Complexity vs. Simplicity

Today I had an epiphany.

I thought, you know what, what is it that really differentiates rock artists ( examples Pink Floyd, Rush, Jimi Hendrix) vs. pop artists (examples Madonna, Kendrick Lamar and other modern stars, maybe even Fleetwood Mac kinda) and why are rock artists struggling to compete with pop artists nowadays.

O.K. so then I had an epiphany. I thought, maybe the core difference between rock artists and pop artists is complexity vs. simplicity. Pink Floyd, Rush, and Jimi Hendrix are obviously all very complicated and heady if you listen to them, while when I looked at a 2015-2016 chart hits handbook, I found pages of major triads and hardly a flat or sharp in sight. This basically mean to me that the music is simple.

Then I thought maybe simplicity is what people want. Jazz and Classical Music are famously complex (lots of flats and sharps on the page, for example) and you can't find that on the billboard charts anymore. Maybe rock artists like Jimi Hendrix are simply intermediaries between the complicated music of times past and what sells the most due to its simplicity, and that now that we have made the transition, rock will go the way of disco and we will be permanently stuck with super-selling simple music (I don't want this to happen, but maybe that's just the way it is.)

No drugs were involved with this epiphany

Any thoughts?

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>download (34)
Eek

i ain't readin all that, nigguh

one band shatters your theory- The Beatles

Complexity is important for music. Complexity allows for the possibility of musical "depth."

The specifics of how much complexity is needed to make good music is subjective of course, but only an idiot would imply that complexity is unimportant. After all, how good of an album could you make using only one note?

So to sum up: complexity doesn't guarantee music's goodness, it allows for the possibility of goodness.

As for your theories on the relationship between complexity and popularity, you are mostly right. The vast majority of people don't care about musical depth and don't care to put in the effort to understand "deep" music. But this shouldn't really come as a surprise to anyone, since this relationship generally carries through in almost any art form.

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just because something is complex doesn't make it good, likewise simple music isn't always bad, aesthetics are a huge factor in good music as well
take my bloody valentine, very simple music, yet critically acclaimed and pretty much universally praised
the complexity of rock and prog isn't much compared to classical really, not that that makes prog bad at all

i also agree with this, this user puts it better than me
t.

Most rock music is made with some variation of pentatonics usually a blues scale. This is especially true for someone like Hendrix. Even most prog artists weren't super adventurous with their keys or chord progressions either.

Ed Sheeran's hit single Shape Of You came out last year, was in a very uncommon key of C#minor, and manages to have a 4:3 polyrhythm (which is among the tougher polyrhythmic patterns to work with.)

Most of Beyonce's newer tracks have the kind of harmonic complexity to them which causes all sorts of uncommon intervals to show up (6ths, 7ths, 11ths, etc.) and constantly change up as well as there will be an easy to pick up bass line or something that Beyonce's more technical vocal skills interplay with.

You mentioned Kendrick Lamar, who is more hip hop than pop, but has managed to show aspects of polyphony (on the song u with its chaotic horn parts) and insane levels of polyrhythm (on the song Hood Politics where Kendrick switches the flow of his raps to match each of the separate polyrhythms already happening in the accompaniment.) This is without mentioning just how much versatility he has in his delivery and how rhythmically complex his raps can be.

There's ways to make complex music, but input it into something the average layman can more easily digest initially. It's very hard to pull off, but that's why when it is pulled off (the works people praise of musicians like Beatles, , Beach Boys, Steely Dan, Justin Timberlake, Kendrick Lamar, etc.) it's ranked very highly while also being very popular as well.

I think this is just an obvious progression, as music has become easier and easier for the average person to create. Shit, anyone with a Macbook and a simple MIDI controller has been able to make halfway decent music since like 2005. Couple bedroom creativity with a bit of luck and pop culture understanding, and you've got something that has potential these days.

I would, however, argue that there is still some complexity in pop music. Justin Timberlake makes some interesting choices when it comes to arrangement. Additionally, there is a lot of "complexity" in some of the current "lo-fi" stuff but that's really just coming from people chopping up old samples. I don't think they have any musical understanding of it outside of "it sounds cool".

Kendrick Lamar basically always sounds the same, not sure what you're talking about there. His flow is rarely anything but generic and the voice he puts on is fucking stupid. Also, talking about muh jesus in 2018 is fucking mongoloid bullshit.

this is correct

i think ur 12 years old, but good job. at least youre thinking about what your consuming.

>Kendrick Lamar basically always sounds the same
Even if you take his least interesting album, DAMN. You listen to the first real song, DNA, and the next one, YAH, you hear completely different delivery styles (the first one being more intense, the second being far more tame and melodic.)
youtu.be/QI4go4mf0PY
youtu.be/7nB2PMZAN0A
>His flow is rarely anything but generic and the voice he puts on is fucking stupid
Which flow? Which voice? He never just sticks to one. This is literally why it's so easy even for the most casual layman to realize that Kendrick's talented, because it's easy to pick up on these changes that he constantly does. You gotta get your ears checked my man.
youtu.be/6EYiOL90Ty4

>Kendrick Lamar basically always sounds the same

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Both are good.

