Data Visualizations & Conclusions
1950s
Popular genres: Rock ’N Roll, B-bop, Big Band, Country
1960s
Popular genres: Motown, Rock ‘N Roll, and The British Invasion
1970s
Popular genres: Disco, Motown, and R&B
1980s
Popular genres: Glam rock, Pop, Hip-Hop, Country
In this decade possessive personal pronouns overtook personal pronouns, which is an interesting relationship considering it's the only time that happened, so closer analysis of the music in that decade is a path I could embark from here.
1990s
Popular genres: Grunge, Alternative, Rap, and Country
2000s
Popular genres: Adult Contemporary and R&B
2010s
Popular genres: EDM and Hip-Hop
Overall Trends
LDA
The words that show up together in the decades overall:
Topic #0: rock dream clock tonight die many true babe con kiss old turning ago town wanted til god lips bright near whenever white shell huh em couldnt looked lot someday begin wasnt gray letters street mean part cry young ten touched pass room although lover gave sometimes six la catch work
Topic #1: happy maybe along sorry hands everybody hot good body met party watch deep somebody hit damn fall tonight bring late rock wish lead going room uh getting crazy sound looking girls dark truth fight falling yo blow house pocket whoo storm shit kiss talk ready hate mi road shake somethin
Topic #2: low breaking honey aint cry fever yet girls shit gave nobody loves face read sunshine light ah gimme gotta burn pieces fun sky wrote brown dancing pour taking sweet sun help knows friend shine uh beat whole weve days hide goodbye fall makes hard couldnt isnt hit open thing warm
Topic #3: faith body talk whats gotta maybe shell watching dance lover eye cry anytime talkin good move says sure step everybodys known dream mother twice animal shining fight friend side walkin pretend hes though play mean word moment tonight second single thought hearts knows game knowing dark chance breath sweet happy
Topic #4: belong boy dig enough saw hard living side weve tonight aint good shake hes makin trying sorry road confused although ride change yall heaven fight party best pain many sweet slow going light worth anymore ha everything maybe death chasing goodbye em moon true along cry big nothin bring di
The words that show up in each decade are very similar so I'll list them here:
Topics of the 1950s:
Topic #0:
oh ago see long someone town could arms dreams know many find theres ill little go really river take new eyes bright one round said part night never well two may say ever hear come like true must start always made life way youre heart love dont kiss around please
Topic #1:
love heart im lonely smile like dont kiss ever day around may well always youre ill way die away say please true life near lips night made little mine must never pass know dreams many could bright youll part start take theres two arms hear eyes see one come someone
Topics of the 1960s:
Topic #0:
let want tell time gone ive way gonna love someone friend say ill pretend live heart long like know cant youre youll mind got make come man well im go knows dreams start right understand feel since little apart see alone sweet true one blue life kissed oh sun yeah
Topic #1:
yeah dont im love cant get go cause baby summer know blue world got take lonely eyes come oh one heart dreams alone life sweet like little gone make mind said youve someone well lost see sun understand apart right knows gonna time since true kissed ive live let youre
Topics of the 1970s:
Topic #0:
night way light baby right give know aint mind one line tell behind every would gave mine us sweet time make see need people world come get away got shine said eyes love cant youre walkin enough take dont im around gonna cause let stop girls girl good joy stay
Topic #1:
like love heart time joy dont stop girls see gonna long want old close youre girl ill go little got give im hard cant oh know without us never gave well else let people mind world cause come stay around look think eyes together id really get song fun feeling
Topics of the 1980s:
Topic #0:
oh dont love alone shes one say let get know thats got need always eyes body think im youre ive ill keep together leave like tell way hear sure make cause life girl really cant floor forever mind give dark wrong want good gonna well feel thought yes tonight hey
Topic #1:
got every like heart gotta im love night maybe gonna look never time away dance baby youre back whoa dream ooh yeah ive feet way take ill cold dont feel oh see hand till better could make know though please say keep world stay well cause floor good new found
Topics of the 1990s:
Topic #0:
love know cant dont youre im ill way come want always like get look baby yeah go see living oh mine enough say day got back thats life real one eyes make feel wanna hold heart good friends let time think girl gonna cause side something together tell theres never
