Nothing to sing about – lyrics ‘dumber’ than in 1980s
Streaming and shorter attention spans mean musicians are striving to make ever-catchier tracks
MODERN songs have been dumbed down and made more repetitive than they were in the Eighties, a study has found.
The dominance of streaming platforms and the short attention span of the modern public mean musicians and producers are trying to make ever-catchier music that stops listeners from skipping to the next song.
In previous decades, the need to purchase a physical vinyl, tape or CD meant this was less of an issue, and artists could spend more time crafting intellectually stimulating music.
Previously, artists relied on radio plays for exposure, and therefore had to rely on gaining fans through creating memorable tunes that prompted people to go out and buy their records.
Analysis of 12,000 English-speaking songs released between 1980 and 2020 reveals a trend across genres towards simplification of lyrics and an overuse of choruses. The vocabulary range has also shrunk and the structure of songs made more predictable, data show.
The authors of the study say Bruce Springsteen’s 1973 song Spirit in the Night is a good example of 20th-century enamoration of complex writing that told a story, whereas Miley Cyrus’s 2019 song Slide Away is a case study for the more predictable.
Scientists from the University of Innsbruck looked at a host of song lyric traits and found the ratio of choruses to verses increased for all five of the main genres of music since 1980.
Pop, rock, rhythm and blues, rap and country all saw an increase in this ratio, data show, with it being strongest in rap music and weakest in R&B.
“This implies that the structure of lyrics is shifting towards containing more choruses than in the past, in turn contributing to higher repetitiveness of lyrics,” the scientists write in their study, published in the journal Scientific Reports. Other trends the study identified were an increase in anger across all genres, only rap music had more positive words, and all genres got more emotional and personal.
“The changing music landscape plays an important role here,” said Dr Eva Zangerle, an assistant professor in computer science at the University of Innsbruck and lead author of the study.
“In the past 40 years, we have witnessed a change from buying records in the store to being able to choose from hundreds of millions of songs on streaming platforms on the phone.
“This has also changed the way music is consumed on the one hand, and produced on the other hand, e.g. making sure that the song is convincing enough to not be skipped within the first seconds.”
She added that there was a trend towards more passive consumption, such as for background music while working or doing chores, where complex and nuanced lyrics are perhaps less appreciated than in the past.
Rap has staved off the decline in creativity more than most other genres, the study authors say, probably because the writing is integral to the art form.
“Rap is historically centred around lyrics, for instance, also more complex rhyming patterns, also shown by verbal games or other competitions, increasing the lyrical complexity,” Dr Zangerle said.
The songs came from the platform Genius and analysis also revealed how popular songs and genres were over time. People look up the lyrics of older rock songs more than the newer options in the genre, data show, whereas newer country songs are more popular than the old-timers.
This could indicate that rock listeners prefer lyrics from older songs, the scientists say, while country listeners may prefer lyrics from newer songs.
Dr Igor Grossmann, a professor of psychology at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, who was not involved with the research, said modern songs are following the “mere exposure” marketing principle, which posits that a person will enjoy something more if they listen to it more.
“This was established in the early Seventies and from that moment on, executives in the music industry pushed for more repetition because songs were more catchy and popular,” he said.