Are songs getting angrier? The modern truth, according to science
It’s true, there’s a lot in the world to be angry about. Wars, famines, injustices… the list could go on and on. Often we think we use music to escape that, but is it just becoming more of a vehicle for our discontent?
You’d be mistaken for thinking that music nowadays is either a pop juggernaut or a serene soundscape as a way of avoiding the stark realities of the world. It’s like ‘A sugar rush, anyone? Or would you prefer a light sedative?’. Either way, you might not imagine that songs are becoming darker in order to match the societal mood – but it might just be the case that we’re getting more and more numb to its effects.
The science of the matter is simple. Songs are indeed getting angrier progressively as time goes on, but it’s perhaps happened in such an incremental way that none of us have really witnessed the change all that much. Of course, if anyone were to think of the classic example of an angry song, the 1970s would be the first place to look. The advent of heavy metal had a lot to answer for: it was goodbye to the shiny sonics of the 1960s, and hello to a much darker and more devilish era.
Bands like Black Sabbath – and later AC/DC – were at the forefront of what could be considered the ultimate angry tunes. But although the thrashing speed of rock and roll probably has the most common associations with seeing the red mist, this hasn’t always necessarily transpired, as both music and society have travelled further down the line. Instead, although music is seemingly becoming angrier, it’s doing so in a very different medium.
According to a scientific study from a university in Austria, as reported to the AFP, the lyrical content of music over the past half a century has become a lot more self-centred – such as in the increased use of personal pronouns – but with this, it has also harboured a rise in much more negative emotions being vented, namely anger. You could be cynical about this, of course; it just reflects how the world really is reaching oblivion. But the reality is far more complex than that.
Rap music has experienced the greatest exponential rise in angry feelings over the course of its tenure, although it has been a phenomenon witnessed, at least in some capacity, across all genres. Maybe this isn’t so surprising – by its very nature, rap can often lament the injustices and traumatic trials that the artists have faced in their own lives. That ties into the increasingly personal element of music, too. Possibly the rest of music is just taking a leaf out of the rap book.
If we step back from the brink a little, instead of blaming the rest of the world as the cause of all our problems, maybe it’s time that we start pointing the finger at ourselves. Is it possible that if we become less selfish, then we may also become less angry?
At the moment, you can only theorise if this is the case, but as things stand, that musical boiling pot of ours is only going to keep simmering until it explodes.
