We measure the complexity of songs in the Million Song Dataset (MSD) in terms of pitch, timbre, loudness, and rhythm to investigate their evolution from 1960 to 2010. By comparing the Billboard Hot 100 with random samples, we find that the complexity of popular songs tends to be more narrowly distributed around the mean, supporting the idea of an inverted U-shaped relationship between complexity and hedonistic value. We then examine the temporal evolution of complexity, reporting consistent changes across decades, such as a decrease in average loudness complexity since the 1960s, and an increase in timbre complexity overall but not for popular songs. We also show, in contrast to claims that popular songs sound more alike over time, that they are not more similar than they were 50 years ago in terms of pitch or rhythm, although similarity in timbre shows distinctive patterns across eras and similarity in loudness has been increasing. Finally, we show that musical genres can be differentiated by their distinctive complexity profiles.
翻译：我们以音高、音色、音量和节奏等因素的复杂度为度量标准，研究了 Million Song 数据集中的歌曲从 1960 年代到 2010 年代的演变。通过与随机样本的比较，我们发现流行歌曲的复杂度 tends to be more narrowly distributed around the mean，支持复杂度与 hedonistic value 之间的倒 U 形关系。接着我们检查了复杂度的时间演变，发现几十年来的变化比较一致，例如自 1960 年代以来平均音量复杂度的下降，整体而不是流行歌曲中的音色复杂度的增加。与声称流行歌曲随着时间而相似的说法相比，我们表明它们在音高或节奏方面并不比 50 年前更相似，尽管音色相似性在不同时代呈现出独特的模式，但响度相似性正在增加。最后，我们表明，音乐流派可以通过它们独特的复杂度轮廓来区分。
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