Translating 'Guardian' Headlines

"Music reflects modern society"

Senior study author Eva Zangerle, an expert on recommendation systems at Austria’s University of Innsbruck, declined to single out an individual newer artist for having simple lyrics. But she emphasised that lyrics can be a “mirror of society” which reflect how a culture’s values, emotions and preoccupations change over time.

See? The obvious conclusion.  

For the study in the journal Scientific Reports, the researchers looked at the emotions expressed in lyrics, how many different and complicated words were used, and how often they were repeated. “Across all genres, lyrics had a tendency to become more simple and more repetitive,” Zangerle summarised. The results also confirmed previous research which had shown a decrease in positive, joyful lyrics over time and a rise in those that express anger, disgust or sadness.

There's precious little to be joyful about, so of course, song lyrics will reflect that. Good grief, the ridiculous things people are studying - presumably, for real money - never ceases to amaze me. 

The number of repeated lines rose most in rap over the decades, Zangerle said – adding that it obviously had the most lines to begin with. “Rap music has become more angry than the other genres,” she added.

Gosh. I wonder why a thuggish music genre would have been top of this particular chart.