Is pop music going slower and more sad by the minute ? Seems like it according to two behaviorists Phd from Canada !

Dr. Schellenberg and Dr von Scheve have analyzed more than a thousand US popular music hits from 1965 till 2009, looking at tempo and mode (major or minor, determined by the tonic/main chord of the song). Most of pop songs used to be in fast mode and major chord but there has been a steadily increase (they have doubled in fact) in hits being slow tempo with minor chord (usually a sad song). Plus there has been a strong increase in songs that are "emotionally ambiguous": fast tempo song in minor mode.

Not surprisingly, lyrics have taken the same way: there has been a decrease in references to social interactions and positive emotions and an increase on angry and antisocial wording! I guess, if you start scanning songs in the sixties, you'll have a good quota of social references and even politically charged songs and going thru the seventies lyrics start to be more centered on mindless fun; the eighties are quite a sad era lyric wise, the Nineties is a hymn to hedonism and since the 2000 lyrics are most often than not repeated sentences hammered...

Are we so biased and buried under the massive bulk of informations available on the net that we're doomed to short-circuit it to its most common denominator, I name the lolcat ?

Fortunately, not everyone has lost it and LapTop Rocker Jason Forrest and wizz-kid Greg Sadetsky had a brilliant idea they quickly launched back in january 2011: Network Awesome was born.

The basic idea was to go thru Youtube immense's richness and come up with programs curated by people-in-the-known. No more complicated yet stupid algorithms coming up with recommandations that sound like they were made by 6 years old kids: you have real people proposing you hours of TV programs dedicated to well-developed themes ranging from weird East European 1970 animations to blackexploitation movies, Brian Eno in his early days, wild TV programs or zombies. All this is at the same time explained and replaced in an historical context with articles and comments, making this a very contemporary museum you can visit at your will.

These TV programs, hosted by Youtube but played on the Network Awesome page, are seeing 6 different programs a day and the archives are available for you to browse and...

A new study released by Nielsen on consumers interaction with music in the United States shows some pretty interesting data...

...one of them is that 64% of teens listen primarly to music through Youtube rather that on radios (56%) or Itunes (53%) showing if still needed that price matters especially that only 50% will listen to music from a CD. But old media still have some power as RADIOS are still the number one source for discovering music (48% discover new music with radio, 10% thru friends and only 7% thru Youtube).

Friends have still a saying in 2012 as a positive recommandation from them will see a purchase, 25% or buying will echo from a music blog/chat room and only 12% will come from an endorsement from a band. Hmm; someone is doubting bands have good taste ?

Price, more than ever, is a concern as 63% think a digital album is good value (round 10 €) while only 55% think the same of a physical one ( round 15€) and instant buy laughs at the long tail as 33% of teens buy a track within one week of its release where only 21% of 18+ will do the same.

So, to make a quick résumé, here are a feew tips to bands: post your music on Youtube, lower...

While sales of music is experimenting sharp downhill plunges for the last ten years or so, the videogames industry is more alive than ever, and thanx to tens of millions across the globe, top hits (especially violent First Person Shooter) keep on smashing sales records after sales records, making the movie industry look like amateurs and the music one like the poor parent.

"Call Of Duty: Black Ops" (which has voices of great actors like Gary Oldman or Ed Harris) is one of these uber-violent FPS (you can actually turn down the blood splatches and the profanity. In certains countries, dismembering is even forbidden or only available as an option. Yummy...)
Furthermore, Call of Duty uses music from the Rolling Stones (Gimme Shelter, a perfect song for an FPS...) and you would believe this has boost sales of the game ? Wrong way: it's Gimme Shelter the album that has enjoy sales in the wave of the game: nearly 20.000 albums were sold within the month...Other numbers that gives music exec' nightmares ? Callf Of Duty sold 5,6 MILLIONS copies the day of its release, making it the biggest lauch of ALL entertainement industry (music-movies-games) ever and earned the game...