Are Pop Lyrics Getting More Repetitive?
pudding.cool
pudding.cool
It indeed appears that we're increasingly leaning towards more repetition, I suppose it's more appealing to our TikTok-conditioned minds.
The "Repetition of Popular Music, by Year" graph doesn't work for me. First it's empty, When I scroll past the graph and back, it seems to show data sometimes, but only when it's not in the viewport. As soon as I scroll it into view, it undraws the data and is blank again. I don't even have any blockers installed on this browser.
Beautiful for me = less shitty JavaScript that prevents me from seeing the graphs.
I would disagree with that to an extent for the distribution below "I excluded the 20 most repetitive songs in the dataset from the above chart. When you see what it looks like with them, you'll understand why". I had both distributions on screen so I could compare them, and was staring at them for a good while thinking I was missing something obvious. The animation that actually revealed the difference didn't start until I'd given up and scrolled the diagram most of the way off the screen. Had I scrolled a little faster to the next section (or possibly used page down/space), I would have missed the animation entirely.
Only now seeing your comment, I realised that there was an animation and now things make sense yes.
I think I had scroll at the image + the paragraph below and once I read the paragraph I decided to scroll quite quickly and either to completely new page or I was already focused on the table, because that did seem interesting information.
Thinking back now, it's weird how this one thing made me view the whole thing more skeptically, only to realise it was a miscommunication in a way.
Tik Tok directly influences the charts as well as video views are counted as streams. As a result, songs that are fun or funny to dance to for 20 seconds can quickly end up in the Top 10. Tik Tok also has had a significant indirect influence recently with songs and artists that go viral there finding mainstream success afterward, e.g. Lil Nas X, Doja Cat, and Dreams by Fleetwood Mac.
Maybe they mean 'reduced size %' == 'compression ratio' when they say size reduction, in which case why use both terms?
Absolutely. The visualizations in that song text really add value.
I wish I could use these kinds of visualizations on my programming language benchmarks analysis posts :D.
(Knowing JavaScript and HTML/SVG beforehand certainly won't hurt.)
Because analysis I've seen points to reduced complexity over the years, not to cycles or "ups and downs". There were always repetitive songs (lyrics and music wise), but they get increasingly larger percentage of top music. Can check the top 20 of any decade between 1910 and 2020 to compare.
Or check the article's "Repetition of Popular Music, by Year" plot (it covers from the 60s to today).
>Sure technology has always been a huge driving factor, but human nature stays the same.
Human culture doesn't stay the same though. Nor all aspects of cultural change are cyclical.
Every decade since the '80s has some type of EDM song taking the number one spot, but '10s has like 7 in the top 10.
If by EDM you mean music produced on a computer, that's even less of a genre than rock is.
But if you want something like Fatboy Slim or Chemical Brothers from '10s (similar level of complexity vs mainstream appeal): Duck Sauce, ZHU, Rufus Du Sol, Tchami, Peggy Gou, maybe some Disclosure. If I'm not limited to just house music, then add Flume and Kaytranada to the mix.
As someone that grew up on this music in '10s, I'm sure I'm gonna view these artists with the same sense of nostalgia a couple of decades from now.
For dancing purposes, lyrics as in meaning matter less, so it's about what goes with the flow to make you move.
EDM is about pleasant, energetic vibing, moving and energy.
Also I haven't heard of "electronic music" that much and it has different connotation in my head. Maybe I have been brainwashed by the US term, although I didn't even know it was a US term. I'm from Europe, but of course US brainwash has reached me, no question about the size of the radius.
However to me the term EDM definitely has a certain meaning and I think it's generally for most, as when I search for EDM I get exactly what I'm looking or feeling for most of the time.
Nonetheless even knowing I might be brainwashed it feels special in terms of the feeling.
Charts have always been a fairly poor indicator of what people actually want to listen to because of the huge incentives record companies have to manipulate them, but they're a particularly poor indicator now. The snake is eating its own tail - streaming and radio algorithms heavily rely on chart placement to build playlists, but those charts are determined largely by streaming and radio playlists.
https://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-100/
Compare to the musical and tonal variety of:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_Year-End_Hot_100_sin...
Also: https://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/26/science-music-idU...
You can argue that music in the 1970s was better / unique / less repetitive but to say it was more varied is demonstrably false.
Which is neither here, nor there, because those "5 decades of genres" are not represented in the current top 100 for the most part. Formulaic, cookie cutter, 2024 songwriting and production is.
At least not yet.
Go (Google), Swift (Apple), Kotlin (JetBrains), TypeScript (Microsoft) and Dart (Google)
One could of course argue that these were created to solve problem X or for reason Y instead of just raising the profile of the company who created it.
It's also the widest and more representative index of the tastes of each era/generation.
That's despite whether there are "true Scotsman/real music lover" listening to 15th century lute music or modern free jazz albums (or the "really good obscure EDM few listen to"). Of course there are those too. That's beside the point.
>It's music for people who don't like music, who make up the majority of the population. It's expected that it's shit.
And yet it was excellent in the past, like the 60s and 70s, and far more complex lyrically and musicallly (outliers aside).
E.g. if I'm working I don't want to focus on the lyrics. And e.g. if I go for a run, I also want to dive deep into my own thoughts instead of thinking or interpreting the song.
I think there's just maybe more activities now where you listen music as an addition rather than the main thing to do, so you want it to be a pleasant and stimulating background vibe of the sort.
In the past, you didn't heave easy to carry on ear or headphones, but now it's so much easier to just listen to everything while doing other activities.
So looks like they're filling a need. Which makes sense to me; singing along is the most accessible way of participating in making music, and repetitive lyrics make that even easier. As someone who doesn't play an instrument (and likes doing bad karaoke), I definitely appreciate lyrics that are easy to pick up.
Microphone check as I choose my route
I'm playing on the road, I've got no fear
The sound from my mouth is a rap you hear
No valley too deep, no mountain too high
Reach the top, touch the sky
They tried to diss me 'cause I sell out
I'm making techno and I am proud
No tell me no, no, no, no, woah, woah, woah, woah
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
Baby, come gimme your lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-woah-woah-woah-woah-woah
You got me like, "woah-woah-woah-woah-woah-woah-woah-woah-woah"
Shawty come gimme your lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-woah-woah-woah-woah-woah, mhmm
A
Unclear what has happened in the 7 years since.