We're Getting Sadder (Or At Least Our Popular Music Is)

“Over the last few decades, popular songs have switched from major to minor keys: In the 1960s, 85 percent of the songs were written in a major key, compared with only about 40 percent of them now. Broadly speaking, the sound has shifted from bright and happy to something more complicated.”
 — Researchers E. Glenn Schellenberg and Christian von Scheve studied songs from the past fifty years of Billboard’s Hot 100 charts and have determined that we’re growing ever more miserable as a society. (Or not. I could easily believe that an affinity for sad songs indicates a happier state of mind. And I think comparative analysis of something as vague and wide-ranging societal happiness at different times in history is specious to begin with. But fun to think about!)