While tastes in music vary widely from one generation to the next, with each complaining about the unsuitability, volume, or subject matter of the others’ favorite tunes, our suspicion that the overall quality and originality of modern pop music is declining rapidly is now supported by science.

In Measuring the Evolution of Contemporary Western Popular Music, a study conducted by Joan Serra at the Artificial Intelligence Research Institute in Barcelona, we see hard evidence that music offers less diversity and more volume than in years past. In fact, fans of the genre experience roughly the same ten chords, a decrease in recording technique diversity, narrowing of instrument types, and a near total loss of unusual transitions within the music.