A team of computer scientists and researchers from the Queen Mary University of London and the Imperial College London has turned to big data analysis in an effort to analyze the 50-year history and evolution of popular music.

The team has used a method that combines text-mining and signal processing to examine about 17,000 songs that appeared in the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 charts from the 1960's up to the year 2010.

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According to a report, the method they used works by automatically arranging songs according to the similar patterns of chord changes, tone, and styles.

The study shows that in the year 1991, one of the biggest musical revolution in U.S. history began with the emergence of Hip Hop music into the scene.

1986 was said to be the least diverse year due to the popularization of drum machines and samplers. By 2010, songs in the charts began to decrease again in diversity.

Lead author Matthias Mauch of the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science at the Queen Mary University in London said, "For the first time we can measure musical properties in recordings on a large scale."

"We can actually go beyond what music experts tell us, or what we know ourselves about them, by looking directly into the songs, measuring their makeup, and understanding how they have changed."

Senior author and professor Armand Leroi of the Imperial College London said, "It's exciting to be able to study the evolution of popular music scientifically. But now we want to go further, and find out not just how the music has changed, but why."

Researchers from many different fields have been turning towards big data analysis technology to extract useful information from massive amounts of data that would have been very difficult using traditional methods.

Areas such as astronomy, biology, medicine, marine science, business, and online services have been taking advantage of this technology.

TagsBig Data Analysis, Popular Music, Pop Music, Music History, Music Evolution, 1960's, 2010, U.S. Billboard Hot 100 Charts, hip hop, songs, Computer Science, Queen Mary University, Imperial College London, How has music changed