Popular music in the United States has become increasingly stressful, negative and linguistically simple over the last half-century, yet listeners actively reject these themes during genuine societal crises in favour of happier, more complex songs.
A large-scale analysis of 20,186 songs from the Billboard Hot 100, published in Scientific Reports, tracks the evolution of American song lyrics from 1973 to 2023.
Researchers from the University of Vienna and Lusófona University found a stark long-term transformation in pop culture: a “significant increase in stress-related language, alongside declines in positive sentiment and lyrical complexity” over five decades.
However, the study uncovered a paradoxical trend during major trauma events. While the general historical trajectory points toward anger and simplicity, societal shocks such as the 11 September attacks and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic coincided with a sudden shift toward “emotion-incongruent music”.
“Surprisingly, societal shocks like COVID-19 coincided with attenuations rather than amplifications of these trends,” the authors wrote.
This suggests that during periods of acute collective distress, audiences use music as a form of “emotion regulation, such as escapism” rather than consuming content that mirrors their suffering.
Dumbing down
The research team also identified an unexpected reversal in the long-term “dumbing down” of lyrics.
While lyrical complexity — measured by compression algorithms — had been steadily declining for decades, the data shows a “distinct deviation” starting around 2016.
“Our post hoc analysis suggests that lyrical complexity increased during Trump’s first term compared to Obama’s second term,” the researchers noted.
The authors caution that this is an observational finding but suggest that “individuals may gravitate toward more cognitively demanding music during stressful periods,” noting that periods of high-stress language in the dataset generally corresponded with increased lyrical complexity.
Cultural shifts
Using Natural Language Processing (NLP) tools to analyse sentiment and stress markers, the researchers tested whether economic factors drove these cultural shifts.
Contrary to expectations, they found “no significant relationship between income growth and stress or sentiment in lyrics” when controlling for long-term trends.
The findings indicate that while music generally reflects a growing societal malaise — mirroring rising rates of depression and anxiety in the US — it serves a dual function.
“These results support the notion that music plays a dual role in collective mood management, functioning as mood management and regulation, depending on the context and intensity of societal emotions,” the study concludes.
