Think modern music is rubbish? You’re right!
If you have ever wondered why you can’t buy a pint of wine in a pub, a new book from the Elves working on BBC quiz show QI has the knowledge you need. JON COATES discovers that Funny You Should Ask: Your Questions Answered by the QI Elves deals with conundrums like whether tea or milk goes in first, why Lego hurts when you step on it and why pop music is not what is was
And the reason for pop music not being as good as it used to be is that music is “becoming more generic”.
The Elves say: “A 2012 study analysed 464,411 songs recorded between 1955 and
2010 and found that the most recent ones had less variation in pitch and volume.
“It also looked at ‘timbral variety’ (the difference between two notes of the same pitch and volume – because they’re made by different instruments, for instance), observing that this peaked in the 1960s and has been declining ever since.
“Moreover, many of the world’s most popular pop songs are written by a select group of people. For example, since 1999, songwriter
Max Martin has been credited on 23 US number one singles, for nine different artists, including Britney Spears, Taylor Swift and Maroon 5.”
They add: “But there’s also the matter of perception. As we age, we tend to have less time to listen to new songs, and by the age of 33 most people have stopped listening to new music altogether.
“A survey by the music streaming site Deezer found that 60 per cent of its users simply listened to the same songs over and over.
“A psychological theory called the ‘mere exposure effect’ says that you prefer things if you’re exposed to them more.
“There’s something called the ‘reminiscence bump’. This is the idea that we tend to remember our young adult life as being our best years. Any music that you listened to when you were in your late teens and early 20s will be more ingrained in your psyche. That is, unless you get out there and listen to something new.”
THE Great British pint of beer can be traced back to the Magna Carta, which founded the British legal system in 1215.
This ruled that there should be a single measure used for ale, which was the London quarter, the equivalent of two pints.
Eight centuries on and it’s still illegal in Britain to serve draught beer using any system of measurement other than the pint.
As the majority of the wine drunk in Britain is imported from Europe, where the metric system has been used since the 19th century, it has been easiest for landlords to divide that into 125 or 175ml measures when serving punters.
When the UK joined the European Community in 1973 it agreed to join the metric system but beer managed to escape this because it was mostly brewed in this country and had a long tradition of being served in pints.
The book says: “The EU spent three decades trying to persuade the UK to adapt, but in the face of staunch opposition, including from a pressure group called the ‘Metric Martyrs’, in 2007 it agreed that pints of beer could stay.”
Interestingly, it reveals wine was measured by the gallon in Britain until 1826 and was served in “pottles”, with two pottles making a gallon.
Until the 1800s beer in Britain was commonly served in pink china mugs.