Has harmony/melody technique regressed in popular music?

[YoungCapone]

Whenever I watch videos of producers creating songs it just doesn’t seem like much thought is put into the chord progression and melody. It pretty much seems like everyone does the basic pick a scale - pick chords in that scale - and then pick random notes in that scale until they come up with a melody they “like”.
On a related note, I was watching a tutorial on captain plugins’ “captain chord” plugin and although it made creating chord progressions and melodies simple and easy, it just seemed geared toward that same basic format I described above. Keep in mind that captain plugins is meant to be used by professional producers.
I guess my question is, do modern producers look to advance harmony/melody techniques or is more time spent on developing sounds or maybe something else?
I know this may come off as a criticism, but I’m not saying that whatever’s happening is better or worse, I’m just curious what people’s opinions are or even approaches you use.

 

[rhythmgj]

In what genre? Hip-Hop has never been known as a bastion of applied harmony and classical music theory concepts.

This will sound like a slam (it’s not), but it’s like saying “Do today’s off-road four wheelers even *care* about winning the Daytona 500 any more?” It seems related, but upon examination falls apart as a complete non-sequitor.


GJ

 

[YoungCapone]

Well I'm thinking top 100 charting music. I guess that would be mostly hip hop and pop. I don't have a great ear for chords and what notes are being played in songs so it's hard for me to tell how musically complex a song is. From what I can tell though, it just seems like every melody I hear is super simple....... If there are genres that are relevant, but not necessarily "popular" and more harmonically complex than hip hop or pop I would be interested in learning more...

 

[foxcorner]

Yeah, I agree. I'm too grounded in classical music and prog rock to feel satisfied with music that doesn't try anything interesting melodically and harmonically. But, like rhythmgj says, it can be genre-specific. When I create music, melody and harmony are important. Both have to have a certain inner strength, by which I mean that they shouldn't feel like someone just noodled on a keyboard, but should "say something".

In the end, there are so many genres and sub-genres, and artistic aspirations, that what's important to you isn't going to be important to everyone. But, it's important that when you're creating music, you infuse it with what's important to you.