ArticleScientific reports2024
Song lyrics have become simpler and more repetitive over the last five decades.
Article in Scientific reports, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 6 papers.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Evolution of moral expression in song lyrics.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Decoding the evolution of melodic and harmonic structure of Western music through the lens of network science.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Societal crises disrupt long-term increases in stress, negativity, and simplicity in US Billboard song lyrics from 1973 to 2023.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Article
- Patterns of linguistic simplification on social media platforms over time.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- From Nicki Minaj to Neuroblastoma: What Rigorous Approaches to Rhythms and Radiomics Have in Common.Radiology. Artificial intelligence · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Music is ubiquitous in our everyday lives, and lyrics play an integral role when we listen to music. The complex relationships between lyrical content, its temporal evolution over the last decades, and genre-specific variations, however, are yet to be fully understood. In this work, we investigate the dynamics of English lyrics of Western, popular music over five decades and five genres, using a wide set of lyrics descriptors, including lyrical complexity, structure, emotion, and popularity. We find that pop music lyrics have become simpler and easier to comprehend over time: not only does the lexical complexity of lyrics decrease (for instance, captured by vocabulary richness or readability of lyrics), but we also observe that the structural complexity (for instance, the repetitiveness of lyrics) has decreased. In addition, we confirm previous analyses showing that the emotion described by lyrics has become more negative and that lyrics have become more personal over the last five decades. Finally, a comparison of lyrics view counts and listening counts shows that when it comes to the listeners' interest in lyrics, for instance, rock fans mostly enjoy lyrics from older songs; country fans are more interested in new songs' lyrics.
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