Tyler Cowen points to a chart from Ted Gioia and Chris Dalla Riva that shows the share of popular songs written in a minor key:
"Why is music getting sadder?" asks Gioia, but I'm not sure I agree with the premise. It's true that minor keys are associated with sadness, but they shouldn't be. I find minor key tunes tunes, both classical and popular, to be more soulful and more interesting than major key tunes, perhaps, but not necessarily sad.
Gioia tries to associate this trend with recent news showing that teens have become sadder in recent years, but the timing doesn't fit. Minor keys have been rising since the '60s—before the whole teen depression thing started—and have been flat since 2011, which is exactly when you'd expect it to rise most steeply.
Key signatures aside, there's still the question of whether modern pop music is, in fact, sadder than usual, and on that I have no opinion since I don't listen to modern pop music. But that's because I mostly find it boring, not sad.
I blame Nirvana.
As I've said before, there is little evidence that US teens today ARE sadder than in the past, only that they believe it is appropriate to say that they are sadder.
These are not the same thing. Let's not pretend that they are.
In ancient times it was popular to write sad songs in a major key to jar the listener a bit.
I thought "rising" meant increasing, but apparently from this graph I was wrong.
Apparently being flat for the last decade is rising in today's brave new world.
Flat? That's why there's Autotune.
/S
Why the big rise after 2001?
BTW, shifts from major to minor (or the other way around) are one aspect I like in music.
video: Songs that change to the Parallel Key
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf5iPS3-Oug
(many songs familiar to Kevin's generation: Beatles, Turtles)
You might find this interesting:
https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/features/music-d-minor-saddest-key-1210591
Now what key is Elton John's "Sad Songs"?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X23v5_K7cXk
Does he means the cello version of Paint it Black in Wednesday?
Because I think that's fantastic.
Current favorite (cello is Dobrawa Czocher, piano is Hania Rani)
https://youtu.be/E5xCIsDz4HI?si=xey4ug5sGw-q-bvl
The songs are sadder because the artists know only the same three chord progressions and use the same batch of synthesizer patches and samples over and over.
IDK about all this.
I suggest some classical music composed in minor keys are more like emotionally draining (Barber's Adagio for Strings), but most are actually foreboding (Orff's O Fortuna, Verdi's Dies Irae). And then there's Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5 which switches minor keys in each movement, encompassing the emotionally draining and foreboding.
Popular music is different; most tunes aren't written just in one minor key; they're usually switching between multiple minor keys or minor chords. You're responding to those changes in keys/chords when you think of what's "soulful" or "sad".
One of the saddest (minor key) classical pieces -- Purcell's "Dido's Lament".
One of the most tense, foreboding (minor key) classical pieces that keeps you unsettled throughout the entire composition -- Shostakovich's 11th Symphony.
Beethoven's Egmont Overture isn't sad, is it? It's emotionally draining, though. Part of it, of course, is his style of making you think the piece is done before it does a coda a half dozen times. Still, it's emotionally draining because of the minor key.
Arvo Part's "Tabula Rasa". The most profoundly sad piece of music I have ever heard.
Good one!
Someone once said something along the lines of "Pop music is happy songs about sad subjects."