为什么每一代人都有自己的流行歌曲？

Many parents are no doubt familiar with their teenagers’ musical tastes. Very few are probably inspired enough to launch an experiment into them.

毫无疑问，许多父母都熟悉自己年少时的音乐品味。但很少有人因此受到启发，进行深入研究。

I listened to some of the music my oldest teenage daughter is listening to. And I was surprised at how different that music was from what I used to listen to. Natalia Komarova, an applied mathematician at U.C. Irvine.

“我听了几首我十几岁大女儿正在听的音乐，我很惊讶，这音乐与我小时候听的不同。”美国应用数学家纳塔莉亚?科马罗娃。

Since I’m interested in evolution in general, and a mathematical description of evolution, I thought studying the evolution of music would be a good idea.

“我感兴趣的研究领域是进化方面，并对进化的数学模型进行描述，我认为研究音乐的进化是一个好主意。”

Komarova and her team analyzed half a million songs released in the U.K. between 1985 and 2015 using online databases that describe songs’ musical characteristics, like rhythm, mood and danceability. "For example here’s a song that was high on the charts in 2014 that has high danceability: "Shake It Off" by Taylor Swift.

科马罗娃和她的团队分析了1985年至2015年间在英国发行的50万首歌曲，使用在线数据库来描述歌曲的音乐特征，如节奏、情绪和舞蹈性。“举例来说，2014年泰勒?斯威夫特演唱的《摆脱》在舞曲方面表现很好，舞蹈性很高。” (背景音乐《摆脱》)

Here’s a 2014 song that has a low happiness index: Stay with Me," by Sam Smith." <>

“2014年，山姆·史密斯演唱的《和我在一起》，这首歌的幸福指数也很低。” (背景音乐《和我在一起》)

Overall, they found that songs had become less happy over the 30-year span; as well as more danceable, more relaxed—and more likely to have women behind the mic.

总体而言，他们发现在30年的时间里，歌曲变得不那么幸福了，以及更具舞蹈性、更轻松了，并且更有可能由女性演唱了。

But the big hits bucked a number of those trends. "The behavior of successful songs looked almost like a separate species of songs. They have quantifiably different features, their own little trends."

但是，这些流行歌曲推动了一些趋势。“流行歌曲的成功看来是因为它们特立独行的品质，它们具有不同的特征和自己的小趋势。”

The hit singles were happier than the norm…almost a throwback to earlier times. And even more likely to be sung by women. The details are in the journal Royal Society Open Science. [Myra Interiano et al., Musical trends and predictability of success in contemporary songs on and off the top charts]

热门单曲比样本标准更快乐，这几乎是可以追溯到早期歌曲的，更可能由女性唱歌。详见《英国皇家学会开放科学杂志》下刊文《音乐趋势、当代歌曲成功的可预测性以及流行歌曲排行榜》。

Komarova’s team was also able to predict a song’s success, by judging only its musical qualities, about 75 percent of the time. "To me that’s very positive. It means that music matters, for song success—it’s not just money."

科马罗娃的团队还能够通过判断音乐品质来预测一首歌是否能够流行，成功率大约为75%， “对我来说，这是非常有意义的，这意味着一首歌曲的成功，不仅仅只与投入的金钱有关。”

Proving that, at least when it comes to their musical tastes… the kids are alright.

这至少证明了当涉及音乐品味时，孩子们是正确的。(背景音乐《孩子们是正确的》。)