It seems that new songs have impoverished lyrics compared to the ‘good old days’ according to a recent scientific paper.
In essence, they found that lyrics have become simpler over time regarding multiple aspects of lyrics: vocabulary richness, readability, complexity, and the number of repeated lines, They also found that as time went on, lyrics increasingly used words like ‘me’ or ‘mine‘ and the emotion described by lyrics has become more negative. Also, newer song lyrics tended to be more repetitive than their older counterparts, the study revealed.
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.
Song lyrics have become simpler and more repetitive over the last five decades - Scientific Reports
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...
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In essence, they found that lyrics have become simpler over time regarding multiple aspects of lyrics: vocabulary richness, readability, complexity, and the number of repeated lines, They also found that as time went on, lyrics increasingly used words like ‘me’ or ‘mine‘ and the emotion described by lyrics has become more negative. Also, newer song lyrics tended to be more repetitive than their older counterparts, the study revealed.
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.