https://pudding.cool/2017/05/song-repetition/
This post goes over the topic “Are Pop Lyrics Getting More Repetetive?”. It uses the Lempel-Ziv algorithm which uses compression (reducing the size of a song based on repetive lyrics) to measure repetetion of pop lyrics.
The website shows the steps to the algorithm in a somewhat-interactive way with clear and specific steps aided by visualizations of the algorithm actually compressing lyrics, which is really cool.
The post stated that 2014 was the most repetitive year ever and that songs that reached the top 10 where on average more repetitive than the rest in every year from 1960 to 2015.
I really liked the visualizations for this post, probably the most well presented data I’ve seen. I liked how the author(s) visualized the algorithm at work. I especially admired the last chart in which you could pick an artist and show how repetitive his/her songs are.
One criticism i had was that when the article was going over the algorithm and it going through a specific song, he/she stated that “The ills in “thrills” is our first non-trivial repetition”. Therefore the two words were reduced. It seems that the algorithm is punishing songs for rhyming, although rhyming is essential to song writing.
It would also be useful to know the source of the song lyrics and how they were aquired.