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'Study Suggests Lyrics Have Gotten Simpler Over Time. According to a recent study, the lyrics of modern-day music have become more repetitive over the course of the last 40 years. 'Newsweek' reports that the study found English-language songs have become not only more repetitive but also simpler over time. "Music is ubiquitous in our everyday lives, and lyrics play an integral role when we listen to music." Researchers looked at lyrics of over 12,000 English- language songs across a number of genres, including rap, country, rock and pop, released between 1980 and 2020. "The complex relationships between lyrical content, its temporal evolution over the last decades, and genre-specific variations, however, are yet to be fully understood." The findings suggest that lyrics became easier to understand and the number of different words used in the songs also decreased. "In this work, we investigate the dynamics of English lyrics of Western, popular music over five decades and five genres, using a wide set of lyrics descriptors, including lyrical complexity, structure, emotion, and popularity." According to the authors, the findings suggest how music is largely being used as background noise in the modern day. The study also found that the meaning expressed in lyrics has also changed in the past four decades. "We confirm previous analyses showing that the emotion described by lyrics has become more negative and that lyrics have become more personal over the last five decades", Study authors, via 'Newsweek'. The team's findings were published in the journal 'Scientific Reports. THIS VIDEO MUST NOT BE EDITED FOR LENGTH TO COMBINE WITH OTHER CONTENT