From King Elvis to Queen Beyoncé: repetitive lyrics in popular music

May 13, 2017 8:28 AM

Are Pop Lyrics Getting More Repetitive? Colin Morris tests this hypothesis with data by analyzing the repetitiveness of a dataset of 15,000 songs that charted on the Billboard Hot 100 between 1958 and 2017.
posted by Room 641-A (57 comments total)

Hallelujah!
posted by thelonius at 8:35 AM on May 13, 2017 [6 favorites]

It's definitely tricky to use lyrics alone to decide this, because (for instance) Around The World by Daft Punk has a lot of variation on a melodic level, and uses its lyrics as an instrument more than as a way to convey meaning. That would have been unthinkable in the 1960s!
posted by LSK at 8:56 AM on May 13, 2017 [4 favorites]

c.f. Dylan Moran on contemporary song lyrics
posted by Doktor Zed at 9:05 AM on May 13, 2017 [3 favorites]

I'll just say that this was nicely visualized.
posted by bigendian at 9:09 AM on May 13, 2017 [16 favorites]

Pretty cool how Dylan Moran chose the 2nd lowest entropy song. And Around The World has the inventiveness that LSK mentioned. (I like Rockefeller Skank, mind).
posted by ambrosen at 9:17 AM on May 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

I still don't know why Moby's heart feels so bad.
posted by flabdablet at 9:45 AM on May 13, 2017 [9 favorites]

The More, The Better: Repetition Propels Songs Up The Charts
posted by Query at 9:51 AM on May 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

Bouncing off LSK's point above:

Half of the all-time "most repetitive" songs are–at their core–electronic music tracks that treat sampling as a cornerstone of composition. The repetition is almost the point. Everything else–from the basslines to the melody–happens around that sample.

This holds fairly steady regardless of which electronic music subgenre you look at ... there's an anchor beat/sample (typically of the "four on the floor" variety)... and then everything else.

With that said, the visual presentation on this is kick-ass and the methodology is fairly novel. I'd like to see this done solely on popular rap/rock/alternative tracks.
posted by raihan_ at 9:55 AM on May 13, 2017 [12 favorites]

This article is beautiful, it deserves some kind of design award.
posted by subdee at 10:00 AM on May 13, 2017 [3 favorites]

I find I really enjoy changes in tempo and emphasis in a pop song more than I like complex lyrics. I mean, his made up example would be a terrible song, whereas Sia's song is actually pretty great.

Highly-compressible "Get Lucky" by Daft Punk, on harp.
posted by maxwelton at 10:00 AM on May 13, 2017 [3 favorites]

Just as I suspected: Rihanna is the most repetitive, across all decades, by a long shot...
posted by littlejohnnyjewel at 10:02 AM on May 13, 2017

The point made above about electronic music is a good one. This analysis may be capturing the rising influence of EDM, which tends to be "lyrically boring but melodically interesting," on mainstream pop music.

(My cynical interpretation of that: in an industry with declining sales, getting played in clubs is one of the last reliable revenue streams.)
posted by anifinder at 10:10 AM on May 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

Why be so down on repetition? Why? Why why why?

Also many people don't listen to lyrics.

Also this song by Mike Doughty uses the same word dozens of times in the bridge and it's pretty great.
posted by eustacescrubb at 10:19 AM on May 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

If the implication is supposed to be that pop songs are getting worse because lyrics are growing simpler, it's a lame complaint.

Music is sound. Music means more than the number of notes in the song. Adding more notes does not make a song better.

Lyrics are sound. Lyrics mean more than the number of letters in the words or words in the song. Adding more words does not make lyrics better. Words and phrases strike emotional chords. Simple phrases such as "my life" work better than longer variants.

You could not make "Who'd She Coo?" better than it is at being what it is, especially not by adding words to explain that it's just a play on hoochie-coochie and variants, or instead to explain who she is, who's asking, and what it means to coo somebody. "Who'd She Coo?" in its 1976 setting was part of a loud, sweaty, pleasurable human mating ritual.

The lyrics to "In My Life" are a little more complicated but still very simple and, on paper, banal. Read out of context by someone who has never heard the song, they probably sound a bit shit. It is as part of a song (music + lyrics + performance + recording + history) that those lyrics mean something to some people. You would not make the lyrics better by adding a few dozen stanzas explaining exactly where and who these places and people were and so on.

But, getting back to the beginning, if the implication is instead supposed to be that pop songs are getting better because lyrics are growing simpler, well all right then.
posted by pracowity at 10:27 AM on May 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

Ah, an excuse to post Repeat Stuff
posted by yellowbinder at 11:02 AM on May 13, 2017

What I object to is the reduction of melody in pop music

TESTIFY! I say this so often! My wife and son just smile sadly at me.

