Jan 31, 2019
Vidcast: https://youtu.be/Z3xovlAR4Cg
The pop music in the soundtracks of Americans’ lives has become more sad and more angry over the past 7 decades. Musicologists at the University of Michigan now report this conclusion from their computerized sentiment analysis of more than 6,000 songs on Billboard’s Top 100 from the 1950s through 2018.
Angry lyrics increased yearly except from 1982-84 and surged in the 1990s. Sadness, disgust, and fear in lyrics also increased over the same timeframe.
The bubblegum sounds of the late 50’s and early 60’s were muted by the ugly Vietnam war, and the lighthearted optimism they expressed never recovered under the influences of corporate greed and resurgent intolerance.
Kathleen Napier, Lior Shamir. Quantitative Sentiment Analysis of Lyrics in Popular Music. Journal of Popular Music Studies, Vol. 30 No. 4, December 2018 DOI: 10.1525/jpms.2018.300411
#Popmusic #anger #hate #sadness #healthtips #healtnews