Music podcast 2

Songs in the music industry, especially on platforms like TikTok, are becoming shorter and simpler. Producers are following trends too closely, resulting in repetitive lyrics and melodies. This shift may have been influenced by TikTok's popularity during COVID, where shorter songs were favored for dance challenges. Many choruses now consist of repetitive words or empty phrases, lacking creativity. While some repetition is catchy, it has become overused in every song. Different settings call for different types of music, such as instrumental music for restaurants and energetic beats for parties. Songs with meaningful lyrics have a stronger connection with listeners. The exposure effect of platforms like TikTok and Instagram contributes to our preference for repetitive songs. These platforms recommend the same music over and over, and we become comfortable with listening to them. Short and repetitive songs require less mental effort, making them appealing for relaxation. However, there i Hello guys, welcome to Music Gossip, where I'll be talking about different topics and drama in the music world. So today I'll be starting with something that I've been thinking about for some time now, every time I listen to trendy songs, especially on TikTok. I noticed that songs have been getting shorter and simpler. I don't know if it's just me, but every time I listen to a new trendy song, like I said, specifically coming from TikTok or Reels, YouTube Shorts, you can hear that the chorus is so repetitive. And then when you go to listen to the actual track in Spotify, Apple Music, or whatever platform you listen to, you hear the same lyrics, the same melody, and there's no uniqueness to it. I feel like nowadays a lot of producers follow the trends a little too much to the steps. A point that I have here is how when in COVID, TikTok really blew up. I felt like K-pop followed the trends of the songs getting shorter, simpler. When the relay dances and the dance challenges began to blow up on TikTok, I saw that pattern and companies were releasing songs that were shorter. Shorter than three minutes. The music was pretty repetitive. The lyrics were repetitive. The verses were the same. The first verse and the third verse were the same ones. The chorus was like, the chorus is the chorus, so it's like, okay, it's the same thing. But then there was nothing special to it, like other songs. When I think about what you said about the chorus, I think about how a lot of the choruses are either just empty, like they no longer really sing in it, or the chorus is like one repetitive word, like la la la, or boom boom, or sheesh. There's nothing wrong with a repetitive chorus every once in a while. It can be catchy, it can be great, but the thing is that now it's in every song. Yeah, and it's not a bad thing. The thing is, like you said, whenever they repeat it over and over, it's one word being repeated over and over. There is no creativeness to it. They have completely thrown out the fact that they could make a song either meaningful or just have fun lyrics, have something that will make me want to sing along to it. But whenever they have songs that are repeating the same thing over and over, and one example that comes to my head is like Cake by ITZY. It's just cake, cake, cake, cake, cake. I just want some cake, cake, cake, cake, cake. Like it's the same thing over and over, and it gets boring. Depending on where you are, you'll want to listen to something different. If you're at a restaurant, you're going to want to hear filler music. Something that is more instrumental maybe, or more vocal, but is really laid back. It's not too strong of beats. The melodies aren't going crazy. There is not a lot going on. There is just something so that your ear has something to catch on, and it's not just all silent. If you go to a party, you're going to want to hear all the different beats. You're going to want to hear all the melody combinations, the tempo changes, the crescendos, the decrescendos. You're going to want to hear all this, not mess, but like well put together mess, in order to vibe with it, because that's what you're looking for. That's what a party set is, and in contrast, when you're more in your feelings, or you're just like wanting to listen to a good song, connect to a good song, or have, yeah, just have something to connect with. Songs that are more lyrical, or more heavy on their lyric meaning, will do a lot better, because they have, the writers and producers have focused more on the telling of their lyrics, on something, on the message that they've been wanting to share, and they stick to that. After doing some research as to why it may be that we tend to go for more repetitive or short songs, especially nowadays, I found in an article, named, it's titled, Why Are Song Lyrics Becoming Simpler? This was, and this was published by Michael E. Varnum, Jamie Arona Krems, Colin Morris, Alexandra Warmly, and Igor Grossman. Something that really caught my eye was the exposure effect, and how platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube are all having, they all have these 30-second clips that we all watch, we all binge watch every day for hours and hours, and we don't even realize it. These clips use music. Every time that a influencer makes a video, they use music, and this music is added, this music that is added to all these clips, are a huge exposure to our daily life. These apps give us recommendations on the songs that we should add to the videos that we make, what songs we should be playing, what songs we should be listening, they pay attention to our algorithm, so they follow this strict line of what is trending, what you like, and they give you the same thing over and over, giving you exposure to the same things over and over. So you get comfortable with listening to the same songs over and over and over, and then it gets to a point where you don't even realize it, and you're singing the song. So you're humming the song, you're singing throughout it, you're singing it throughout the day, and now you've caught on to the trend. You are now listening to all these songs. Also, with the exposure effect, there's just the mental effort that it takes for a song to be more complicated. Like, if we listen to, depending on our cognitive resources, so how we are feeling in the moment, how we are dealing with stress or with anything that is part of our life in the moment, our cognitive resources can either be limited in space, or we may have all the space to just process whatever we want. So, because short songs and repetitive songs require less cognitive processing, we are prone to resort to these songs as a last resort. That way, our brain doesn't have any unwanted stressors when all we are looking for, all we are looking for is something to chill with, something to relax our brain, and just continue our day. But yes, this has been my little rant on how music has been changing in the past few years, and although this is really just the bare minimum, there is a lot that goes into this. The psychology of music, the psychology of our environment, of our society as a whole, and how as humans, we look for trends and we stick to what we see and know. Thank you.