Is pop music today becoming sadder and angrier?

Broken hearts and righteous rage always produce the most beloved hits. From the immortal song “I Will Always Love You” by singer Dolly Parton (later recorded by Whitney Houston) to the phenomenon of “Someone Like You” by Adele and “Stay With Me” by Sam Smith, many artists The doctor knows how to turn his tears into a gold mine.

However, does today’s music convey a deeper melancholy than the songs of the past? That’s the conclusion of two recent analyzes that examined thousands of European and American hits over the past few decades. Since the 80’s, emotions such as sadness and loneliness have become more and more common in the lyrics. Meanwhile, songs with moods such as pure joy, such as “All You Need is Love” by the Beatles – have difficulty climbing high on the charts.

So what caused these changes? Does it simply reflect a change in the way listeners enjoy music? Or does it represent the underlying emotional circuit of today’s society?

Is pop music today becoming sadder and angrier?
Since the 80’s, emotions such as sadness, loneliness… are more common in the lyrics.

First, let’s look at the evidence. Lior Shamir at Lawrence Technological University collected the lyrics of 6,150 Billboard Hot 100 singles from 1951 to 2016 and analyzed them using an algorithm. The software is pre-programmed to identify linguistic cues of different emotional states and personality traits – including sadness, fear, disgust, joy and extroversion. And while computers will certainly miss some nuance if the lyrics are too complicated, technological judgments tend to agree with human judgment.

For example, the computer correctly identified the dominant emotion in Bonnie Tyler’s hit song ” Total Eclipse of the Heart ” as melancholy, with a score of 0.51 out of 1 for this state. In contrast, Village People’s YMCA song scored 0.65 for joy, and Queen’s We Will Rock You even scored a towering 0.85 on the extroversion scale. this seems appropriate for rockers who are always in a state of euphoria).

Is pop music today becoming sadder and angrier?
Overall, the playful tone of the Billboard Hot 100 lyrics fell to an all-time low. (Credit: Kathleen Napier and Lior Shamir).

Then, each year, Shamir averages the scores and looks at how they change over time. This has produced extremely impressive results. Specifically, feelings of anger and disgust in lyrics have almost doubled in the past 65 years, while fear has increased by more than 50%. Most notably, modern songs sound even more violent and terrifying than punk music in its heyday. One possible reason for this is that rap music’s growing influence reflects the same social unrest and disenfranchisement felt by punk music. Meanwhile, melancholy mood remained stable until the 80s, then gradually escalated into the early 2010s, while joy, feelings of confidence, and openness steadily declined. .

Shamir shared, “We can see the change so consistently and clearly, that the lyrics become angrier, scarier, sadder and less fun. There are a lot of significant differences. between lyrics in the late ’50s versus lyrics in 2015 and 2016.

To illustrate this phenomenon, Shamir points to a series of hits in the ’50s with a dominant emotion of joy, such as Elvis Presley’s “All Shook Up” which scored 0.702 for this emotion, or Little Richard’s ” Long Tall Sally” hit 0.82. In contrast, the best angry, chart-topping songs were composed in the 2000s, including ” When You’re ” and ” Busta Rhymes Tough It ” by Ne-Yo ( score 0.97 on the anger scale). Recently, Taylor Swift’s ” Bad Blood ” scored very high on fear and almost no positive mood, while Miley Cyrus’s ” Wrecking Ball ” and Justin Bieber’s ” Sorry ” did. high scores for sad moods – all of which represent the biggest hits of the past 6 years.

The findings mentioned above are roughly consistent with a second independent study by Natalia Komarova, a mathematician at the University of California Irvine after she was amazed when she was exposed to the negative in taste. her daughter’s music. To find out how the mood changes in a song over time, she turned to a research database called AcousticBrainz . This database allows users to apply algorithms to extract audio characteristics – such as major minor chord usage and track tempo and score songs by emotion, for example. like sadness. After observing half a million songs released in the UK between 1985 and 2015, Komarova and her colleagues found that the tone of the music had become less cheerful since 1985 – as the analysis found. lyrics by Lior Shamir.

Interestingly, Komarova found that choreography – as measured by properties of rhythm – also increased with negative mood. Therefore, even if they show a negative mood, these songs have the ability to make listeners unable to sit still. For example, the hit song ” Dancing on my own ” sung by Robyn has vibrant electronic sounds and rhythmic beats underneath the lyrics about loneliness and isolation. In terms of albums, Komarova also pointed to mix-tapes (products released on CD) such as ” Lemonade ” performed by Beyoncé and ” Pop 2 ” sung by Charlie XCX as dance songs. although it has dark content.

Is pop music today becoming sadder and angrier?
Sadness in songs began to rise in the late ’80s, and peaked in the first decade of the 21st century. (Credit: Kathleen Napier and Lior Shamir)

Something needs to be made clear here: these are just the mainstream and there are exceptions, such as Pharrell Williams’ “Happy” and Rihanna’s “Diamonds” . Both songs were huge hits with upbeat lyrics. Overall, though, the songs seem to have turned darker and angrier.

The reason for this phenomenon is still unclear and Komarova is still hesitant to put forward any specific hypothesis. However, Komarova asserts: ” We can guess this may be related to some changes taking place in society .”

Shamir agrees, noting that in the ’50s most pop music was like a form of escapism – but since the ’60s, songs have become more socially connected. ” Music has changed its role from expressing a happy mood to expressing political views, ” he said. Perhaps this can partly explain the change, but it must be said that most of the songs today are not protest songs.

If scientists aren’t sure what’s driving these trends, BBC sources say we should hear from someone who’s been creating hit songs for decades. So BBC journalist David Robson contacted Mike Batt, the conductor, record producer, and singer and songwriter who has written several hits including ” Bright Eyes ” by Art Garfunkel theft and ” Clost Thing to Crazy ” by Katie Melua.

Batt points out that the medium used to listen to music has changed a lot, with streaming channels now only featuring chart-topping songs. These can help us determine what genres of music are becoming popular – for example, songs aimed at older people are less likely to become hits because older people are often reluctant to play them. music online and tend to be less angry.

Batt concurs that the more negative tone in pop music today can also reflect changes in society , and even if attitudes toward political events are not as openly expressed as songs. clearly show opposition, they can still affect the overall mood of the song.

He continued: “Intentionally or not, songs tend to act as a mirror of society, or at least be influenced by current events in the world. Generations Social media is now suffering from day-to-day stressors.The explosion present in political, religious and racial views today is not much bigger than it was in the past, but it is. more driven and clearer to the listener. This will certainly be reflected in our songs .”

Batt speculates that this goes hand in hand with the fact that many songs today are written by larger groups of musicians, which tend to write songs that fit the ideology of the time. greater than being concerned with the nuances of personal experience. “Perhaps musicians are more inclined to express a general opinion now. And if that mood is generally more negative than in the past, those songs will sound sadder and more angry,” he said.

For his part, Batt admits that every morning he wakes up feeling a little depressed thinking about world events, but Batt insists his songs often only express his own melancholy mood. yourself – instead of anger or contempt.

And he emphasizes that it is healthy to feel our own sadness when he says, ” Melancholy keeps the world going.”

So perhaps pop songs captured the mood of both the artist and the listener. Composers have immersed themselves in the ideology of the times, and as a result, sadness or anger becomes more appealing to our listeners when we recognize our own emotions in music and lyrics. , which helped push those songs to the top of the charts. Times are always changing and each hit is a small testament to those changes.