Lately, the rise of personalized music data has made listeners more aware of their tastes and trends. Measuring how music has changed across genres and decades is a tough task. Now, scientists have tried to do that.
A recent study in Scientific Reports examined thousands of English songs from 1970 to 2020. It aimed to explore how music’s content, structure, and tone have evolved. A team of European scientists looked into five popular music genres: rap, pop, country, rock, and R&B. Their results might surprise you, like a big win at Slotsgem. They found major shifts in how modern songs are created and received.
The team discovered that song lyrics have shifted over the past 50 years. They are now more personal, direct, and filled with negative emotions. The researchers think this trend shows society’s mood and how we enjoy music is changing.
Scientists started creating a music database on last.fm. They gathered lyrics from genius.com. Researchers started with a massive collection of 582,759 songs but refined their data set to 353,320 for analysis. Then, they analyzed the lyrics for traits like complexity, readability, structure, rhyme, and emotion. Next, AI models analyzed a sample of 12,000 songs. This mix included various release years and genres.
The analysis revealed that songs now use more rhyming words and choruses. “Lyrics in all genres have become simpler and more repetitive over time,” explains Eva Zangerle, a computer science professor at the University of Innsbruck.
Songs are now more personal. Words like “mine” and “me” now appear more frequently in song lyrics than before. This trend is seen in almost all genres but not in the country. They are becoming more emotional, too. All genres use more words linked to negative feelings. Rap shows the biggest increase in anger.
How Different Music Genres Reflect Changing Listener Preferences
While trends emerged, each music genre had its unique patterns and changes. The researchers say, “Out of the musical genres assessed, rap relies most on its lyrics.” Listeners often search for rap lyrics online. Yet, the variety of unique words in the genre has decreased over the years. Experts say rap music often repeats lines and rhymes. This may be why its vocabulary is getting smaller.
Country music fans were more likely to search for lyrics from newer songs than other genres. Rock listeners tended to focus more on the lyrics of older songs. Researchers believe this shows the age of the genre’s fans.
Forbes’ Arianna Johnson says that R&B fans who enjoy soul music often look at lyrics. For pop, rock, and country, lyrics may not show how these genres have changed in the last fifty years.
More people are listening to music on apps and streaming platforms. Because of this, capturing listeners’ attention is now a top priority for many artists. The trends in the new study may show this shift.
“With so many choices, people prefer things that are simple and easy to understand,” says Michael Varnum, a psychologist at Arizona State University.
Paul Lamere of Echo Nest, a music data platform owned by Spotify, found that nearly 50% of Spotify listeners skip a song before it ends. Almost 25% of them skip within the first five seconds.
“Listeners usually choose to skip a song in 10 to 15 seconds,” Zangerle told AFP in an interview. So maybe more repetitive songs have an edge in the race to grab listeners’ interest. “Lyrics today are easier to memorize, which helps them stick in people’s minds more quickly.”
Conclusion
Song lyrics have changed a lot in the last fifty years. These changes show how culture and technology affect music creation and listening. Streaming platforms now lead to how we listen to music. In response, artists are writing lyrics that are clear, repetitive, and full of emotion. There’s a growing focus on negative feelings, especially anger. Genre differences matter. Rap lyrics are now more prominent but simpler. Country and rock fans connect with lyrics based on their generation.
The fight for listeners’ attention is getting tougher. So, catchy and memorable lyrics are more essential than ever. The impact of this trend on songwriting art is up for debate. Our experience of music is always changing. Lyrics are evolving, too.