Why does all new pop music sound the same?


Basically because it IS the same - I think anyone with ears already knows that, but there is more to it. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVME_l4IwII
chayro
" In Finland the people speak Finnish ". That's incredibly insightful.
" the most musical of all languages ". Double insightful.
We got a genius here.
Schubert, Finland is not the most interesting country at all. Pardon me, but this is nonsense.
Getting back to the original question...  "Why does all new pop music sound the same?"
ANS:  If you restrict your effort to discover new music to boring pop-schlock on playlist radio and the muzak at K-Mart, it does mostly sound alike.  Worse, the bean-counters at the big music publishers and distributors have gotten it all down to a dystopian econometric algorithm of hooks and catch phrases.  If you listen a bit to promoted hits, most of them lack an actual discernible melody.  All they are is a string of hooks and psychometrically-validated snippets strung together to create the illusion of music.  Most devolve down to a sing-song cadence not far dissimilar to what 5 year-olds drone on the play-yard.  The more mainstream "popular" an artist is, the more and more indistinguishable is each successive "hit" promoted to mass sound (as distinct from music) outlets.  It is no longer "music" per se but "product", much the same that the corporate over-class foists upon the consuming public (visions of sheeple grazing at McDarnold's intrude at this point).  At another extreme of clone-ish music is most of what is electronically mass-produced for the dance club and rave scene, so dominated by what sounds like a single universal drum machine track.  But even here, there are pearls to be discovered.

Fortunately, there is still a surprisingly vast world of new music these past couple decades that has given birth to dozens of new concepts and genres.  "Pop" does not even begin to encompass the amazing range and variety of music available to the audiophile of today.  I offer the following as a tiny hit of "pop" tunes (broadly speaking) as pudding proof.  All are easily find-able on the Net...   in no order of preference ...
• Music is My Drug  by Techno Squirrels
• Calgary  by Bon Iver
• Devastator  by Catfish Haven
• Jerk It   by  Thunderheist
• Breathe  by Télépopmusik
• Sonne  by Rammstein (Russian-language version recommended)
• Each Time You Fall In Love  by Cigarettes After Sex
• Rise  by Samantha James (Sade meets Astrud Gilberto meets Basia with perfect diction)
• Look Like That  by Sneaks
• I Got It   by Marian Hill (Rolling Stone Sperry Session on YouTube)
• Schnitz!   by  Dorfmeister vs. Madrid De Los Austrias (LoungeMasters Music Video)
• Arabian   by  gusgus (KEXP Lively Session)
• John Lee Huber (Radio Edit)    by TOSCA
• Beautiful Things (DJ Tiesto Mix)    by Andain feat. DJ Tiesto
• Hey Now    by London Grammar (album vers. & KEXP live session on YouTube)
• Tricky Tricky (Salem's remix)    by  Röyksopp
• That's Not My Name   by  The Ting Ting's
• Sirens of the Sea    by  OceanLab (Above & Beyond)
• Stof    by Eefje de Visser (MV on YouTube)
• Crystalfilm (EP version)   by Little Dragon
• Crave You: Adventure Club Dubstep Remix   by  Flight Facilities feat. Giselle

Pop music sounds alike???  Surely this was a rhetorical question. 

'Nuff said.


@inna  yours is a Beautiful illustration of the @chayro point made a day-two ago that you cannot say ANYTHING without being ridiculed!

I will bite... for one, Finnish language is the only language Not having any roots in any other Human languages, no explanation to this glitch found so far. Except that maybe somehow the folks there survived the latest Ice Age 12-13 thou years ago and kept talking...

Second, (and not that I care): I had a misfortune of traveling all over the globe and somehow I still fondly remember me visiting Karelia (piece of Finland grabbed by Russians), so the snippet about Finland being whatnot or whatthat feels a bit, how to put this, f#$%^-&*... But I have no doubts that all Finns are dreaming about visiting 5th Ave or Beverly Hills or experiencing the world-famous Hwy 405 traffic here... ;-)
Finnish language belongs to Uralic language group, along with Hungarian and Estonian.
The oldest spoken European language isolate is Euskara, Basque language.
First learn things then speak.
I like the sound of my story better, so I will stick with it, not with Google. And before you ask, yes the Earth is flat! I am one of those...
Glad that my bad and your generous wisdom illustrated my original point, once again.