Trends in Positive, Negative, and Neutral Themes of Popular Music From 1998 to 2018: Observational Study (Preprint)

Abstract

BACKGROUND The United States have seen an increase in depressive-anxious symptoms and suicidality in the past couple years within the adolescent population. The effects of pop culture, including music, is a factor that is worth exploring to better understand the context in which adolescents view themselves and society. OBJECTIVE This study analyzes the lyrics and music videos of the most popular music of multiple genres to better understand music theme trends. METHODS The frequencies of themes of 1052 total American and Latin songs were collected from the Nielsen Music and Billboard’s top 100 chart performance from 1998-2018 for Hip-Hop/R&B, Pop, Latin, Country, and Rock/Metal genres. Themes from songs were identified, quantified, and categorized using a rubric into negative, neutral, and positive by three different reviewers. Analysis was performed using two-tailed t-tests and a generalized linear model. RESULTS Popular songs were reviewed for positive, negative and neutral themes in three-year intervals for ease of analysis purposes: 1998-2000 (n=148), 2001-2003 (n=150), 2004-2006 (n=148), 2007-2009 (n=156), 2010-2012 (n= 150), 2013-2015 (n=150), and 2016-2018 (n=150). There was a significant increase between all the interval years in the percent of songs with negative themes by 180% across all genres (P=0.01), while there was no significance in the difference of frequency of songs with positive or neutral themes by year respectively (P=0.01). There were significant differences in the number of negative themes found across genres (P=0.01), with Hip-Hop/R&B having the highest frequency (62.5%) of negative themes when compared to each of the individual genres (P=0.01). CONCLUSIONS This study shows there is an increase in the frequency of negative themes over the span of 20 years across all genres, with Hip-Hop/R&B having the highest frequency compared to other genres. These findings point to the potential impact of music in popular culture on society and can help shape discussions between caregivers and their adolescents as well as the primary care provider and the adolescent patient.