Popular Song Lyrics Have Grown Less Emotional Over Eight Decades, Study Finds

Popular music has been saying less about feelings and about other people for most of the past 80 years, according to a study of more than 38,000 songs released this week by researchers at Michigan State University.

The team examined 38,467 songs by 230 artists, spanning 1947 to 2024, and tracked how often lyrics used words tied to emotions and to social relationships. About 30 research assistants checked the artists’ discographies by hand. The paper, led by Logan C. Gibson with psychologists Jan Brascamp and William Chopik, appears in Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Psychological Association.

The researchers reported that lyrics became less emotional and less focused on other people in two ways at once: from one generation of artists to the next, and across individual careers. Within careers, both positive and negative emotion words declined, as did references to family and friends. Language linked to anxiety increased, while words associated with sadness fell. The differences between eras were generally larger than the changes within any single artist’s body of work.

Some of the artist-level patterns will sound familiar to listeners. Classic soul and early rock acts such as Marvin Gaye and the Supremes scored high on positive emotion and social references, while countercultural acts such as Nine Inch Nails and the Sex Pistols scored low. Older country and blues performers, including Hank Williams and Patsy Cline, were overrepresented among artists whose lyrics leaned toward sadness and negative feeling. Willie Nelson contributed the most songs to the data set.

The career findings surprised the authors. Psychologists generally find that people become better at managing emotions and more invested in relationships as they age, so the researchers expected songwriters to follow a similar path. Instead, positive emotions and social references declined, Gibson said in the university’s announcement. The team suggested that artistic conventions, cultural shifts or pressures from the music industry may shape lyrics more than a songwriter’s own maturing does.

Studies that count words have limits, and the authors’ approach cannot capture irony, tone or what a melody adds to a line. A sparse lyric can carry enormous feeling in performance, and listeners may reasonably argue that restraint is a style, not an absence of emotion. The study also covers 230 prominent artists, not all popular music.

The researchers suggest that lyrics nonetheless offer a useful record of the culture that produces and rewards them. As Chopik put it in the university’s announcement, music is not just entertainment.