chorus, refrain, V2, pre-chorus, refrain, pre-chorus, refrain
Bad and Boujee- Migos ft. Lil Uzi Vert
127 4/4 5:43 343
B major Intro, chorus, V1, chorus, V2, Chorus, V3, chorus
Closer- The Chainsmokers ft. Halsey
95 4/4 4:04 244
A♭major V1, pre-chorus, chorus, V2, pre-chorus, chorus, chorus, outro
Body Like A Back Road- Sam Hunt
99 4/4 2:45 165
F major V1, Chorus, V2, chorus, guitar solo, bridge, chorus, outro
Believer- Imagine Dragons
125 4/4 3:24 204
B♭minor V1, V2, pre-chorus, chorus, V3, pre-chorus2, chorus, bridge, chorus
Congratulations- Post Malone ft. Quavo
123 4/4 3:40 220
F♭major Chorus, V1, chorus, V2, chorus,
Table 10: Hot 100 2018 Song Data
Song Tempo Time Signature
Length Min:sec/sec
Key Signature
Structure
God’s Plan- Drake
77 4/4 3:18 198
G major Intro, V1, chorus, V2,
Perfect- Ed Sheeran
95 4/4 4:23 263
A♭major V1, chorus, V2, chorus, guitar solo, chorus2
Meant to Be- Bebe Rexha
154 4/4 2:43 163
B♭major V1, chorus, V2, chorus, bridge, chorus, outro
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& Florida Georgia Line
Havana- Camila Cabello ft. Young Thug
105 4/4 3:37 217
D major Chorus, V1, pre-chorus, chorus, V2, chorus, bridge, chorus, outro
Rockstar- Post Malone ft. 21 Savages
160 4/4 3:38 218
F major Intro, chorus, V1, chorus, V2, chorus, outro
Psycho- Post Malone ft. Dolla $ign
140 4/4 3:41 221
A♭major Chorus, V1, chorus, V2, chorus
I Like It- Camila Cardi B, Bad Bunny, J Balvin
136 4/4 4:13 253
F minor Intro, V1, chorus, V2, chorus, V3, bridge, chorus
The Middle- Zedd, Maren Morris, Grey
107 4/4 3:04 184
G major V1, pre-chorus, chorus, V2, pre-chorus, bridge, chorus, chorus
In My Feelings- Drake
91 4/4 3:37 217
Db major Intro, chorus, V1, Chorus, bridge, chorus, refrain, chorus, interlude, outro
Girls Like You- Maroon 5 ft. Cardi B
125 4/4 3:55 235
C major V1, chorus, V2, chorus, bridge, V3, chorus
Out of the 100 songs in question, 4 Rock and Roll songs fell into the category of
Andante, or 70-83 beats per minute (BPM), and 3 Hot 100 songs were considered
Andante as well (7 total). 19 Rock and Roll songs fell into the Moderato, 84-97 BPM,
along with 10 Hot 100 songs (29 total). Allegro, 98-32 BMP had the most songs, with 13
Rock and Roll and 22 Hot 100 (35 total). Vivace, 133-150 BPM, had 6 Rock and Roll
songs and 9 Hot 100 songs (8 total). Allegrissimo, 151-167 BPM, had 3 Rock and Roll
songs and 5 Hot 100 songs, (8 total), and Presto, 168+ BPM, had 5 Rock and Roll songs
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and 1 Hot 100 song (6 total) (Rock and Roll: M = 114.12 , SD = 30.20; Hot 100: M =
233.18, SD = 24.78). This can be seen on chart 2.
A vast majority of the songs, 99, have a primary time signature of 4/4, which is
the most common time signature in popular music. One song, however, did utilize a 3/4
time signature for the whole song, The Weeknd’s ‘Earned It’ (Fifty Shades of Grey). Two
other songs, Nothing More’s ‘Ballast’, and Zac Brown Band’s ‘Heavy is the Head’
featuring Chris Cornell, did use a 3/4 time signature for a small portion of their songs
before going back to their original 4/4 time signature.
