They definitely, uh... took a different path with the music in this game. Some have said it hearkens back to the Gamecube-era music with the percussion and the funk, but as I've been playing WW again lately I've noticed the difference more heavily. All the games have spoofed their theme songs to an extent, but NH does it much more and also tends to keep the genre, key, melody, etc the same between hourly tracks. For example, listen to 7 a.m. and 2 p.m. side by side, they're the same melody at different tempos. 7, 8 and 9 a.m. are also all in the same key using similar instruments, which explains why a lot of people say they don't notice the difference between hours, and it's not until 10 a.m. you start hearing something different-sounding. Similar patterns throughout the tracks.
Though the effect isn't what we're used to, I suspect they knew what they were doing when they composed this music - at least if they weren't being lazy about it, which is a possibility, but I prefer to give them the benefit of the doubt when they've done such a good job with other audio-related things in this game. Just like the aesthetics in NH are quite a bit more realistic and less "cartoony" than previous titles (take that thread about the difference in rainbow brightness for example), they might've just wanted to do something different for NH with the music, to where it sounds more like it fades in and out with the day gradually. So gradually that it's irritating to many, lol.
That's my take on NH as a whole - it's trying to be different, set itself apart a little (think the crafting mechanic, the fact we're on an island instead of in a town for the first time, the completely new and different furniture sets) while retaining just enough familiarity to attract older fans back to it. Doing the same thing over again definitely does not seem to be the team's priority with this one - I'm sure we'd have Brewster from the start if that were the case.
