Relating Musical Genre and Lyrical Repetition

Abstract

In the literature on music and repetition, it has been found that both repetition and genre influence liking for music. Naturally, this leads to the question of whether repetition and genre influence each other. The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that there is an association between songs’ musical genre and their amount of lyrical repetition. Using the percent compressibility of lyrics as a measure of repetitiveness, the average repetitiveness of ten songs for each of ten genres was compared across genres. Based on these measures of average repetitiveness, it was possible to separate the genres into categories that were statistically significantly different: R&B, pop, EDM, and hip-hop were most repetitive; Latin and country were moderately repetitive; and metal, rock, folk, and blues were least repetitive. This confirmed the hypothesis that there is an association between musical genre and lyrical repetition and establishes repetitiveness as a new criterion by which musical genres can be classified.