Out of the 100 songs observed, 66 of them had a unique structure in some way,
and the following songs shared a structure with at least one other song: “The Vengeful
One” and “State of My Head”; “Emotionless” and “Song #3”; “Tired” and “Bulletproof”;
“Dead but Rising” and “Help”; “The Hills” and “Meant to Be”; “Thinking Out Loud” and
“Perfect”; “Body Like A Backroad” and “Psycho”; “Asking For It”, “All Of Me” and
“Stressed Out”; “Failure” and “Closer”; “Take Out The Gunman”, “Safari Song”, and
“Body Like a Backroad”; “Follow Me Down”, “Shape of You”, and “The Middle”, “Take
It All” and “Sugar”; “Painkiller”, “Torn to Pieces”, “Joyride”, “The Violence”, and
“Blank Space”.
Research Question 1 asked if Rock songs had certain aspects in common, and
which qualities they were. For tempo, the most common category was Moderato (84-97
beats per minute), which accounted for 38% of the songs. Two key signatures tied for
most popular. The key of D and the key of F both accounted for 24% of rock songs (see
table 3). Major key was more popular than minor key and accounted for 56% of rock
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songs (see table 4). Mean scores were calculated for beats per minute (M = 114.42, SD =
30.20) and song length (M = 233.18, SD = 30.20).
Research Question 2 asked if Hot 100 songs has certain aspects in common, and
which qualities they were. For tempo, the most common category was Allegro (98-132
beats per minute), and 44% of songs fell into that category (see table 2). The key of D
held the most Hot 100 songs at 24% (see table 3), and 35% of Hot 100 songs were in a
major key (see table 4). Mean scores were calculated for beats per minute (M = 118.20,
SD = 24.78) and song length (M = 223.70, SD = 35.45).
Research question 3 asked about the similarities between the two genres of music;
specifically, which qualities of music were similar. Independent sample two-tailed t-tests
revealed that, when looking at tempo measured in beats per minute, Active Rock (M =
114.42, SD = 30.20) did not differ significantly from Hot 100 songs (M = 118.20, SD =
24.78), t(98) = -.68, p = .50. When looking at song length, Active Rock (M = 233.18, SD
= 31.50) songs did not differ significantly from Hot 100 songs (M = 224.00, SD = 35.44),
t(98) = 4.41, p = .16.
Analyses were run to ascertain information about categorical song components
and how they related across genre. No significant differences between genres were found
in tempo (χ2 (5, N = 100) = .15, p = .20), time signature (χ2 (2, N=100) =3.00, p = .22),
key signature (χ2 (6, N = 100) =8.10, p = .23), or major/minor key (χ2 (1, N=100) =2.10,
p=.15).
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Table 11: Tempo Category
Tempo Category (BPM)
Andante (70-83)
Moderato (84-97)
Allegro (98-32)
Vivace (133-150)
Allegrissimo (151-167)
Presto (168+)
Active Rock
16 (8%) 19 (38%) 13 (26%) 6 (12%) 3 (6%) 5 (10%)
Hot 100 12 (6%) 10 (20%) 22 (44%) 9 (18%) 5 (10%) 1 (2%)
Table 12: Key Signature
Key Signature Active Rock Hot 100
A 2 (4%) 7 (14%)
B 7 (14%) 9 (18%)
C 4 (8%) 7 (14%)
D 12 (24%) 14 (28%)
E 5 (10%) 2 (4%)
F 12 (24%) 8 (16%)
G 8 (16%) 3 (6%)
Table 13: Major and Minor
Active Rock Hot 100
Major 28 (56%) 35 (70%)
Minor 22 (44%) 15 (30%)
Discussion
Considering that tempo category, major/minor, key signature or time signature do
not have an equal distribution of songs among them, one could essentially formulate the
most common hot 100 or Active Rock song from this information. A successful Hot 100
song is generally in an Allegro tempo category in the key of D major, and a successful
Active Rock song is typically in the Moderato tempo category in the key of either D
major or F major. Contrary to what fans of these two different genres might think, these
two ideas are not all that different from one another.
