We’ve all heard the moans from parents and elderly relatives: music is getting worse, it’s dumbing down, becoming more stupid. Not like it was ‘in their day’. Oh no.
Not so, according to a new study issued by the US-based crossword solver website, Crossword Tips. Analysing the lyrics from over half a century of the Billboard charts, from 1970 to 2023, it has found that, on average, songs in the 2020s have 169 unique words per 1000. In the 1980s, that figure was only 136 unique words per 1000.
