This study examines diachronic trends in stress-related language, sentiment, and lyrical complexity in popular music’s lyrics from 1973 to 2023, exploring how major societal shocks influenced people’s music preferences and offering insights into collective mood management through music. Over 20,000 lyrics of songs in the US Top 100 charts during this period were analyzed using Natural Language Processing techniques, with stress-related language assessed using a dictionary-based approach (LIWC), sentiment estimated via a rule-based sentiment analysis tool (VADER), and complexity via the LZ77 compression algorithm. Our analysis reveals a significant increase in stress-related language, alongside declines in positive sentiment and lyrical complexity over five decades. Surprisingly, societal shocks like COVID-19 coincided with attenuations rather than amplifications of these trends, indicating a preference for emotion-incongruent music, which may serve as a form of emotion regulation, such as escapism. When controlling for long-term trends, we found no significant relationship between income growth and stress or sentiment in lyrics. In contrast, periods of high-stress language corresponded with increased lyrical complexity. 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.

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Social Darwinism is making a comeback in the US — this time wrapped in the language of freedom

YouTube video by The British Academy

Het rapport Passend bewijs voor preventie is voortgekomen uit de wens om te komen tot een investeringsmodel voor preventie. Heel welkom als een nieuw kabinet met preventie aan de slag gaat, waar vorige kabinetten vooral lucht hebben verplaatst.

Vorige week stuitte ik op een bericht over een medische reis naar Kenia die ik even twee keer moest lezen van verbazing. In de oproep stond: ‘Samen ga je bijdragen aan betere gezondheidszorg in Kenia. Een (recente) baan in de zorg is zeker geen vereiste’.

Physician and science communicator Kristen Panthagani talks about why public trust in vaccines has fallen since the COVID-19 pandemic.

The United States has a history of intervening in resource-rich nations behind noble-sounding pretexts.

Household air pollution rarely dominates headlines, yet it claims millions of lives each year

The country’s human papillomavirus vaccination program achieves no new cervical cancers reported in people younger than 25 years for 1 year.

Het IT-bedrijf achter DigiD komt mogelijk in Amerikaanse handen. Volgens staatssecretaris Eddie van Marum blijft DigiD desondanks ‘gewoon’ Nederlands en krijgen de Amerikanen geen toegang tot de perso...

Heniková, Ouřadová et al. conduct a cross-sectional study among Czech families with long-term vegan, vegetarian, and omnivorous families to compare clinical outcomes, nutritional status, and diet adeq...