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That being said, even though there is not an equal distribution of songs among the
individual musical components, not all of the components are completely one sided in
their distributions, as most of them have at least a few songs in each of the given
categories. For the tempo category, most of the songs tended to have tempos that were in
the middle of the range, but that does not mean that ‘extremes’ on either end of the tempo
spectrum were completely missing. Active Rock, in particular, had over 40% of its songs
between Andante, the slowest tempo, and Presto, the fastest tempo.
Key signature also had a distribution that would not suggest formula within the
songs. The distribution is erratic and not necessarily easy to predict, and unlike the tempo
category, it was distributed on less of a bell curve. Major/Minor was a little different,
though, particularly regarding Hot 100, where the vast majority of the songs were in a
major key rather than a minor key. Active Rock, however, was a little more equally
distributed.
Song format was another element that differentiated the songs a bit. Out of the
100 songs, 23 songs shared a format with at least one other song, with 13 different song
formats being shared among them. That means that the rest of the songs had something
unique about their format that differentiated them from the rest of the songs, making a
total of 81 different song formats from the sample of 100. If a formula were to be
followed for all 100 songs, there would probably be a greater number of songs with a
shared format and a smaller number of songs that were unique in format.
The one musical element that was very formulaic was time signature, as 97 of the
100 songs strictly used 4/4 time. The three songs that escaped this formula were ‘Heavy
is the Head’- Zac Brown Band ft. Chris Cornell (2015), ‘This is the Time (Ballast)’-
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Nothing More (2014) and ‘Earned It (Fifty Shades of Grey)’-
The Weeknd (2015). Earned It (Fifty Shades of Grey) was the only song in the mix that
exclusively used a 3/4 time signature; This is the Time (Ballast), and Heavy is the Head
only used 3/4 for a portion of their song before returning to 4/4 time. What is it about
these three songs that allowed them to be successful despite resisting the 4/4 formula?
Earned It (Fifty Shades of Grey), as the name implies, was featured in the
soundtrack for the 2015 romance film, Fifty Shared of Grey (Taylor-Johnson, De Luca,
James, Brunetti), which grossed almost $570 million. With a film as successful as Fifty
Shades of Grey, the soundtrack obviously saw its fair share of success as well, peaking at
number 1 on the Billboard US Soundtrack Albums, and number 2 on the US Billboard
200 charts (Billboard.com). Despite the song’s deviation from the more conventional
time signature, its association with the film could possibly be what brought the song to
such popularity and success.
Heavy is the Head was another success story that had interesting origins
compared to the rest of the songs. Zac Brown Band is not a Rock and Roll act but is
instead a Country/Folk act. Whereas all their previous songs and other songs to this date
have ended up on various Country Music charts, this song’s inclusion of Chris Cornell is
what tipped this particular song into Rock radio stations and Rock and Roll music charts.
Cornell was the lead singer of popular Rock/Grunge acts Soundgarden and Audioslave;
he unfortunately passed away in 2017 due to suicide. By combining the popularity of Zac
Brown Band, in the heyday of Country Music, with the Classic Rock voice of Chris
Cornell, this song was able to reach multiple music fanbases, which was probably a
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contributing factor to this song’s popularity on the music charts, despite its less than
typical time signature change.
Pseudo-Individualism and Standardization
These small differentiations from song to song are interesting and are definitely
worth noting, but there was much similarity in the 100 songs and the two genres did not
differ significantly in any category. Just as Horkheimer and Adorno had theorized, this
study confirms that music is yet another cultural product that claims individuality;
however, it falls short of its potential to be more than just another face in the crowd of
tunes. When comparing Active Rock to Hot 100, there was no data to support the notion
that the two genres had any significant differences behind them on a musical level when
comparing tempo, time signature, key signature, length and song format. Similarly, when
comparing the songs within the two genres, the data also pointed to the idea that if
someone has heard one Hot 100 song, they have heard them all, and if someone has heard
one Active Rock song, they have also heard them all.
