Pop music getting faster & happier (thanks Gaga)

[PunkTheFunk 121,451]

Pop music is getting faster (and happier)

"This is my dancefloor, I fought for," Lady Gaga sings euphorically on Free Woman, a track from her new album, Chromatica.

She's not alone. The charts are suddenly crammed with pop songs that celebrate joy and sensuality and precipitous thrill: Dua Lipa's Physical, Doja Cat's Say So, Harry Styles' Watermelon Sugar and Gaga's own Stupid Love.

At the same time, music is getting faster. The average tempo of 2020's top 20 best-selling songs is a pulse-quickening 122 beats per minute. That's the highest it's been since 2009.

Music journalist Charlie Harding, who hosts the Switched On Pop podcast, agrees there's been "an important psychological change" in people's listening habits.

"During moments of great distress, music provides hope. A pop song gives us permission to access joy, even when the world is burning.

"But music is more than just escapism. It can help us imagine a different way of life. Protest anthems motivate us to keep marching in the streets even when our feet are tired. Dance songs help us blow off steam at home, especially when we can't go dancing out on the town.

"This upbeat shift happened during the great depression and during World War Two. Once again we need sounds that help us forge a path to the world we want to live in, not the one we're inhabiting today."

That last point is important, because the new wave of upbeat pop wasn't written specifically for the bizarre circumstances of 2020 - it just happened to be ready at the right time.

Dua Lipa's escapist pop opus Future Nostalgia was finished late last year, while Lady Gaga decided to make Chromatica a "fun" and "energetically pure" dance album back in 2017.

It followed a period where the star eschewed pure pop to try on new guises - jazz chanteuse, country crooner and Oscar-baiting balladeer. In that period, the average tempo of her singles dropped below 100bpm.

But Chromatica isn't pure escapism. It's possibly Gaga's most personal record to date, discussing topics like her sexual assault, the antipsychotic medication she's been prescribed, and the fibromyalgia which leaves her in chronic pain.

If you run the lyrics through linguistical analysis software, you'll find that positive emotional words only slightly outweigh the negative ones (accounting for 3.36% vs 3.12% of the overall total word count).

Combined with the album's accelerated beats, the lyrical tension ultimately creates a feeling of rejoice and release - as Gaga puts her problems behind her and struts onto the dancefloor.

If you zoom in on individual artists, the pattern becomes even more pronounced.

Lady Gaga, Ed Sheeran, Dua Lipa and Taylor Swift are all on an upwards curve after releasing albums that were introspective or downbeat or fuelled by revenge in the mid-2010s.

Read the full article here: https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-53167325

We love our Queen of Positivity!!

[Anveeroy 56,890]

Yes 2019 can choke 

[Pennywise 34,610]

Did they have to use THAT photo of Gaga 

[Bradley 54,814]

2020, the year of Lady Gaga

Pop music getting faster, and promo going slower! 

[moonsago 5,315]

And songs getting shorter... #sad 

[vyniildisk 12,689]

Yasss i love speedoflighttempo music, up to 300 bpm

[FlopSlurper 34,336]

Dua's lead came out long before chromatica's lead, and so did the album 

also lover

[Bradley 54,814]

Just now, FlopSlurper said:

Dua's lead came out long before chromatica's lead, and so did the album 

also lover

The thread said 2020.

Besides, the albums were recorded in 2019 so they could've been made at around the same time.

[PunkTheFunk 121,451]

2 minutes ago, Dulo Peep said:

Yasss i love speedoflighttempo music, up to 300 bpm

 

[FlopSlurper 34,336]

3 minutes ago, Bradley said:

The thread said 2020.

Besides, the albums were recorded in 2019 so they could've been made at around the same time.

the thread talks about how songs are getting more upbeat, not about 2020 only, which in this case Lover came out before chromatica.

if we're talking about 2020 only (which the thread isn't about that) physical came out before SL.

i don't get the (thanks to gaga)

 

[Bradley 54,814]

Just now, FlopSlurper said:

the thread talks about how songs are getting more upbeat, not about 2020 only, which in this case Lover came out before chromatica.

if we're talking about 2020 only (which the thread isn't about that) physical came out before SL.

i don't get the (thanks to gaga)

 

The thread is about all the artists that contributed to this phenomenon, not just one.

If it was only one artist who did this, then no article would've been written at all, because it's not prominent enough.

But I was saying that Future Nostalgia and Chromatica, including both their leads were made last year way before each other's releases, so a couple of months difference in release doesn't matter that much tbh.

[Kimmo 76,574]

This shows that Drake is the happiest of all the Popstars 

 

[FlopSlurper 34,336]

5 minutes ago, Bradley said:

The thread is about all the artists that contributed to this phenomenon, not just one.

If it was only one artist who did this, then no article would've been written at all, because it's not prominent enough.

But I was saying that Future Nostalgia and Chromatica, including both their leads were made last year way before each other's releases, so a couple of months difference in release doesn't matter that much tbh.

yeah and my comment is aimed at the (thanks gaga) because she didn't start this trend

[ice bear 1]

charli : amiajoketou?

[Babel 40,887]

BBC confirmed that Gaga! Congrats