They are not made like they used to be! According to a study, song melodies have become simpler in the last 70 years

You’re probably tired of hearing your parents tell you that the old songs are the best.

But they could be right: As a study shows, song melodies have become simpler since the 1950s.

Researchers have found that the complexity of the melodies of the most popular songs in the United States each year has decreased over the past 70 years.

The team from Queen Mary University of London analyzed the most striking melodies (usually the vocal melody) of songs that reached the top five spots on the U.S. Billboard year-end singles chart every year between 1950 and 2022.

They found two significant declines in melodic complexity that occurred in 1975 and 2000, as well as a smaller decline in 1996.

The change in melody in 1975 could be attributed to the rise of genres such as new wave, disco and stadium rock, they said.

The changes documented in 1996 and 2000 could represent the rise of hip hop or the introduction of digital audio workstations that allowed the repeated playback of audio loops.

When comparing some of the most popular songs from different decades, the evolution of the songs is clearly visible.

While the top song of 1964 was “I Want to Hold Your Hand” by the Beatles, the equivalent in 1980 was “Call Me” by Blondie.

The dance song “Macarena” by Los del Rio was the clear favorite of 1996 and in 2003 the hip-hop hit “In Da Club” by 50 Cent reached the number one spot.

And while Adele’s power ballad “Rolling in the Deep” was the top song of 2011, Dua Lipa’s disco song “Levitating” took the lead in 2021.

An analysis published in the journal Scientific Reports also found that while the complexity of song rhythms and pitch arrangements decreased over the decades, the number of notes played per second increased.

And it may be that the increasing use of digital instruments has made it possible to express the complexity of music through sound quality rather than melody, they added.

“The overarching pattern that emerges from these analyses shows decreasing complexity and increasing tonal density in popular melodies over time, particularly since 2000,” they wrote.

“In the 1950s, the range of possible timbres for music production was limited to the sounds that could be produced with the physical instruments and accessories available at the time.

“Today, thanks to the availability of digital music production software and libraries containing millions of samples and loops, anyone with a laptop and an Internet connection can create any sound imaginable.”