Standardization can be seen very clearly within the sample, and one wouldn’t
need to look farther than the time signature that absolutely dominates almost all the
songs. Of the 100 songs that were observed, 99 of them used the classic 4/4 time
signature. While one song did utilize the 3/4 time signature throughout the entirety of the
song and two of the 99 songs mentioned used 3/4 for a small portion, it cannot be denied
that when someone wants to write a song to be produced for the masses, the familiar
1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4 counting is the clear choice for a musician.
That is not to say that 4/4 and 3/4 are the only time signatures that can be used in
popular music that is destined for the radio; both Pop and Rock and Roll music have had
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their fair share of off-timing hits. ‘Hey Ya’ by Outkast uses a 11/4 time signature and was
number 1 on the Hot 100 chart in 2003 and 2004. Arethra Franklin’s cover of ‘Say a
Little Prayer’ was in the same time signature and was number 10 on the Hot 100 Chart in
1968. Pink Floyd’s ‘Money’, a Rock and Roll classic, was number 13 on the Hot 100
chart in 1973, when Rock and Roll actually made it to that chart frequently, with a 7/8
time signature. ‘Them Bones’ by Alice in Chains and ‘Spoonman’ by Soundgarden also
utilized the 7/8 time signature and were both successful songs on the Mainstream Rock
chart and the Alternative Rock Chart in the early 1990s. And perhaps one of the most
successful songs of all time, ‘All You Need is Love’ from the Beatles, was a number one
song in many countries in 1967 after showing off its 7/8 time signature. Though these
songs were more than likely falling to standardization similar to the songs of today, they
at least had something different to show for in terms of time signature.
With the knowledge that music tends to be similar no matter the genre, how is it
that people can make the determination of what music they actively choose to listen to?
The answer could bring in a large aspect of popular music that this study did not assess;
lyrical content.
Lyrics to a song are sometimes confusing and nonsensical; a jabbering mess of
words and concepts that some listeners might be able to make some sort of sense of, but
no one meaning can be gleaned from it without the say-so from the artist. These songs
can mean different things to different people, and they can pick up different meanings
from them on their own. Other songs, however, have very clear messages that are easy to
discern, or said lyrical content has been spoken for by the person who writes them.
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Because of this inconsistency, however, lyrical content was left out of this study as to
omit any sort of guess work and to rely only on objective data.
Just because it was left out of this study, however, doesn’t mean that lyrics are not
important in music and music popularity. Women in particular have been known to take
lyrics into consideration when choosing the music that they favor, as well as the
sentiment that those lyrics might convey (Boyle, Hosterman, Ramsey, 1981). Lyrics,
however, are more than likely an example of pseudo-individualistic qualities that lead
consumers into believing that one song is completely different from the last, especially
given that lyrics have already been categorized into only a few subjects (Christiansen
at.al. 2018). Just because Ed Sheeran is singing specifically about his love and his
romantic relationships doesn’t mean that his songs are any different from John Legend’s
‘individualized’ love songs. This concept isn't just singling out these two artists either;
while listening to all of the songs for the data collection, it was easy to hear that a good
portion of the 100 songs went in a romantic direction.
