The evolution of music: How genres rise and fall over time

Our understanding of the cultural shifts in popular music 

have largely been reliant on anecdote and history -- memories 

of journalists who attended Woodstock or fans who followed 

hip-hop from the start. 

Working with digitized music files, a team of scientists led 

by Matthias Mauch at Queen Mary University of London 

analyzed roughly 17,000 songs that charted on the U.S. 

Billboard Hot 100 between 1960 and 2010. Taking note of 

digital elements in the songs known to correspond with 

certain chord patterns, rhythms and tonal characteristics -- 

think "no chords," "dominant 7th chords," or "calm, quiet, 

mellow" -- they were able to organize the songs into 13 

different categories, which roughly correspond with musical genres.

The chart below shows the popularity of the 13 computer-generated 

categories over time. Greater thickness indicates a larger number of songs

in a category in a given year. Descriptive labels, which give an idea of 

the genres the categories represent, were compiled from descriptions 

users of the music discovery tool Last. fm assigned to songs in each category

1970


1990


2010


1960


1980


2000


Hip-hop, rap, gangsta rap, old school


Easy listening, country, love songs, piano


Love songs, slow jams, soul, folk


Country, classic country, folk, rockabilly


1960


1980


1970


1990


2010


2000


Classic rock, country, rock, singer-songwriter


Rock, classic rock, pop, new wave


Rock, hard rock, alternative, classic rock


Female vocal, pop, R&B, Motown


1960


1980


1970


1990


2010


2000


Funk, blues, jazz, soul


Dance, new wave, pop, electronic


Funk, blues, dance, blues rock


1960


1980


1970


1990


2010


2000


Northern soul, soul, hip-hop, dance


Soul, R&B, funk, disco


1970


1990


2010


1960


1980


2000


Source: “The Evolution of Popular Music: USA 1960-2010,” by researchers at Queen Mary University of London, in Royal Society Open Science