When a listener hears a song on the radio or looks on the iTunes top charts, they may find it catchy, unique, and blah blah blah (whatever they may think). What the listener does not know, is that it took 6 writers to just create that song they heard and that it is the same regurgitated notes as millions of songs before it. A reader could be reading about how a majority of the songs only use the first, fourth, and fifth notes in the scale that it is in (boring) and other music theory related flaws, but that would just cause the reader to get bored right off the bat. Let’s start with pointing out that most modern music, or at least the music that finds its way to the top charts, has lost its intricacy, lyrical depth, and no longer creates a responsible identity for the artist or its listeners. Sorry Nicki, Rihanna, Pitbull, and Flo, it’s been done before.

Now, for the boring stuff. A scale, let’s say the C major scale, goes C, D, E, F, G, A, and back up to the octave C. So if a writer decides to write a song for their “star” to make millions, there is a pretty good chance that they will pick the lower C, the F, and the G. They naturally sound the most basic and most catchy together, however, that sequence is incredibly overused. If one takes a look at Bach, his dominate notes will be just about every note in the scale. Even modern rock artists like Muse, will use a unique form of a scale, and try to make it sound very different and it still turns out catchy and fun. Most songs no longer include tempo changes or time signature changes either, they will just stay in 4/4 (four beats per measure). There are plenty of modern artists out in the music world that include tempo changes and time signature changes in their songs, much like classical music did, but not even a music lover will encounter them in the top charts.

Since song lyrics came about, they have been written to portray a story or the writer’s feelings toward a particular person or problem, not to command a girl to “drop that ass low.” It seems as though most songs that listeners find on the radio are about sex, clubbing, or drug abuse. These topics do not show any sort of beneficial learning for listeners to encounter, nor do they allow the listener to ponder and soak in the points that the writer is trying to make. Instead, they are in some cases hearing the word “ass” over and over again just like in Big Sean’s single (featuring Nicki Minaj), “Ass”. If one listens to a song by the Foo Fighters, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Muse, Queens of the Stone Age, and many other bands, they will be exposed to many logical points that each artist is trying to make, and be able to think about it for themselves. They will, sometimes even subconsciously, take a position on what the artist is singing about and form an opinion. This is natural and beneficial to the human brain, it allows the individual to think and speak for themselves instead of falling into the “new norm” and find themselves twerking, taking part in illegal drugs, or other actions that could harm the individual’s well-being. They can relate to issues like being broken hearted, treated unfairly, searching for happiness, or even the other end of the spectrum like finding inspiration, a new love, or a new view about something that an individual did not realize before. Lyrics have an enormous effect on the human mind, and it is best to allow them to be beneficial to the average listener.

Top-charted artists, at least recently, do not seem to present themselves in a responsible fashion, and at the same time they do not realize the effect those actions have on their listeners. People, especially teenagers and younger kids, are very easy to make an impression on. They are quick to judge. If an artist reveals himself or herself, or does not behave responsibly, then it will have a large impact on its listeners. If an artist that sings about getting drunk and high (or lives up to their word while on stage) comes to play a live show, chances are that the audience will be drunk and high while they are at that concert. These examples just explain how much influence artists have on others. Most people relate their favorite artists with certain feelings, and if they are intelligent or beneficial feelings, then they are beneficial to the listener.

Finally, to answer the question that lives in the title, modern top charted music has gone downhill in terms of its intricacy, lyrical depth, and its ability to create a responsible persona for the artist and some of the artist’s listeners. It is depressing to come to this realization while there are much fewer bands and artists that are musically and lyrically talented, but what I have not mentioned yet is hope. Artists like Muse, Foo Fighters, U2, Switchfoot, Nas, Lacrae, and Gary Clark Jr. display a wide selection of genres they perform that still allow their music to develop topics and issues and remain musically intricate. There is hope in the future of music, and meaningful artists still remain, they are just not as dominant as others that sing of topics that are less responsible or meaningful. Music lovers just have to unite to re-title this haunting fact as “no longer relevant.”