As a lifelong musician this seems so plainly obvious to me that it barely seems like news. I suppose a formal study simply confirms it for everyone else. Perhaps I'm missing something.<p>Popular music ebbs and flows in it's harmonic complexity over decades. Certainly in the last century of popular music. One of James Brown's innovations in the 60s was reducing jazz and RnB music down to one chord for an entire song. On the other hand, 70's songwriting was harmonically rich, with lots of adventurous modulations, modal interchange, and extended chords (7ths, 9ths, etc).<p>We're now coming out of a two decade run where hip hop has been the dominant popular music. A form which, generally speaking, tends to be harmonically "flat" (ala James Brown) and simple in form. For songwriters who are looking to differentiate themselves from their peers a move back into harmonic complexity is a worthy move and low hanging fruit in a musical era where few have been making use of it.<p>Compelling music has always been, in some sense, about setting up expectations and then subverting them. The art is in the balancing of steady patterns and novel events.
Rick Beato's "The Most COMPLEX Pop Song of All Time" is worth listening to <a href="https://youtu.be/ZnRxTW8GxT8?t=58" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/ZnRxTW8GxT8?t=58</a>
So will we return to the multi-part, operatic mix-n-match pieces like in 60s and 70s pop rock? Songs like Day in the Life, Mr. Blue Sky, Good Vibrations, or pretty much every hit by Paul McCartney? I mean "Band on the Run" is like 4 or 5 songs in 3 minutes.
A fascinating read. I remember many years ago listening to Take Me Out by Franz Ferdinand for the first time and being absolutely taken aback by the total shift it took a minute or so into the song. I wonder if that was one of those moments the article describes.<p><a href="https://youtu.be/Ijk4j-r7qPA" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/Ijk4j-r7qPA</a>