Lewis Capaldi's hit song Before You Go has been named the most iconic song of the decade, according to new research. Before You Go was a single from the extended edition the Bathgate0-born musician's debut studio album, Divinely Uninspired to a Hellish Extent, and peaked at number one on the UK charts.
The deeply personal ballad was inspired by the suicide of someone close to him, and whether he could have done something to prevent it. When Capaldi was a child, his family were given the shattering news that his mother's sister had killed herself.
The singer explained to Zane Lowe on Beats 1: "When I was five or six, my aunt committed suicide and I just remember recently speaking to my mom about her feelings. About going through that sort of rigmarole in your head of like, you know, "What could I have done here? Could I have done anything?"
The research conducted by Liberty Games has created an algorithm to reveal the most iconic songs of each decade. It has analysed the top 100 songs from each decade, starting with the 1960s up to the 2020s so far. It only stayed in the top spot for one week, before being pushed down to number three with the release of “Blinding Lights” by The Weeknd and “The Box” by Roddy Rich. However, it has had a staggering 1.1 billion streams on Spotify.
The research also shows that 85% of songs that are the most popular are sung by male artists, with just 5% created by female artists and a further 5% from mixed groups. This is representative of the number of male to female artists there are worldwide, with a study revealing the split in the music industry - 84% of artists are male with just 16% female artists.
The most iconic song of each decade
Commenting on the research, Stuart Kerr, Technical Director at Liberty Games: “It’s really exciting for Liberty Games to be able to reveal the most iconic songs from each decade - ‘Before You Go’ by Lewis Capaldi has been named the most iconic song of the decade so far. We’ll be really interested to see what new songs are released over the next eight years to see if he can keep this title.
“We hope that listening to these songs will bring back memories of those decades passed, and reignite a love for music that we may have lost throughout the tough years we’ve experienced as a nation.”
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