Lucinda Williams is the master of repetition but her melodies mesh seamlessly with the meaning—not just the sound—of the words.

Lonely girls, lonely girls
Lonely girls, lonely girls

Heavy blankets
heavy blankets
heavy blankets
Cover lonely girls
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 11:04 AM on May 13, 2017 [3 favorites]

If the conversation is about talent, I think there's a fundamental difference between some electronic act sampling a few seconds from some dub record, movie dialogue, gospel preacher (or even a MC saying one verse) or someone who's actually singing. There's a lot more talent in finding the musicality in, say, Angela Bassett kicking Ralph Fiennes ass, than to write a catchy melody and repeat the same rhymes and howls over and over again.

If improved lyrical prowess makes a song better... whatever works, works. Around the World wouldn't be better with some 70s-style Tolkien rip-off about trolls and dwarves. On the other hand, a 25 minute prog-rock epic would be quite something if it was composed by a single verse of 5 or 6 words repeated over and over again.

I've had enough comments that my shit would be more listenable if I picked up a microphone, started saying some gibberish in english and pitch shifted it, glitched it out or whatever - and turns out, they're right, once recorded some four minutes of bizarre wordplay in 80s-ish New Wave style around "the sound", and that made it work a lot better than the version I've posted because I've chickened out. And it was gibberish. I think I made up words.
posted by lmfsilva at 11:07 AM on May 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

Rhyming: has music been-there and done-that already?

Repetition is fundamental to Western music, and oftentimes meaning is dependent on repetition. I appreciate the analysis here, but it's a pretty surface-oriented take because the style of music affects the degree of repetition. Funny thing though, I see a correlation: Blues (continuing through rock and disco/dance) leans to the repetitive side, classically-tinged lyricism on the less-repetitive side, and new country in the middle, which is about as vivid an illustration of the Hegelian synthesis as I've ever seen.
posted by rhizome at 11:21 AM on May 13, 2017 [3 favorites]

That was really well put together; not only an interesting approach to an interesting question, but explained some pretty complicated concepts in a way that I think makes them approachable to a much wider audience. Not an easy task, and I was impressed by the light touch used in places like explaining the log scale. The fancy web animations were used effectively, too. I have strong opinions about data visualization and this gets a 10/10 from me.
posted by kprincehouse at 11:27 AM on May 13, 2017 [3 favorites]

This analysis is interesting.

But it gives too much fuel to that "music was better in the past" fire.

Let's take another analysis, this time from a compositional standpoint, of Ariana Grande's Into You, which is 66% lyrically compressible.

Kind of like that Duran Duran thread, this analysis of the composition of Into You shows that modern pop music is almost insidiously brilliant, with synths being able to build meaning into even the timbre. Into You is a constantly transforming song, constantly building itself, continuously in motion. It's got more in common with Bach and baroque music than it has in common with rock.

Into You might be lyrically compressible, but imagine trying this same trick on sheet music. You'd find, for example, the Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald, to be far more compressible than this "simple" four minute pop song.
posted by juice boo at 12:21 PM on May 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

Like it or not, repetition is winning, at least in pop, and is forcing other styles of music to compete with it. While I am less fearful than some of an all-out race to the bottom (complex music has not vanished from the earth), I am still regularly struck by how fewer notes I can expect to hear from younger pop acts, even in very melodic genres like R and B, than I would just a few decades ago. Contemporary rock is some of the most harmonically empty of all.

This isn't some big tragedy, but I would love to close the gap in listenership between people who love more complex styles of music and people who like current pop and edm. When I see signs of that happening it gladdens my heart.
posted by ducky l'orange at 12:26 PM on May 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

Like it or not, repetition is winning

Against what, though?
posted by rhizome at 12:31 PM on May 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

Against what, though?

For reals. Most pop songs of the 60s and 70s are insanely repetitive, compositionally, so I'd say repetition is losing. Complexity is winning.
posted by juice boo at 12:43 PM on May 13, 2017 [5 favorites]

Has anyone correlated this with global warming yet? The graphs are making me suspicious.
posted by clawsoon at 12:56 PM on May 13, 2017 [3 favorites]

I know what the young people are into; charts, graphs, maths, and slidey web pages. Categorizing things.
posted by bongo_x at 12:56 PM on May 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

A lot of people say that they like all music except for country and hip-hop. Is it that they don't like the lyrical complexity of those two genres?
posted by clawsoon at 12:59 PM on May 13, 2017 [4 favorites]

Isn't part of the idea of musical repetition to make it more cognitively sticky? There are a lot of songs I remember bits of. Not so many that I remember ALL the lyrics too.
posted by Samizdata at 1:02 PM on May 13, 2017

This is the three Rs
The three Rs:
Repetition, Repetition, Repetition.
posted by howfar at 1:03 PM on May 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

Are Pop Lyrics Getting More Repetitive?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no ,no ,no, no.
posted by howfar at 1:07 PM on May 13, 2017

Obligatory link to This Song Is Just Six Words Long.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 1:28 PM on May 13, 2017 [6 favorites]

I will hold up Carly Rae Jepson as an example of a current young artist who still works with melody. I *heart* her.

