What harmonic, melodic, and modal innovations exist in modern pop, rock, and electronic music that don't exist in classical music?

Classical music lovers are right. Pop, rock, electronica, hip-hop and so on are extremely simplistic in harmonic and melodic terms. That's their beauty. Complexity isn't quality. Music got awfully cluttered by the end of the 19th century; since then there's been a positive trend toward stripping away unnecessary ornamentation, focusing down to simple and powerful ideas repeated hypnotically.

There are very few chords and scales in use right now that would have shocked Debussy or Wagner. Maybe the blues scale and its attendant microtones might have raised a few eyebrows, but otherwise, not even the most extreme forms of jazz or metal have broken much new ground. The musical innovation of my lifetime has been in other areas:

• minimalist, loop-based structures drawing on non-western music
• exotic timbres and uncanny perfection made possible by electronic instruments and computers
• the rich memetic cross-reference of sampling culture
• the idea of using no harmony or melody at all, as in the rawest forms of hip-hop
• the resurgence of improvisation, as embodied by jazz and some forms of rock, and carrying over into hip-hop and live electronica.

It's significant that the only contemporary classical composer most of my peers care about is Steve Reich, whose music uses the same trance-like repetition, unearthly sonorities and focus on percussion you find in electronic and pop music.

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