Analyzing the Most Popular Rhythms of the Last 80 Years
Studying the Rhythm of Popular Music
My name is Carl Ward, and over the years, I've become more and more interested in the evolution of music — specifically, popular music. I want to know why all the songs on the radio sound similar to each other, but different from the songs that were on the radio 10 years ago. Why does popular music seem to go through "eras" instead of just continually changing?
I'm a musician and artist myself, so the idea of understanding what really makes a certain type of song popular during a certain period of time is very intriguing to me. Of course, things like historical events, technology, and the evolution of culture all have lots of influence on how music changes, but why do we spend multiple years at a time listening to the same type of song over and over again?
I believe that rhythm is what creates musical "eras." People listen to music for the rhythm just as much as they do for the melody and lyrics. Rhythm is what makes music fun. It's what makes you dance. And if a song isn't fun and doesn't make you dance, it's a lot less likely to be popular.
People know the importance of rhythm, and because of this, rhythm has become more and more important in popular music during the last 100 years or so. To validate this claim, I created a database of 1600 of the most popular songs since 1940. This database contains the top 20 songs from each year of Billboard Magazine's "Year-End Hot 100" chart. I listened to every song and determined what type of rhythm it uses. I categorized every rhythm by what I call "rhythm styles." 52 different "rhythm styles" appeared on my list; some are fast, some are slow, some are more syncopated than others, some follow triple meter instead of duple meter, and so on and so on. Of these 52 rhythm styles, around 15 have each been the most popular at some point in time. These are the defining rhythms of the past 80 years.
I've discovered interesting trends and insights through my study of rhythm styles. You can read a summary in the "About" section of this website, or you can click the link below to do a deep dive into the full database, which includes every piece of data and my analysis. Thank you for reading, I hope you find this anywhere near as interesting as I do!