[rdiddly]

I'm a fan of generally more aggressive music, and I'm also an old fart, but whenever I'm (usually accidentally) exposed to anything from nowadays, it sounds "too happy" to me - saccharine, treacly, shallow, heavy on notes 1, 2, 3 and 5 of the major scale, full of "millenial whoops" (https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=millenial+whoop) and so on. So hearing that "pop music is getting sadder and angrier" surprises me.

[henearkr]

Precisely, the millenial whoop carries a little bit of bitterness because it is a minor third. It would be totally different with a major interval (then it would sound closer to some excerpt from the electro-pop era). Edit: I just got aware there are also a lot of minor third in most of the "happiest" electro-tunes, so I am off the point. Maybe it is something else then, like how it is accompanied, the drums, etc. For example, I don't feel very happy when I hear a lot of synthesizer "hand claps" and too much pitch vibrato.