In all seriousness you might enjoy (or might thoroughly detest) Andy Rehfeldt's metalized version of Call Me Maybe. I mean, yeah, it's a joke, but it kinda works. It ends up mostly just turning into a Lacuna Coil song.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 1:30 PM on May 13, 2017

Regurgitator - I Like Repetitive Music

“It [YVAN EHT NIOJ] doesn't mean anything! It's like 'ramalamadingdong' or 'give peace a chance'!”
posted by adept256 at 1:58 PM on May 13, 2017

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no ,no ,no, no.
posted by furtive at 2:04 PM on May 13, 2017

Bird IS the word.
posted by shockingbluamp at 2:09 PM on May 13, 2017 [3 favorites]

I guess I admire the analysis and visualization that went into this, but these kinds of arguments always take me back to Steve Allen mocking disco music by reading "Hot Stuff" out loud in the style of a coffeehouse poet.

If it's true that pop music has gotten lyrically more repetitive — and I don't see how anyone who's listened to the radio for more than a decade or two could really argue with that statement — isn't it also true that it's gotten rhythmically more complex? That's worth a lot. I mean, past a certain point in the chorus of "Work," Rihanna just starts making nonsense syllables, and yet that song is phenomenal.
posted by Mothlight at 2:10 PM on May 13, 2017 [4 favorites]

Complexity is winning.

Totally. Lyrical complexity is utterly thriving in hip hop. And if linear, melodic complexity has receded a bit since Gershwin, it's been replaced by the horizontal complexity of sound collage made possible by digital media. As pop grows more and more global and slang and memes proliferate on the internet, contextual complexity get denser and denser. The glitchy aesthetic associated with certain strains of electronic music has opened up fresh rhythmic possibilities in the "drunken" live drum beats of contemporary R and B. And all of this is rich and fascinating. But there are chords, harmonies and intervals, lots of them derived from jazz (ewww, old, boring) that you don't hear too much these days. Maybe that's all I'm sayin'. Stepping away.
posted by ducky l'orange at 2:14 PM on May 13, 2017 [9 favorites]

I'm always annoyed by articles that make arguments about why music today isn't as good as it used to be, but I don't know if this one is really doing that. There's no comment on quality, at least not that I could see (aside from the quote at the beginning, which I assume is taken a little tongue in cheek). It's not bad to point to pop music being more repetitive. It's interesting data on its own. I only object to anyone claiming there's a correlation between complexity and quality. Someone else might point to this data to make that argument, but I'm not seeing it here.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 2:28 PM on May 13, 2017 [3 favorites]

Every breath you take
posted by chavenet at 2:28 PM on May 13, 2017

Isn't it also true that it's gotten rhythmically more complex?

Depends how you measure. Pop music since 4/4 became the rock standard has less variation in time signature, generally, and tempo is more static.

I wouldn't go so far as to argue that means music is lower quality, but highly rhythmic, repetitive music always make me think of work songs, like the point is to keep everybody synced to certain soothingly repetitive but energetic rhythms that make the drudgery and repetitive, meaningless patterns of modern working life for most people easier to stand. But that's absolute conjecture that probably doesn't stand up to even a minute of scrutiny; just a passing observation I thought might mean something once.

Maybe we feel less drawn to melodic and certain kinds of rhythmic variation in music now because the structures of the rest of our lives have been disrupted so much, we have an unconscious craving for more predictability and less variation.

Or maybe it doesn't mean anything. Either way, I agree it's still an interesting piece of data analysis.
posted by saulgoodman at 3:15 PM on May 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

Pop music has a lot more texture now. Until drum machines and samplers in the 80s, the West had basically 150 years of music using all the same noises. It took about half a generation for electronic sounds to crack the Top 40, and now something like Taylor Swift's "Trouble" is passé.
posted by rhizome at 3:32 PM on May 13, 2017

Isn't it also true that it's gotten rhythmically more complex?

Depends how you measure. Pop music since 4/4 became the rock standard has less variation in time signature, generally, and tempo is more static.

