Is there a 'Sound of Today'

Rocker

Most of the music I listen to was recorded in the 1970s. The Eagles, CCR, country etc. as I like the sounds and the chord choices.

iIs there a sound for 2017, with chord choices that represent now?  And not a rehash of the 1960s or '70s music.

stickyfiddle

Easily this (maybe sound of 3 years ago if we're being picky)

Ravenous

There was a semi-scientific paper that came out a couple of years ago, with the very basic story of the evolution of chord types, etc. in popular songs over the years.

I'm absolutely certain someone here will remember and know where to find it...

It's not "2017" though.

Ravenous

Here's the one I mentioned:

http://rsos.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/2/5/150081

http://rsos.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/royopensci/2/5/150081.full.pdf

It's mainly about dynamics, major/minor chords, overall brightness etc.

All a bit theoretical but interesting...

BloodEagle

MagicPigDetective

No idea. Most of the music I listen to was made in the 90's, or is being made by bands who have been around since the 90's.

I did hear a radio interview recently about a particular chord change or sequence which has become common in many recent pop songs, such as Coldplay, Rhianna etc.

Did I mention the 90's?

Sporky

If you want a good example of fairly recent guitar-based pop this is worth a go:

RocknRollDave

I think there is a sound of today, yes...or rather several sounds of today ...but sticking for now to guitar based music, I couldn't begin to put it into words, but I do hear a sound that seems very much of the moment.

guitarfishbay

Stick on Radio One and listen for a couple of days. Lots of super clean, super slick pop with synths and the usual scattering of rock and rap music. A lot of actually good sounding vocal performances too, less of the auto tune as effect stuff going on vs a couple of years back. Everything is still super in tune generally but either people are better singers now and or people are better at using tuning software... don't care on a recording if it sounds good. 

This isn't necessarily the sound of 2017 but it's been my favourite pop song so far



If you're looking for nice songs with a guitar check George Ezra. Guys voice is a couple of decades older than his body, I like his stuff.



PS Sikth are awesome.

ICBM

George Ezra becomes very tiring after a while - one song, to be exact. Even my daughter went off him very quickly…

The sound of 2017 is definitely not guitar-based, although it quite often does feature guitars - either a very compressed, full clean chord/arpeggio sound or a thick, gritty 'clipped clean' usually. I quite like it, although the compressed clean also gets tiring quickly.

Grumpyrocker

Acoustic pop-folk sung over a faux-military marching drumbeat. 

CHRISB50

I would personally say that as time has gone on, music has got more segregated between different scenes, so it's very difficult to provide a 'sound of now', unless you are quite specific about what type of music you are interested in.

So many genres, and sub genres, and then personal styles within those sub genres.

It means different things to different people.