The Rest Is Science

Episode: Is Music Getting Worse?
Date: December 9, 2025
Hosts: Professor Hannah Fry & Michael Stevens (Vsauce)

Episode Overview

In this engaging episode, Hannah and Michael tackle the perennial complaint: “Music used to be better.” They take a scientific and psychological lens to popular music, addressing whether music is objectively getting worse, why every generation thinks their music was best, and how our relationship with music is shaped by memory, culture, and technology. The discussion covers complexity, objectivity, nostalgia, social proof, and even the role of AI—all peppered with witty anecdotes and playful banter.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. When Was the Best Era for Music?

(03:00-08:30)

• Personal nostalgia vs. objectivity:
  • Michael asks Hannah when music peaked for her. She admits, with tongue-in-cheek pride, that her first album was by PJ & Duncan, a 90s British TV duo turned rappers. Michael counters with the Spice Girls’ “Wannabe” as a milestone.
• Subjectivity in musical taste:
  • They joke about the cringiness or glory of their first musical experiences, setting the stage for the subjective vs. objective debate (“That was the peak of music, in my opinion.” —Hannah, 05:30).

2. What Makes Music ‘Good’?

(09:01-12:55)

• Attempts to objectively rate quality:
  • Michael shares that scientific attempts to rank musical eras or measure song complexity yield inconsistent answers (“You can warp the data to give you any answer you want.” —Michael, 09:39).
• Philosophical angle:
  • Hannah invokes Leibniz and discusses the philosophical effort to define beauty or quality, but concedes it often fails.
• Context is king:
  • They reference violinist Joshua Bell’s subway experiment: world-class talent ignored out of context (10:46-11:32).
• Memorable moment:
  • Michael quips, “Don’t be good in the wrong place or you’ll be bad. You’ll be forgettable.” (12:31)

3. Has Pop Music Actually Become Simpler and More Negative?

(13:05-16:43)

• Data-backed claims:
  • Michael references a Nature study of 12,000 songs (1970s–2010s) suggesting increased simplicity, repetitiveness, negativity, and “egotisticalness” in lyrics.
• Caveats and study criticism:
  • Both point out the study’s narrow cultural scope and potential sample bias (“12,000 songs, that’s both not enough songs and too many...” —Michael, 16:28).
• Role of technology:
  • Democratization of music production/distribution (e.g., laptops, GarageBand, YouTube) means there’s more music—not necessarily worse, but less filtered (“Now, literally anyone can make stuff and put it online and find a route to an audience.” —Hannah, 19:21).

4. Why Does Everyone Think Music Was Best When They Were Young?

(20:20-25:57)

• Psychological reasons:
  • Rosy retrospection: We remember the past more fondly than we experienced it (“Our brains are wired to remember more from our twenties... reminiscence bump.” —Michael, 21:58).
  • Reminiscence bump: The bias to remember events (and songs!) from ages 10–30.
  • Novelty & memory: New, unique experiences feel richer and more important—so the music tied to those moments becomes more significant (“Those songs that you grew up to… physically etched into your brain.” —Hannah, 25:55).
  • Consensus bias: Older adults assume their tastes are widely shared (“Once you’re 60, you think this is how it is.” —Michael, 24:23).

5. Music, Culture, and Social Proof

(33:09-38:30)

• No universal musical “niceness”:
  • Cross-cultural studies (e.g., Amazonian tribes indifferent to Western harmonic “rules”) show preferences are learned.
• Social proof and popularity:
  • Michael describes Matthew Salganik’s experiment, where a song’s popularity depended largely on perceived popularity rather than intrinsic quality.

6. Music Reflects—and Balances—The Zeitgeist

(39:35-41:13)

• Lyrics track social mood:
  • Pop gets more optimistic in boom times, more pessimistic in down times.
  • Surprise twist: “Not country music!”—country has the opposite pattern; when people are happy, country gets sadder, and vice versa.

7. Algorithms, AI, and the Futility of Predicting Hits

(41:52-43:27)

• Limits of data science:
  • Algorithms struggle because “someone’s gonna make something that shouldn’t work, but they do it so convincingly that it does.” —Michael, 42:13
• AI can make ‘wallpaper’ background music, but true emotional connection is still human (“You cannot grab onto what makes something good… the only thing that really people are looking for universally is something that connects them with another human.” —Hannah, 43:01).

8. A Final Reflection: Music Is Always for the Young

(43:27-44:26)

• Letting go of being “cool”:
  • Michael admits, “I owe it to the young people of the world to just stop trying to fit in and be cool.”
  • Hannah jokes, “Step aside, Michael.”
• Best era? Still childhood:
  • Both stick by their early favorites, humorously justifying the subjectivity—“Never been more sure about anything: P.J.N. duncan. Psych.” (Hannah, 43:56);
  • Michael playfully declares the best era as “250 million BC—the bird songs then really achieved perfection sonically.” (44:26)

Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• "That was the peak of music, in my opinion." —Hannah Fry (05:30)
• "You can warp the data to give you any answer you want." —Michael Stevens (09:39)
• "Don’t be good in the wrong place or you’ll be bad. You’ll be forgettable." —Michael (12:31)
• "Twelve thousand songs, that's both not enough songs and too many..." —Michael (16:28)
• "Now literally anyone can make stuff and put it online and find a route to an audience." —Hannah (19:21)
• "Our brains are wired to remember more from our twenties... reminiscence bump." —Michael (21:58)
• "Those songs that you grew up to... physically etched into your brain." —Hannah (25:55)
• "You cannot grab onto what makes something good. And so the only thing that really people are looking for universally is something that connects them with another human, and that is something that cannot be replaced." —Hannah (43:01)
• "Music is just not made for you. Movies aren’t made for you anymore, and that's fine. I think I owe it to the young people of the world to just stop trying to fit in and be cool." —Michael (43:27)
• "Never been more sure about anything: P.J.N. duncan. Psych." —Hannah (43:56)
• "Bird songs... really achieved perfection sonically." —Michael (44:26)

Important Segment Timestamps

• 03:00 — Opening question: When did music peak?
• 09:01 — Michael: Objective attempts at measuring musical quality
• 10:46 — Joshua Bell’s subway experiment
• 13:05 — Study: Simplification & negativity in pop lyrics
• 16:28 — Critique of music studies & sampling bias
• 19:21 — The democratization of music production
• 21:58 — The psychology of reminiscence and nostalgia
• 33:09 — Culture, novelty, and learned musical taste
• 37:42 — Matt Salganik's "social proof" music study
• 39:35 — Pop and country as societal mood mirrors
• 41:52 — The limitations of algorithms and the role of AI
• 43:27 — Letting the young have their era (letting go of musical relevance)
• 43:56 — Final "best era" answers

Takeaway

Is music getting worse?
Despite efforts to measure musical value scientifically, the answer relies heavily on psychological quirks, cultural context, personal history, and shifting technology. What’s “good” is relative, and each generation is hardwired to idolize the soundtrack of their formative years. Studies can chart trends, but music’s magic is in the connection it forges—an alchemy that, so far, no algorithm or AI can replicate.

Final verdict:
“Listen to Alanis Morissette and be happy.” (41:52, Hannah) Or, as Michael concludes, maybe music has always been best—just not for you right now.