Music Evolution

This marks a distinct shift from the more traditionally valued jazz, country, and mellow classic rock of the mid-20th century. Still, it also represents a continuation of the trend in which music embodies the tastes and preferences of young people. Examples of this youth-centric trend include 1960s protest music, 1980s rock, 1990s grunge, and 2000s pop, among others. Our project aims to explore changes like these in Western popular music over time.

Before diving into our data analysis, we consulted several sources enumerating the reasons behind observable patterns in music over time. Primarily, we tracked changes in race, gender, and other artist demographics through the decades as it is the theme of one of our main research questions.

The advent of technology is another factor that cannot be ignored when analyzing popular music in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Coulter’s “Marketing Agile Artists” discusses how TikTok’s popularity among younger generations gave it a unique role in helping lesser-known artists rise to fame, showing the platform’s significant impact on music industry standards. The article emphasizes how TikTok’s effective marketing is due to their leveraging social media rather than communication between artists and listeners, indicating how popular music has shifted from a personal level to large-scale industry practices. The author argues that TikTok users have a more substantial influence than Instagram and Facebook users because of the engagement-driven algorithm and the simplistic user experience. As they put it, “Mostly, this data looked at how many unknown artists got signed after having a viral TikTok hit. However, this study again looks at how smaller artists can use the platform but stops short of asking how larger artists leverage TikTok.” This explains why we see a shift in musical themes toward adolescent values, a diversifying of genres, and a change in how the music sounds.  

We will now dive into the data visualizations we created from our dataset and elaborate on how they enhance our understanding of the trends we have discovered.

Audio Features Over Time

Figure 1: Average audio features of songs by album release year

Average acousticness of songs remained relatively low throughout the decades, but there were significant spikes in 1975, 1978, and 1995. Danceability was consistent over time, but there was a spike in 1978 before dropping down and gradually increasing until 1992 when it oscillated until current times. The average energy of songs remained high over time, but there was a significant decrease in 1978 and 1995. Instrumentalness remained consistently low, but spiked significantly in 1988. Liveness and loudness both followed similar patterns, steadily decreasing during the 1970s-1990s, then oscillating until 2020. Speechiness was low from 1970-2002, when there was a significant spike, and then slightly increased over time, with another smaller spike in 2013. The tempo of music remained relatively consistent over time, and the duration of songs slightly decreased over time from 1970-2020. The trends in the audio features reflect a shift in the cultural and technological influences which have occurred in music. For instance, Markus Schedl’s analysis of the variations based on genre aligns with the idea how changes in energy, speechiness, and danceability aligns with the idea of having a growing popularity in genres such as rap and electronic music as both the genres rely heavily on spoken and rhythmic movements. In Addition, with the help of Sharon Monteith’s who spoke about the transformation in the 1960’s, we could see how social movements had shown spikes in acousticness and instrumentalness.

Artist Gender Breakdown by Decade

Figure 2: Percentage of songs from male and female artists by decade

 From 1960 to 2020, the percentage of female artists on the Billboard and ARIA charts steadily rose by about 20%. The percentage of bands consisting of multiple genders remained relatively consistent throughout the decades. This demonstrates that over time, the music industry moved towards greater gender diversity. According to Patricia Donze, the rise of the female pop artists can be attributed to consumer preferences and the freedom women had gained in order to express themselves in an artistic lens over time. Sharon Monteith’s analysis of the 1960’s had further shown that pivotal moments such as the women’s rights had a direct influence on the music industry as it had drove greater inclusivity overall stronger representation.

Average Energy and Danceability by Genre

Figure 3: Average energy and danceability of songs by genre 

This plot shows a positive correlation between the average energy and average danceability of songs across genres, suggesting that more energetic songs tend to be more danceable. However, reggae is an outlier due to having high danceability despite lower energy levels. Similarly, rock music is another outlier, characterized by higher energy but lower danceability. These outliers illustrate how genre-specific characteristics influence the relationship between energy and danceability, but also how they can be interpreted differently depending on the genre. This dynamic highlights the commonality of cultural and genre-specifc traits when it comes to audio features. As discussed by Luca Carbone, it is shown that genres such as reggae carry some sort of cultural and socioeconomic narrative which is rooted based on the movements and the rhythms. For instance, reggae’s high danceability shown in the charts could be reflected due to its origins in movement traditions, rather rocks high energy but being paired with low danceability shows more so the idea of its focus on intensity and instrumentation.

Genre Representation per Decade

Figure 4: Percentage of genres represented by decade

 Rock has dominated the charts from the 1960s-2000s, but gradually declined until it became a minority in 2020. Other genres that have become less popular over time include blues and country music. In contrast, pop rose in popularity from 1960s-2020 and now represents about 40% of songs on the Billboard charts. Other notable genres that have become more popular from the 1990s-2020s include electronic, rap, and R&B. The 1990s displayed the greatest genre diversity, while the 1960s had the lowest genre diversity. The growing diversity of genres especially in the 1990’s aligns with the studies of Sharon Monteith when she had studied how social movements and cultural shifts in the 20th century had influenced music trends. She had explored how the rise of genres such as electronic and hip-hop during this period had shown how societal changes can help change the landscape of music. Additionally, Paula Wolfe’s critique of the patriarchal structure which exists in the music industry has shown that pop genres have had a sustained dominance due to their commercial viability and has been marketed throughout the world. 

Nationalities of Artists with the Most Danceable Songs

Figure 5: Artist nationalities represented by average danceability of songs

Nationalities that tend to have greater danceability in their music are Guinea, Nigerian, Bahamian, Somoan. Nationalities lower in danceability include Slovak and Catalan. 

