Songs Have Gotten Simpler More Repetitive and Increasingly Negative Over The Years

There’s a reason why you can’t remember lyrics the way you used to… A new study in the Journal of Science finds it’s not you, it’s the lyrics.

Thanks to streaming platforms like music services and TikTok that offer short-form samples and videos, people don’t have the appetite for anything lengthy and lyrical, says the research team out of Germany and Austria…

The research team analyzed thousands of songs from many genres released between 1970 and 2020 and found that newer music has become less elaborate lyrically…

Song lyrics over the past five decades have become more personal, straightforward and charged with negative emotions, a trend that reflects both society’s mood and the changing landscape of how music is enjoyed, researchers theorized.

Lyrics have become more simple and repetitive and more self-involved with more songs using pronouns such as “mine” and “me”.

The study noted song lyrics have historically been used as a form of literary work, using poetic devices like metaphors and imagery.

The average length of songs from the Billboard Hot 11 has decreased from four minutes in the 1990s to about three minutes in the 2020s, according to a study by engineer Michael Tauberg, Billboard previously reported.