How Complex is Too Complex for Popular Music?

Nowadays most popular music one sees on the charts is taken up by the same genres such as pop, EDM, and hip hop, while music that used to be popular like jazz and classical cannot be found. This type of music and more niche genres contain more experimentation in its songwriting than the average song one would find in the charts. The purpose of this project was to see if these complex genres could ever get mainstream appeal again or if they will always be held back by their songwriting tropes, and finding this out required reviewing a general listening audience’s reaction to the songwriting aspects that make up these genres. This project was carried out by two methods: songwriting and surveying. Songwriting consisted of composing 5 instrumental pieces, with the first piece containing the tropes that are basic and least challenging that are found in popular music. From there every song would add more complex musical techniques than the previous, like changing the time signature, playing chords outside the key, and adding more abrasive timbre to each instrument. This would result in creating a spectrum of pieces, from least to most complex. Surveying required having a listening audience answer questions based on the five pieces to gather data about which pieces they liked and disliked, which aspect of each piece they did or did not enjoy, and their opinions about current popular music. The results showed most participants value rhythm and timbre over any of the other aspects of the pieces and enjoyed the pieces that were not too experimental regarding those aspects. However, a good majority of them found experimentation in other aspects intriguing and would rather that instead of the more predictable melodies or harmony. A lot of them were also critical of the standard of current pop music as it all sounds similar. The main conclusions drawn were that regardless of musical aspects and techniques the average listener will welcome musical complexity into popular music if the techniques blend well with the rest of the music, which could mean complex genres have a chance at becoming popular again by mixing their songwriting tropes with popular music.