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A new analysis of Billboard hits from 1950 to 2023 by Queen Mary University of London PhD student Madeline Hamilton suggests that melodic complexity in popular music has been steadily decreasing.

The study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, examined the evolution of pitch and rhythm in chart-topping melodies over seven decades. Ms Hamilton, commenting in the New York Times, said, "Conservatively, they have both decreased by 30 percent."

The research identified three distinct periods of melodic simplification:

• The first occurred in 1975, coinciding with the rise of disco, new wave, and stadium rock.
• A smaller drop in complexity came in 1996, linked to the growing popularity of hip-hop and electronic music alongside MTV.
• The third simplification occurred around 2000, again attributed to the mainstreaming of hip-hop.

However, Ms Hamilton, speaking to the Guardian, suggests this doesn't necessarily equate to a decline in overall musical complexity. "My guess is that other aspects of music are getting more complex, and melodies are getting simpler as a way to compensate," she said.

The study also acknowledges the influence of music production technology. Digital music production software and libraries of millions of samples and loops allow for the creation of a wider sonic palette, potentially leading artists to simplify other elements like melody.

Madeline Hamilton's research, motivated by a lack of data on popular music melodies, involved compiling a dataset based on the Billboard Melodic Music Dataset. Over a period of up to ten hours daily, she listened to all 366 songs and manually transcribed their melodies.

The study analysed eight qualities related to rhythm and pitch for each melody, employing a statistical model to assess predictability, alongside algorithms used by linguists to identify periods of significant melodic development.

Madeline Hamilton is already looking to expand the research. "Right now, we're looking at chords," she told the Guardian. "We also want to expand our analysis to include more songs, to see if this trend [for melodies] holds up for a bigger set of music."