What might be another encouraging factor that pushes certain people to certain
kinds of music? Briefly mentioned earlier was the subculture that surrounds Rock and
Roll music and its fanbase; long-haired, leather and denim-clad head-bangers with a
hankering for long guitar solos and a pyrotechnic filled live show. Though this image
might be a bit of a stereotype, and one that not all Rock fans identify with, stereotypes
plague all genres of music and the fans that affiliate themselves with them. Someone’s
music preference could give the outside world a reason to think positively or negatively
about them all based off of their own opinion of that genre and the people who partake in
it (North, Hargreaves, 1999)
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When stereotyping any given genre of music, most people are in agreeance on
what stereotype they give a genre; Rock and Roll and Heavy Metal are energetic and
rebellious, Pop and Country music is upbeat and simple, and so on (Rentfrow, Gosling
2003). It is believed that these stereotypes can give a pretty good view into that group’s
social category (Rentfrow, McDonald, 2009). While this might be seen as a negative
result of hasty generalization by people outside of the genre, these stereotypes and
generalizations do have a positive effect of people within a given genre’s fanbase.
Music has become a method of bonding and creating friendships. Not only do
people tend to enjoy the company of those who share a similar taste in music, but this
similar music preference can lead people to believe that the other person shares similar
values and interests, whether it is with an established relationship, or a first-time meeting
(Boer, Fischer, Strack, et. al., 2011; Rentfrow, Gosling 2006). It is these stereotypes that
can help people form life-long bonds with others, and can give people a feeling of
belonging to a group that shares a similar lifestyle (North, Hargreaves, 1999)
Though the listeners and the fans of the genre are most often blamed or attributed
with giving a genre of music its iconic image, the artists themselves are equally to blame
for any iconic imagery and are there to help enforce the stereotypes associated with their
music (Rentfrow, McDonald 2009). This can easily be seen in many genres and the
starring acts that keep them at the top of the charts. The band Five Finger Death Punch,
who had a chart-topping song in 2018, can often be seen wearing dark colors, leather,
denim and chains, while spiking their hair into mohawks and twisting dreadlocks into
their beards. Many press photos of the band also include them sticking out their tongues,
holding bloodied baseball bats and chainsaws, and throwing out the traditional ‘devil
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horns’ hand gesture. Ghost, another 2018 favorite in the Active Rock chart, also adorns
black often and commonly paints their faces with skeletal-inspired makeup. They also
tend to dress in religious inspired attire, like a pope costume, or wear masks and capes
like it’s Halloween.
The ways that Rock bands tend to portray themselves is often in stark contrast to
the ways that those on the Hot 100 list tend to present themselves. Taylor Swift, who had
a chart-topper in 2015, commonly adorns colorful and whimsical outfits to compliment
her bubbly personality and Pop music. Back when she focused more on a country-
influenced sound in her music, however, her style matched that genre too, as she
commonly wore cowgirl styled boots and straw hats. Hip-Hop group Migos had a
successful song on the Hot 100 charts in 2017, and they have adopted a very urban style
of dress, complete with large gold chains and bold clothing patterns.
The way that the artist or band presents themselves helps to determine who in the
world is going to listen, and it helps to reinforce the structure of the genre in question
(Askina, Mauskapf, 2017). This is also a way of marketing the music in hopes of getting
it to the right person in what Ogden, Ogden and Long call “interpersonal marketing” (p.
120, 2011). This happens when an artist and a listener can ‘connect’ through a similar
mode of self-expression, even if it is on but a parasocial level. This can happen on an
emotional level, like through song lyrics as well, as it is assumed that about 22% of music
listeners use music for an emotional reason, like accompanying an emotion or trying to
change an emotion (Chamorro-Premuzic, Furnham, 2007).
The way that the band or artist presents themselves along with the stereotypes
they choose to accept and embrace could be another aspect of pseudo-individuality.
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While Five Finger Death Punch uses their rough, Rock and Roll inspired appearance to
physically differentiate themselves from the likes of Migos and Maroon 5, they don’t
have much to keep themselves separate from other bands in a similar category. To those
unfamiliar with the band and its members, Avenged Sevenfold, Three Days Grace,
Disturbed, or Stone Sour could easily be interchanged without the average person
knowing. There are a few exceptions to this idea, namely bands with women in their
lineup, which is a short list in this sample consisting of only The Pretty Reckless, who is
fronted by Taylor Momsen, and Pop Evil, who’s drummer is Hayley Cramer. This
concept is not limited to those artists in the Active Rock chart, as the Hot 100 musicians
fall victim to physical tropes as well, even considering the wide array of genres that they
represent. Taylor Swift’s colorful and quirky outfits could easily be replaced by Katy
Perry’s, and her country attire can be seen on just about any other female country star.
