Video:Today's top 20 songs verses 1998

Comments from the video..

* "98 list vs 18 shows a tendency to:
-Homogenize harmonic and rhythm structure
-Simplify timbre diversity
-Favor a genre*"

* "Although hip hop was the zeitgeist of 90s music (meaning there's a precedent) what is it about today's extremely specific sound that has such widespread appeal? I don't know if the sound has a subgenre name (I think "trap" has a lot of shared characteristics) but it's clearly on display here to the point where you can't actually tell one song from another. The "gangsta" lifestyle/lyrics about wealth, drugs, objectification of women and killing has mass appeal (dare I say it appeals to those with narcissistic tendencies) but there's something about the music too. Whatever it is, it resonates with people."

* "What I hear is the soul, talent and originality of music, progressively being replaced by image, production and profit, especially over the last two decades.

* "This fucking hi-hat in modern music! I fucking hate it! It's everywhere! It's coming from every single kid's headphones!"

* "2018 is mainly a hardcore rap/hip-hop style of music. 1998 is a combination of pop (mostly boy bands), classic rock, old school rap, and R&B/Soul"

* "Honestly, pop music from 20 years ago isn't all that far off from today's pop music, which shows how much it is stagnating. In the 1980s 20 years was an eternity; Michael Jackson didn't sound like anything from the 60s. From the 50s to the 90s popular music went through tremendous change. Now everybody "writes" the same beats on the same software and the market isn't really made up of "listeners" anymore, just people looking for something to play in the background while they do something else."

Gotta be honest, the only few times I "listen" to the kind of music at the beginning of this video, is usually when I am outside and it is coming from other peoples music players, apartments, cars rushing by and so but most annoyingly is when it is being played insanely loud at already stressfull and packed shopping malls.
I feel bad for those who must work in that kind of enviroment, forced to hear such "great" music 8-9 hours a day.

Anyway, not sure why so many of the big summer/autumn 1997 hits have to do with 1998 as a music year being compared to 2018 but I guess in some countries these songs came out or reached the top of the charts much later on, as Spice Up You Life and Tubthumping were among some of the most overplayed and impossible to not hear during the hot summer of 1997.

What?


Sad but true.

Give me progressive or give me deaf!