Song lyrics have become simpler, more negative, and more self-focused over time

Recent research published in Scientific Reports explores how English lyrics in popular Western music have evolved over the last fifty years across five major genres. The study reveals that popular music lyrics have simplified in both structure and vocabulary. Furthermore, songs have grown more personal and emotionally negative over time.

Previous research has highlighted how musical lyrics can influence emotions, foster social connections, and even shape cultural identities. These studies have shown that lyrics can act as a barometer for societal mood, reflecting changes in attitudes, values, and social norms. For instance, an increase in negative emotional content in lyrics might mirror rising societal tensions or cultural shifts towards more introspective or confrontational themes.

Furthermore, music serves various psychological and social functions, from regulating emotions to facilitating communication among groups. This makes the study of lyrical content particularly relevant for psychologists, sociologists, and cultural historians interested in the interplay between art and human behavior.

The new study aimed to build on existing studies by using a larger dataset and more nuanced analytical techniques to explore these changes more comprehensively. By examining how lyrical complexity, emotional content, and themes have evolved across five decades and various genres, the researchers hoped to uncover patterns that might inform our understanding of cultural evolution and the role of music in influencing and reflecting these changes.

“Our background is in music recommender systems, where it is crucial to be able to comprehensively understand and describe users and songs. Lyrics are a part of this and this is how we got started with this research,” said study author Eva Zangerle, an assistant professor of computer science at the University of Innsbruck.

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For their study, the researchers created a large dataset of 353,320 English-language songs from popular Western music, spanning five decades from 1970 to 2020. This dataset was sourced from the Genius platform, which is known for its extensive catalog of song lyrics and metadata about music tracks. The songs spanned five genres (rap, country, pop, R&B, and rock), allowing the researchers to examine trends across different musical styles.

To manage the vast amount of data, the researchers employed a range of computational methods to extract and analyze various lyrical descriptors. These descriptors included lexical complexity, which looks at the diversity and sophistication of vocabulary used; structural complexity, which examines aspects like repetitiveness; and emotional content, which assesses the emotions conveyed by the lyrics. The analysis also considered the popularity of the songs, distinguished by metrics like the number of times a song has been listened to and the number of times its lyrics have been viewed.

One of the most striking trends identified was the simplification of lyrics over time. This simplification was observed both in the lexical complexity and structural complexity of the lyrics, indicating that newer songs tend to use a less diverse vocabulary and have become more repetitive. These results are in line with previous research.

Another significant finding was the shift in the emotional content of lyrics. The researchers found that over the past five decades, lyrics have increasingly conveyed more negative emotions. This shift towards negativity was consistent across various musical genres.

Additionally, the lyrics have become more personal, with a noticeable increase in the use of first-person pronouns. This change suggests a move towards more introspective and individualistic themes in music, reflecting perhaps a cultural shift in how people relate to and express their identities through art.

“The major takeaway is that lyrics have evolved in the last decades and that there is a tendency towards more repetitive lyrics, but also, for instance, less vocabulary richness or diverse rhyming words. We also found that the lyrics tend to get more negative and angry,” Zangerle told PsyPost.

The researchers also explored the relationship between lyrical changes and the popularity of songs. They discovered that certain lyrical features are more prevalent in songs that achieve greater popularity, indicating that the evolution of lyrics could be partly driven by audience preferences and consumption patterns. For instance, songs with simpler, more repetitive lyrics and those expressing more personal emotions tended to be more popular, suggesting that these features resonate more with contemporary listeners.

Despite its extensive dataset and robust analytical methods, the study has limitations. One significant challenge is the reliance on data from digital platforms and focus on English lyrics, which may not represent the global diversity of music listeners. Future research could expand to include multiple languages and more diverse musical styles to better understand the global evolution of music lyrics. Additionally, exploring the reasons behind these lyrical changes could offer deeper insights into the interplay between music, technology, and cultural shifts.

“One thing that is important here is that we did a purely data-driven quantitative analysis,” Zangerle said. “This implies that we can not (and do not want to) judge aspects like the aesthetics or quality of lyrics.

“This was a side project as we are working on music recommender systems, but we will consider lyrical features (as used in this study) to describe tracks for the recommendation task in future,” the researcher added.

The study, “Song lyrics have become simpler and more repetitive over the last five decades,” was authored by Emilia Parada-Cabaleiro, Maximilian Mayerl, Stefan Brandl, Marcin Skowron, Markus Schedl, Elisabeth Lex, and Eva Zangerle.