Similarly, Migos’ urban attire of large jewelry looks like it came out of the same closet of
2 Chains and Fetty Wap.
Authenticity
There are two songs out of the tested 100 that should have a little more attention
brought to them; Disturbed’s 2016 song ‘The Sound of Silence’ and Bad Wolves’ 2018
song ‘Zombie’. Eagle-eyed consumers are wise to the fact that these songs are not
original works by these modern Rock and Roll bands but are covers of songs originally
released many years ago. The duo Simon and Garfunkel released ‘The Sound of Silence’
in 1965, where the song was met with great success and was number one on the Billboard
Hot 100 chart, and also topped other music charts all over the world. ‘Zombie’ was
originally created by the Irish band The Cranberries in 1994 and was also a hit at the
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time; It was number one on Billboard’s US Alternative Songs chart and was successful in
many other countries as well.
These songs were both a great success when they were originally released and are
still popular today, so it makes sense that other musicians would want to capitalize off of
that success and re-release it in modern times and in a modern fashion. Other than the
pre-established chart-topping success that these covers have, they were also able to
garner a lot of attention from outside places. Disturbed’s music video for their version of
‘The Sound of Silence’ has almost 570 million views on YouTube (Disturbed, 2015), and
the recording of their live performance on ‘Late Night with Conan O’Brien’ has over 100
million views, which is the most viewed video on that channel (TeamCOCO, 2016). This
performance even garnered the attention of Paul Simon, the song’s original writer, which
prompted him to email David Draiman, Disturbed’s vocalist, with praise for his
performance, which Draiman shared on Facebook: “Really powerful performance on
Conan the other day. First time I’d seen you do it live. Nice. Thanks.” (Disturbed, 2016).
Bad Wolves also gained a sort of blessing for their cover from the original band, as The
Cranberries lead singer, Dolores O’Riordan, was slated to reprice her vocal performance
in their cover, as explained in the start of the music video for the song. “On January 15,
2018, The Cranberries’ Dolores O’Riordan was set to reprise her iconic vocals on Bad
Wolves’ cover of “Zombie”. That day, she tragically left this world. In her memory, Bad
Wolves released the song, donating proceeds to her children.” (Better Noise Music,
2018).
Even though these covers saw great amounts of success and even garnered
positive attention from their original creators, this is where the concept of authenticity
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comes into question. Walter Benjamin (2001) points out that authenticity isn’t just about
the product itself, but also the process of making the product. Disturbed and Bad Wolves
both put twists on the songs to make them slightly different from the original recording;
Disturbed made ‘The Sound of Silence’ a bit slower and added some prominent
percussion to their cover, and Bad Wolves changed some lyrics and had a heavy focus on
the electric guitar in ‘Zombies’. That being said, however, these bands were not around
during the initial creation of the song, and thus missed out on that important experience.
Benjamin has another word that he uses to describe art; the word “aura”, and he
defines in by the “unique phenomenon of a distance, no matter how close it may be” (p.
5). It can be more thoroughly explained as the feeling someone gets from the initial
experience with the art. the songs in question both cover topics that were relevant to the
artists at the time of their creation. In the case of ‘Zombie’, it was written as a memorial
for the two young children who were killed in the 1993 Warrington Bombings in
England. The song was released one year later, and the lyrics reflect the events of the
bombings as well as the emotions to follow. The ‘aura’ of that song was captured at the
time of writing from the point of view of The Cranberries and is something that cannot be
replicated by simply covering the song.
