Why does new music sound old?

New songs playing old tunes - 16th Oct 2023

You're not mistaken if you feel music sounds similar these days, as a quarter of the UK's top 40 hits actually used past songs to create new ones, a practice called 'sampling'.

Since the 1980s, sampling has crossed generations, with a number of artists having hit songs which exploited other tunes. 'Doja Cat's 'Paint the Town Red' (2023) samples Dionne Warwick's 'Walk on By' (1964), while Puff Daddy's 1997 'I'll be Missing you', reuses The Police's record 'Every Breath You Take', released in 1980.

It appears natural for humans to value music that's familiar, especially tracks from their youth, with one study on the brain finding that people attached more memories to songs from their teenage years than to other periods.

These days, sampling may seem to be some form of romantic feeling for the 1980s or 1990s, but the truth might not be so innocent. Over the past two decades, music companies have begun acquiring artists' catalogues of work. A few months ago, the record company Hipgnosis obtained the rights to Justin Bieber's songs for the sum of $200 million, adding them to its collections of Neil Young and also Shakira.

New artists are contracted by record companies, who may encourage them to reuse the old favourites, to which they own the rights.

Music critic Jayson Greene, argues that when businesses buy song rights, it limits artists' creativity by "blocking access". The companies refuse to share resources, preventing independent musicians from sampling past songs. And the fact that the public tends to select music it’s familiar with, means that fewer songs which don't use sampling actually get into the top 40 charts.

It's possible that hearing the same tunes replayed over and over could put listeners off. If that happens, original compositions may eventually come back in fashion.