From The Irish Times 27th July 2012:
Jim Carroll

Spain
POP MUSIC TODAY DOES ALL SOUND THE SAME
In what could be comforting news for anyone over the age of 35, scientists have worked out that modern pop music really is louder and does all sound the same.
Researchers in Spain used a huge archive known as the Million Song Dataset, which breaks down audio and lyrical content into data that can be analysed, to study pop songs from 1955 to 2010.
A team led by artificial intelligence specialist Joan Serra at the Spanish National Research Council ran music from the past 50 years through some complex algorithms and found that pop songs had become intrinsically louder and more bland in terms of the chords, melodies and types of sound used.
"We found evidence of a progressive homogenisation of the musical discourse," Mr Serra said.
"In particular, we obtained numerical indicators that the diversity of transitions between note combinations - roughly speaking chords plus melodies - has consistently diminished in the last 50 years."
The study appears in the journal Scientific Reports. - (Reuters)