In the version that Bad Wolves released, the idea of aura could have been
something that they thought about. A brief change in lyrics was made in the pre-chorus to
the song. Originally, the lyrics sang “with their tanks and their bombs and their bombs
and their guns”; Bad Wolves changed “guns” to “drones” in their rendition, and also
changed the year “1916” to “2018”. This was likely an attempt to modernize the song in a
way and bring their own aura into the creative process. However, if they wanted to have a
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song full of their own aura, they would have to start from scratch and create something
from the ground up.
‘The Sound of Silence’ also has its meaning spoken for by Paul Simon, who said
that the song reflects people’s inability to communicate and inability to share their
emotions (Hilburn, 2019). Disturbed made no changed to the original lyrics of the song,
thus keeping the original meaning intact, possibly as a reference to the idea that this is
still an issue that people are dealing with today. That does not, however, make the two
songs one in the same as Benjamin dictates “Even the most perfect reproduction of a
work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence
at the place where it happens to be” (p. 3).
When talking about cover songs, it can be assumed that all sense of ‘authenticity’
has been lost; what does this mean for original songs, that made up 98% of the sample?
Benjamin believes that in modern day, when music is created with reproduction in mind,
the sense of aura is still lost, especially due to mechanical reproduction (1935). Musicians
today have something very important on their mind when they are creating music for the
masses: money. This mindset, Benjamin says, changes the creative process and the way
that people produce art. What will sell the most records? What will be played on the radio
the most? What will convince people to pay money to see a live show? These factors blur
musicians' minds as they record take after take of the same song, trying to make it sound
as marketable as possible, before they end up taking a chunk from one recording and
another part from another recording and fastening them together to create the ‘perfect
song’. Created in this fashion, can modern music be called ‘authentic’ or ‘genuine’? To
Benjamin, all sense of authenticity was lost as soon as mechanical reproduction became
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the norm. It could also be argued that authenticity is equally lost when making money is
the reason for making music.
If authenticity is lost on the creator’s end, what does that mean for those people
who are on the consumer’s end? Music that is recorded and then distributed to the masses
brings in nearly 20 million dollars per year (Watson, 2019), which is no small amount
considering that most of the products are very similar to one another, and most of the
products lack any sense of authenticity and/or aura. If that dollar amount says anything,
however, it’s that this is the way that people prefer their music to be; consistent and fake.
Music is like a supermodel posing for a magazine. She might be a healthy and
beautiful woman all on her own, and a certain amount of people might even see her as
perfection. The beauty industry, however, might want to enlarge her bust and hips, make
her waistline smaller, and get rid of the stretch marks on her thighs in order to make her
even more ‘perfect’. They want to make her as marketable to a mass audience as possible
even if that means taking away her authenticity, or what makes her who she is.
Baudrillard, a French academic, was able to take this concept a good deal further.
Baudrillard (1981) wrote about the notion of the ‘simulacra’, which is Latin for
‘likeness’ or ‘similarity’. In Baudrillard’s text, he more officially defines it as “…the
generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal” (p. 1). In an
example, he applied this concept to Disneyland and its wide appeal. Disneyland is a place
full of imagination and wonder. It’s colorful characters and fantastic portrayal of
childhood splendor is something not found in the real world, but only within the confines
of the park. People love the whimsy that is otherwise not found in our world and use the
park as a means to escape the mundane place that they live (Baudrillard, Glaser, 2018).
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The rose-colored glasses that so perfectly explains “the happiest place on earth”
and the super model from before can easily be applied to music. People don’t want
authenticity in music because authenticity is less than perfect. The voice cracks and
wrong notes of a live performance are marks of imperfection in music, like a stretch mark
is to a bikini model. The head honchos that are the gatekeepers to and from the music
industry want to get rid of any hiccups that could be seen as undesirable as to make the
consumers think that perfection and authenticity are one and the same. When people say
that an artist is authentic, they might only go so far as to match a genre to an appearance;
if he wears a straw hat and sings about his truck, he must be an authentic country singer.