Popular music is never really complex. Even progressive rock that has been mentioned is not really complex, it's still pop music based on simple blues with some frills attached. Pop music that tries to be complex usually falls short for me.

Traditional music balances complexity and simplicity in the most patrician way. A tune can be played in the most simple way by a beginner, or an experienced player can add so many layers to the same tune. A modal fiddle tune with a swinged (maybe even polyrhythmic) rhythm with lots of ornamentations, variations and groove balances the line between complexity and simplicity perfectly. People should stop listening to rock music to hear 8 bars of some stupid riff playing in 7/8.

I don't really have a point, I just want to praise traditional music.

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>Any thoughts?
It makes no sense.


Mainstream rock is dying because label reduce the amount of payola paid.

The same happened 50s but with jazz.

Showing me two different songs on one album is not proving your point. Which flow? The generic one he has on every song - whether it's "more intense" or "tame and melodic" it's unoriginal and boring. Which voice? Whichever stupid voice he decided would sound cool over top of more generic sound.

This is misguided. Genres like R&B often aren't simple. Stuff written by, for example, Max Martin, Rod Temperton, Burt Bacharach, etc. aren't simple. Hardcore punk is simple.

Accessibility and commercial appeal don't directly correspond to musical simplicity.

>Showing me two different songs on one album is not proving your point.
It's in the music dude.
>The generic one he has on every song - whether it's "more intense" or "tame and melodic" it's unoriginal and boring.
Their rhythms are clearly very different.
>Which voice? Whichever stupid voice he decided would sound cool over top of more generic sound.
He plays characters. It's explained in the video.

>I think this is just an obvious progression, as music has become easier and easier for the average person to create. Shit, anyone with a Macbook and a simple MIDI controller has been able to make halfway decent music since like 2005. Couple bedroom creativity with a bit of luck and pop culture understanding, and you've got something that has potential these days.
No, this is silly. Lots of pop music has always been simple. Lowering the bar to entry if anything just means it's more competitive. There are more people competing for the same market.

>Uh
>FOXY LADY
>YEAH

Very complicated

Nice

>having flats and sharps makes music complex
lol

there's complexity in both rock and pop, and simplicity in both as well
hendrix vocals are way less complex than fleetwood mac vocals typically, while hendrix has obviously more intricate guitar parts
the equation isn't as simple as you think

>no drugs were involved with this epiphany
i believe you lol

>Pink Floyd, Rush, and Jimi Hendrix are obviously all very complicated and heady if you listen to them

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>Ed Sheeran's hit single Shape Of You came out last year, was in a very uncommon key of C#minor, and manages to have a 4:3 polyrhythm (which is among the tougher polyrhythmic patterns to work with.)
Uh, I don't think that's a polyrhythm. The 3-3-2 rhythmic motif through the whole thing is very common.

>Then I thought maybe simplicity is what people want. Jazz and Classical Music are famously complex

I hate these vague terms, especially with "classical". It's not a genre of music, there's hundreds of genres in classical/western art music and not even close to all of it is complex.

that made me cringe too

Hendrix did some pretty harmonically interesting stuff though.

oh, also C# minor isn't any more complex than A minor or whatever

>All the chords are major chords or seventh chords, and all the musical letters of the alphabet (A, B, C, D, E, F and G) are used. The song ends using a Shepard tone, with a chord progression built on ascending and descending lines in the bass and strings, repeated as the song fades. Musicologist Alan W. Pollack analyses: "The chord progression of the outro itself is a harmonic Moebius strip with scales in bassline and top voice that move in contrary motion."

>The bassline descends stepwise A, G, F, E, D, C, and B, while the strings' part rises A, B, C, D, E, F#, G: this sequence repeats as the song fades, with the strings rising higher on each iteration. Pollack also notes that the repeated cell is seven bars long, which means that a different chord begins each four-bar phrase. The fade is described by Walter Everett as a "false ending", in the form of an "unrelated coda" consisting of the orchestral chord progression, chorus and sampling of the radio play.

>The song is in the key of A and the instrumental introduction starts in the Lydian mode of B major.

>Verse 1 begins with a I–III–IV–I rock pattern: "I am he" (A chord)..."you are me" (C chord) "and we are all toge..." (D chord) "...ther" (A chord). Verse 2, however, involves a VI–VII–I Aeolian ascent: "waiting" (F chord) "for the van" (G chord) "to come" (A chord). The chorus uses a III–IV–V pattern: "I am the egg-man (C chord) "they are the egg-men (D chord). "I am the walrus (E chord), "goo goo g'joob" hanging as an imperfect cadence until resolved with the I (A chord) on "Mr City Policeman".

>At the line "Sitting in an English garden" the D# melody note (as in the instrumental introduction) establishes a Lydian mode (sharp 4th note in the scale) and this mode is emphasised [sic] more strongly with the addition of a D# note to the B chord on "If the sun don't come."

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you have a fifth graders understanding of what makes music complex