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Hipsters Rejoice: Pop music is in fact getting louder and less diverse

A few musical purists argue that all the popular music of the past decade sounds the same, and as it turns out, they’re right.  Researchers at the Spanish National Research Council determined through the use of algorithms that the variety of chord progressions, melodies, and instruments used in popular music has significantly diminished throughout the past fifty years.  In order to make a particular song stand out from its frighteningly similar peers, artists and recording engineers simply turn up the intrinsic volume of a song.  The louder a song is, the stronger the impression it will leave on a record label company, DJ, or audience.  This practice has sparked what is known as the “Loudness War” among the musicians of today, and it distorts the sound so that recordings come across much less dynamic than live performances.  Most importantly, though, the roots of the Loudness War can be traced by to a simple game, much like those discussed in class.

The game played by the modern music industry is very similar to the basic dollar auction game.  The dollar auction game behaves as follows: the professor auctions of $1, with the initial bit at $0 and the bids increasing by a set interval, let’s say $0.01.  The bidder with the highest bid wins the dollar and pays their bid.  The catch is that the second highest bidder also must pay their bid, but they get nothing.  Bidding occurs as usual until the price hits $0.99.  Someone will bid $1 for zero payoff, causing the next highest bidder to lose $0.99.  The second highest bidder will then bid $1.01 in order to lose only $0.01 instead of $0.99.  The increasing bids continue until someone decides to stop the chaos, but sometimes this doesn’t occur until the price has reached $5 or even $10.  Similarly, artists in the Loudness War know that their behavior is destructive yet still feel justified in increasing their loudness in order to lose less and be noticed.  Discontent with over-compressed music and an increased interest in vinyl records will hopefully cause the Loudness War to fade to an end, but until then, I recommend wearing ear plugs.

 

Sources: http://mindyourdecisions.com/blog/2012/10/16/why-pop-music-sucks-and-bars-are-too-loud-game-theory/#.VHJTA4vF-So

http://www.npr.org/2009/12/31/122114058/the-loudness-wars-why-music-sounds-worse?from=mobile

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/26/us-science-music-idUSBRE86P0R820120726?irpc=932

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