Clicked on this not expecting much ... wow. Detailed analysis and an absolutely beautiful format for the information. I'll definitely be bookmarking this site.
I think Rihanna's Umbrella takes repetitiveness to its endgame pretty thoroughly...
I wouldn't immediately blame artist dumbing-down for this phenomenon, if it exists at all, but I think it's more a producer thing where looping and morphing cool lyrical snippets, along with deep rhythmic beats, creates a satisfying modern musical experience.
Rihanna pushes the boundary even farther in "work". I think there might even be a level of snarky self-awareness with the way she just dissolves that one word into a group of repeated noises.
The production is the legacy of max Martin and dr. Luke they have it down to a science.
Repeating the word "work" does has a more poetic utility as a depiction of working. Even allowing the pronunciation to devolve can be interpreted in this way.
I think you are right that it is self aware. It can get quite meta if you read it as her depicting the mundane nature of work as her... work.
Definitely. Rhythm and beats are more important now, with dance culture, than they ever were years ago. It's a shame that it comes with a dumbing down of lyrical content sometimes.
I'd be surprised if Umbrella were all that close to the highest. Other Rihanna songs like S&M, Work and We Found Love In A Hopeless Place seem far more repetitive (at least to my intuition of what qualifies as repetitive).
You can do this, but probably not with midi because it would be hard to find. Check out Echonest. There are ways to pull immense amounts of audio information out of songs...
This is a fun analysis. One of the flaws with comparing only lyrics is that there are some songs for which lyrics are not the source of diversity in the music. For example, Send Me On My Way is very repetitive in its lyrics but has lots of non-lyrical diversity in the vocals. Turn Down for What is very repetitive in its lyrics, but the vocals aren't the melody. This analysis speaks to the following trend in music: how simple are the lyrics?
I don't think it really matters which decade is looked at, as the underlying principals are the same... Music to dance to is almost certainly going to have simpler lyrics. That was just as true with the Rock And Roll in the 50s as it was with the Pop-Dance tracks of today.
You can pick popular tracks to dance to from any decade with simple lyrics:
I don't think you should think of dance music vocals as lyrics in the traditional sense. They're as much about sound and texture as they are about meaning.
Can't think of a better example than Daft Punk's Harder Better Faster Stronger. Very repetitive lyrics on paper, but so much more when rendered as audio.
Nor rap, as it doesn't generally have a verse/chorus structure. Claiming it's not music aside, fans tend to describe it more as poetry, which is generally non-repetitive.
I'm guessing it would be extremely repetitive for poetry though.
Would be interesting to know whether repetitiveness of lyrics affects international sales vs English speaking ones.
I would expect native speakers to be more sensitive about lyrics complexity then others - and international people might even prefer simpler lyrics due to them being easier to understand.
For those interested in this topic, I highly recommend "The Song Machine", by John Seabrook. Music is no longer written by single songwriter-singer, it's manufactured on an assembly line to optimize for 'hits'. Hits are to record labels as unicorns are to VCs :)
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 68.4 ms ] threadI wouldn't immediately blame artist dumbing-down for this phenomenon, if it exists at all, but I think it's more a producer thing where looping and morphing cool lyrical snippets, along with deep rhythmic beats, creates a satisfying modern musical experience.
https://youtu.be/URxzu8EFBVY
The production is the legacy of max Martin and dr. Luke they have it down to a science.
I think you are right that it is self aware. It can get quite meta if you read it as her depicting the mundane nature of work as her... work.
Thanks for making me think about that!
https://pudding.cool/
I'd also be curious which songs were the least repetitive for each decade.
I personally found it a great way to tell the story. It didn't interfere with my reading experience at all.
You can pick popular tracks to dance to from any decade with simple lyrics:
50's: Tutti Frutti - Little Richard https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F13JNjpNW6c
60's: Cold Sweat - James Brown https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8f4s9fm-CE
70's: Rock and Roll - Led Zeppelin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bv_ALKkTjQ
80's: I Feel For You - Chaka Khan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hX9E44mClKs
90's: Tubthumping - Chumbawamba https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCkmIyC6v00
00's: As The Rush Comes - Motorcycle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGH8rnraxoE
10's: Get Lucky - Daft Punk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5EofwRzit0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qotooj7ODCM
I'm guessing it would be extremely repetitive for poetry though.
I would expect native speakers to be more sensitive about lyrics complexity then others - and international people might even prefer simpler lyrics due to them being easier to understand.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/books/review/the-song-mac...
Both analyses show that the music of 1967 was the most varied of the period studied.
https://pudding.cool/2017/02/vocabulary/