The word ‘authenticity’ may have lost too much meaning to the point where consumers
might not have a complete grip on the concept. If a record company can keep consumers
believing that the music that they are listening to is as authentic as it gets, however, they
can keep the masses happy and keep their wallets full.
Horkheimer and Adorno agree with this as well. “Those in charge no longer take
much trouble to conceal the structure, the power of which increases the more bluntly its
existence is admitted” (p. 95). In essence, they said that those higher up in the music
production industry are creating power for themselves by producing music that is
considered to be perfect, but repetitive, as long as people are willing to buy it, which they
are. They can wave thousands of copy and paste songs in front of the masses and relish in
the happiness of the consumers, not necessarily because of their happiness, but because
of their willingness to spend money through their naïve happiness.
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CHAPTER VI
Conclusion
The music industry is a multi-billion-dollar industry that, every year, produces
music that is now concluded to be incredibly similar in many aspects, and from on genre
to the next. This conclusion was able to come to fruition by looking at popular music
from the perspective that someone might look at a piece of classical sheet music, as the
tempo, time signature, and key signature might not be areas of music that someone
without prior music training would think about, let alone apply to popular music.
Limitations
That being said, however, this is where a limitation of the study comes in. Without
sheet music or an incredibly well-trained ear, deciphering something like a song’s key
signature is next to impossible. Because of this, the song database, tunebat.com, was used
to collect the key signature for every song. For every song, only one key signature was
reported from the database, however, some songs do change key signatures part way
through, which might go unnoticed by the casual listener. Though it is possible that none
of the sample songs changed key signature, there is a chance that tunebat.com only listed
the key signature that was featured most within the song. With no way to prove if
tunebat.com was accurate or not, this study relied on the music knowledge and accuracy
of the website’s contributors.
Tunebat.com was also used to ascertain the song’s tempo, as doing that by ear
would take a good bit of time as well as an accurate metronome. Even with those two
components, measuring an accurate tempo is not easy, as a song that has a tempo of 130
beats per minute and a song with a tempo of 135 beats per minute are relatively difficult
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to tell apart as far as the tempo is concerned. By using a song database, the measurements
were hopefully consistent and accurate.
As mentioned before, the lyrical content of the music was not addressed in this
study based off of the desire to keep the data subjective, as lyrical content might not be as
black and white as something like time signature. There are also studies that have already
looked at lyrical content of popular music, so there was less of a need to include it in this
study. It is, however, important to the song as well as to the people who listen to the song
and is probably easier for the average listener to understand when compared to something
as technical as key signature and song format.
Future Research
Including lyrical content in a study that also covers other aspects of music would
be a great way to compare multiple elements of a song, even elements that are not
necessarily objective. Obtaining more information about a song would only give more
detail when comparing it to other songs.
Having a musician or someone who has greater musical knowledge on the
research team would also give great perspective to the research, especially if their music
knowledge was able to be used instead of a music database. Like what was previously
mentioned, having to rely on an outside source to find things like key signature and time
signature was a bit of a shot in the dark, and the information might not be as detailed as
desired. If a musician was on hand for the coding portion of the research, there could be
more accuracy in the obtained information.
Given the idea that this study showed that there is not much to differentiate genres
of music by the way the songs sound, one could take that information and try to find why
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people are attracted to the music that they do favor. This could be done through
interviews, surveys or other means of getting what will probably be qualitative
information from people. Maybe the people who enjoy one particular genre of music the
most all report similar reasons for liking the genre, or perhaps the reasons vary from
person to person. Maybe a music preference is gained due to inundation of the music
during formative years, such as a parent listening to a specific genre while driving in the
car. Or, maybe in an effort to spite that inundation, a different genre of music is self-
administered. Regardless of how sterile and formulaic music is today, there are a myriad
of reasons why someone chooses to pump that particular genre into their ears, and finding
out said reasons could be an interesting discovery.
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