There's a lot more syncopation in pop music than there used to be, thanks to influences from jazz, soul/funk, and other highly syncopated genres. I'd argue pop music is more rhythmically complex than ever. It doesn't have to be in an odd meter or have a variable tempo for that to be the case.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 4:05 PM on May 13, 2017 [3 favorites]

Modern lyrics, they conspicuously lack the words "danger zone"
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 4:10 PM on May 13, 2017 [3 favorites]

I cut my teeth in the prog rock era. Give me epic tales of schizoid men, of Ian Anderson asking of Biggles, and Robert Plant searching in Mordor and hedgerows.
posted by Ber at 4:49 PM on May 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

The full dataset must not be represented in the Artist Discography visualization.

Starship (7 songs qualify) isn't there (though Jefferson Starship is). Neither is The Clash (3 songs), The Stray Cats (5 songs) or Cheap Trick (16 songs).
posted by donpardo at 4:51 PM on May 13, 2017

I'd argue pop music is more rhythmically complex than ever. It doesn't have to be in an odd meter or have a variable tempo for that to be the case.

I think a lot of pop music we hear day-to-day relies on a formula of complex, speech-like syncopated vocal rhythms, with formulaic backing rhythms (some syncopated and some not so much, but all within a pretty narrow range of hip-hop, disco and Latin-flavored well established beats ). And yes, the disappearance of non-4/4 meters IS a significant loss to musical complexity, because if we only look at the beats and vocals, there's syncopation...but it's largely within some pretty conforming stylistic restrictions. Compound meters and 3/4 time tend to serve lyrical, phrase-oriented music...which we don't seem to care about as much anymore...thus there's a big connection between the increase in word repetition, the perceived decrease in lyricism, and the virtual disappearance of non-4/4 meters from pop music. So something like Rihanna's "Love On The Brain" stands out as intentionally stylized as an R&B ballad from 50 years ago.
posted by daisystomper at 9:02 PM on May 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

Are Pop Lyrics Getting More Repetitive?

I refute it thus:

I'm just hunka hunka burning love
Just hunka hunka burning love
Just hunka hunka burning love
Just hunka hunka burning love
Just hunka hunka burning love
Just hunka hunka burning love

posted by kirkaracha at 10:08 PM on May 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

Are Pop Lyrics Getting More Repetitive?

And I know, I know, I know, I know,
I know, I know, I know, I know, I know,
I know, I know, I know, I know, I know,
I know, I know, I know, I know, I know,
I know, I know, I know, I know, I know,
I know, I know,
Hey, I oughtta leave young thing alone
But ain't no sunshine when she's gone

posted by kirkaracha at 10:10 PM on May 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

I'm only here in this post because I really want someone to do a music theory analyis of Linkin Park - In the End. I always think of this song when it comes to stunning good pop melodies
posted by yueliang at 10:30 PM on May 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

Mark E. Smith likes repetition.
posted by sjswitzer at 1:52 AM on May 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

What can you do? What can you do?
posted by Room 641-A at 4:25 AM on May 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

I repeat myself when under stress
I repeat myself when under stress
I repeat myself when under stress
posted by oakroom at 5:08 AM on May 14, 2017 [2 favorites]

Modern lyrics, they conspicuously lack the words "danger zone"

"You'll never say hello to you
Until you get it on the red line overload"

If that doesn't universally speak to the human soul--each and every one of us, I don't know what else does.
posted by sourwookie at 12:06 PM on May 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

See also this tree map of the Top 100 song lyrics per data from song lyrics.com
posted by Ranucci at 6:11 PM on May 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

Same as it ever was, same as it ever was
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was
posted by kirkaracha at 7:14 PM on May 14, 2017 [3 favorites]

Why be so down on repetition? Why? Why why why?

Why?
posted by flabdablet at 8:44 PM on May 14, 2017

I disagree with the notion the article is saying repetition is, in and of itself, a bad thing, or that newer music is of lower quality than older music. If any thesis at all is being put forward, I would say it's that today's artist have glommed onto the fact repetitive music is more memorable and, thus, more potentially popular.

Mostly, though, I think it's just a fabulously presented data set. And I'm finding my favorite artists' songs are spread throughout the compression spectrum.
posted by DrAstroZoom at 7:02 AM on May 15, 2017 [1 favorite]

It's interesting to me that this is probably one of the defining reasons I don't like much pop or rock music of today, but do more often like contemporary rap and country (I'm a word person). On the other hand, of all the pop of today I would say Rihanna is my absolute fave; the fact that she's so resolutely repetitive is maybe more interesting to me than just being of average repetitiveness like those in the middle.
posted by stoneandstar at 3:02 PM on May 16, 2017