Topic #1:
always love look ill way away every without eyes mine wanna good make living enough hold real im heart close need something girl day like takes get life wanted light cant know hard one dont come oh name side time friends see thats want gonna two inside better feel youre
Topics of the 2000s:
Topic #0:
keep love oh got aint cant let gotta yeah way low girl feel get face gonna know like go right never wanna ive heart give baby cause though dont see club back want times shawty without come getting take need bottle turn around touch next make ya time find theres
Topic #1:
yet baby come together uh day else moment left know bounce bad must dont bout every youre lets nothing like get ill fun back got give man make world go heart need real take ever radio life could theres sun well ive better standing hot even round tell please would
Topics of the 2010s:
Topic #0:
need call without said one mind cant ooh time shot id another door around nothing looking feel oh im heres stop perfect way come happy baby hey say crazy maybe youre yeah bad let met hot get gonna like everybody thats want good put wanna yo got could never every
Topic #1:
im love like yeah baby oh come gonna hey youre got happy bad maybe still ooh get wanna put perfect cause make go found hands heart never need didnt tonight way hot met call see stop look think party right fall say yo everybody dark plan good mine every want
From the basic analysis of the dataset, I found out that although the number of unique artists stayed about the same throughout the period examined (1950s-2010s), the histogram of the frequencies of number of appearances combined with the bar chart of the top most popular artists shows that, of the repeat artists, there appears to be a consolidation of popularity. There is a shift from many repeat artists showing up in the top 30 spots to only a few artists making many appearances in the top 30 spots.
When examining the length of the lyrics, I discovered a strong trend towards shorter, more repetitive, and more numerous words. I've listened to some of the songs and empirically, I've noticed that the earlier songs had more instrumentals and were usually shorter in length upper 2, lower 3 minutes). Although the songs also become more repetitive (repeating phrases more) so that trend may be related to that and would require further analysis to tease them apart, I this correlation is related to another confouding factor. But whether this is explained because songs have become longer, or the lyrical segments of songs have become longer, or a genre shift to genres with a greater emphasis on the lyrical content has occurred, cannot be fully explored with the current dataset. A possible explanation of the trend displayed in the data set could be the popularity of hip-hop and rap, a very wordy and lyrically-focused genre, and the fading popularity of big band, a genre more focused on the instrumentals. However, further investigation is needed to confirm or deny the validity of this hypothesis. In the future, it may be interesting attaching the genres of the songs to the dataset and analyzing their distribution through the decades and their distinctive lyrical characteristics.
Analyzing the pronouns used, there is a trend of more personal pronouns in songs. Interestingly, first person and second person pronouns show an approximately proportionate increase over the decades, which seems to signify the growing popularity of more personal, relationship-centric songs.
After reading "Why I Dig: Feminist Approaches to Text Analysis" by Lisa Marie Rhody, I was inspired to look at the frequency of male and female pronouns over the decades and saw a back and forth between the pronouns. However, in the 1950s, female pronouns were at an all time high. The second wave feminist movement was in the 1960s and 1970s, which coincided with the sharp decrease in female pronoun usages since 1950s. If we assume the pronouns reflect the love interest being sung about by the artist (since love is a frequent topic in all the decades), then the feminist movement may have lead to a change of public opinion so that such potentially more objectifying way (singing about a third party to the listener) of singing fell out of favor and the more personal "you" being more popular (since both male and female pronouns are not as common as in 1950s). In the 2010s, there's another small drop in third person pronoun usage as well, so it may be interesting to investigate the cause of that.
However, it's not a given that the third person pronoun usage is necessarily objectifying nor that there is a correlation between the feminist movement and the drop in female pronoun usage. Further investigation would be need to clarify the relationship, if any, and what it means.