Nationalities of Artists with the Most Energetic Songs

Figure 6: Artist nationalities represented by average energy of songs 

Nationalities that tend to have greater energy in their music are Bahamian, Romanian, Punjabi, Swiss, Indian, Mexican, Cape (Town, South Africa), Finnish, and Pakistani. Nationalities lower in energy include Slovak, Jewish, and Hawaiian. 

Nationalities of Artists with the Loudest Songs

Figure 7: Artist nationalities represented by average loudness of songs

 Nationalities that tend to have greater volume in their music are Jewish, Hawaiian, Greek, Chinese, and Catalan. Nationalities with lower volume include Punjabi, Kazakh, and Mexican. 

Nationalities of Artists with the Fastest Songs

Figure 8: Artist nationalities represented by average tempo of songs

 Nationalities that tend to have faster tempo in their music are Panamanian, Armenian, Senegalese, Cornish. Nationalities with songs slower in tempo include Punjabi, Croatian, Slovak, and Hawaiian.

Artist Nationality by Genre

Figure 9: Percentage of total songs representing artist nationalities by genre  

There is greater ethnic diversity in pop, electronic, and rock music, showing how those genres tend to have a global appeal. Genres such as blues, jazz, and reggae that have originated in specific ethnic communities have a significant percentage of artists representing those cultural roots. This emphasizes the connection between genre and the historical and cultural identities that established it, suggesting that genre’s evolution can preserve cultural heritage and expand to a broader diversity of listeners. This dynamic shows the impact of globalization, as was shown by Lanice Avery, who had argued that the global prominence of Black artists in genres such as jazz had demonstrated the spread of cultural narratives when it had come worldwide; in addition, Lori Kido Lopez had also discussed how race and representation had turned trends in the entertainment industry, how some genres had remained with their origins and how other genres such as electronic and pop had more so adapt to the global influences. Lastly, Sharon Monteith’s explanation of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement had shown how the societal changes which was occurring had helped ground culturally rooted genres like jazz and blues into recognition. 

Birth Places of R&B Artists

Figure 10: Birth places of R&B artists by decade

This map reveals a clear concentration of R&B albums released in the United States, notably along the East Coast and the South. While the genre’s influence is most prominent in these regions, there is also notable representation in Europe, Africa, and South America, but with a much lower density. The smaller density in these areas shows how R&B started in the U.S. but eventually inspired artists worldwide. This visualization reveals the dominance of R&B in specific regions while highlighting its global influence and cultural impact worldwide.

Birth Places of Rock Artists

Figure 11: Birth places of rock artists by decade

This map shows a significant representation of rock albums released during the 1960s and 1970s, which aligns with the British Invasion that began in the 1960s. This map reveals a strong presence of rock artists’ origins in the United States and Western Europe. The map also shows how rock music expanded to regions such as South America, Australia, and Asia, gaining more popularity in these regions by the 2000s. This spread reflects the global influence of rock music, with its origins in the Western world and meaningful contributions from other regions around the globe.

Birth Places of Hip Hop Artists

Figure 12: Birth places of hip-hop artists by decade

This map reveals a clear concentration of hip hop albums released in the United States, especially in urban cities such as New York and Los Angeles . While hip-hop is strongest in the U.S., there’s also a growing representation in Europe. It wasn’t until the 2000s that hip hop gained more global popularity.  The map also shows a relatively low representation in Africa, highlighting the genre’s limited reach despite its deep cultural connections to the African diaspora.

Conclusion

The main impetus for this project was an interest in the causes for people’s various preferences in music due to the important role music plays in the lives of so many people and in how we define popular culture in different eras. It is noteworthy that the cultural zeitgeist of society reflected itself in popular music and how popular music may, in turn, have been the catalyst for social change. In “Some Exploratory Findings on the Development of Musical Tastes” by Holbrook and Schindler, as well as “Music Through the Ages: Trends in Musical Engagement and Preferences From Adolescence Through Middle Adulthood” by Bonneville-Roussy and Arielle, the authors reveal why the songs we find pleasing on a more personal level can shape culture as a whole. These sources claim that music preferences evolve while rooted in early life, but the generational and cultural context of those early stages also influences preferences over time. Specifically, in “Cultural Stereotyping of Emotional Responses to Music Genre,” Susino, Marco, and Emery Schubert introduce the concept of the Stereotype Theory of Emotion in Music (STEM), proposing that listeners, mainly those unfamiliar with a genre, rely on stereotypes as emotional filters, simplifying their interpretation of the music’s emotional tone. This research would provide important insights into how cultural stereotypes intersect with psychological elements in shaping emotional perceptions of music, particularly for unfamiliar genres. Extrapolating from this, we wanted to specifically look into the representational aspect of popular music to study the demography of popular artists and how those factors interact with the popularity of certain genres or certain musical features such as pronounced bass lines or faster tempos over the last 60 years. All in all, this project is significant because music profoundly shapes people’s lives, serving as irreplaceable entertainment for many generations. By analyzing different artists’ demographics and data on popular songs, our project explores the broader influence of social and cultural events on musical trends over the years. This research does not solely focus on the connection between world events and the music of the time, but it takes a closer approach to how cultural shifts intersect with who creates the music and makes it sound like that. At the same time, it also offers fresh insights into different trends behind the artists and songs that have shaped the culture of various periods. Lastly, it is our work to try to understand and potentially sense the global changes that influence our musical preferences and how those preferences, in turn, shape our culture and social context. Hopefully, our project will contribute to a deeper understanding of the cyclical relationship between music and society, helping us appreciate how musical genres rise and fall in popularity in the context of changing times and values.