Pop Music Lyrics Have Become Morally Darker Since The 1960s, Reflecting The Cultural Landscape

Music provides various services that go beyond simply being something we like to listen to. We’ve probably all got a go-to song or playlist we use to help regulate our emotions or shift a behavior. For instance, a good playlist can make the difference between wanting to do another set at the gym or calling it quits right there. Equally, a song that conveys a positive message can inspire us to take action, while negative or aggressive lyrics can do the opposite. In the past, some music has even been used to foster social change and mobilize collective action.

These and other influences have not gone unnoticed by scientists. Over the years, researchers have analyzed changing trends in popular music as well as listener behaviors to see how they influence one another. For instance, a study published in 2025 showed that modern pop music has become less complex as time has gone by. Although they are not sure why this is the case, they suggest it may relate to advances in technology that allow more people to compose music more quickly.

Music may also impact our levels of empathy while also revealing insights into our own morality. In 2023, researchers at Queen Mary University, London, found that a person’s music tastes can be a good indicator of the moral values we hold, finding that both lyrical and audio features can predict a person’s moral compass. For instance, pitch and timbre were crucial predictors for values of care and fairness, whereas lyrics could predict loyalty, authority and purity based on their sentimental and emotional content.

Now some of the same researchers, as well as others, have turned their attention to how the morality of popular music has shifted across time.

They analyzed over 380,000 songs released between 1960 and 2023 to reveal a significant shift in the emotional and moral language used in popular music. Moral virtues associated with care and decency have, they found, become less common over the years, while language linked to harm, cheating, subversion, and degradation has increased.

“Music is much more than entertainment. It is one of the ways societies tell stories about themselves. By analyzing song lyrics across several decades, we can begin to see how emotional expression and moral narratives evolve over time,” Vjosa Preniqi, from Queen Mary University, explained in a statement.

“What we found was a gradual shift away from language associated with virtues such as care and decency, towards themes that reflect conflict, harm, and other moral concerns. These patterns are dependent on various factors, such as genre and shock-factor, but they provide a fascinating window into changing cultural values and emotional expression.”

This is the first study to chart moral content in song lyrics at this scale. It assessed over 377,000 English-lyrics songs from 1960 to 2010 by using the WASABI dataset – a large-scale music knowledge graph and collection of songs – and a targeted collection of Billboard Year-End charting songs that extended the coverage to 2023, adding 5,500 more songs. 

They then used artificial intelligence and language analysis techniques to track how certain moral themes appeared across time, revealing the decline in virtue lyrics and a rise in those associated with vice.

For instance, the WASABI dataset revealed that lyrics associated with degradation – feeling dirty, broken, rotten, corrupted, spiritually fallen and so on – rose by 52 percent, while harm – hurting others, being hurt, violence, suffering, revenge or destruction – rose 49.13 percent. Cheating – unfair treatment, highlighting hypocrisy, calling for equal treatment – rose by 47.99 percent, and Subversion – breaking rules, rejecting authority or leaders, revolt, chaos – rose by 40.91 percent.

This captures the shift from 1960 to 2010. Following this, the Billboard dataset showed similar changes up to 2023. Here Cheating rose by 70.92 percent, Degradation by 62.14 percent, Subversion by 50.57 percent, and harm by 36.34 percent.

In contrast, lyrics promoting virtues experienced a decline. In the WASABI dataset, Care – comforting others, saving someone, being there for people, reducing suffering – decreased by 24.38 percent, Purity – being pure, holy, redeemed, clean, innocent, spiritually transformed – dropped by 12.48 percent, and loyalty – being there for someone, belonging to groups, having hometown pride or a group identity – fell by 11.26 percent.

Similar occurred across the Billboard dataset, with Care falling by 30.4 percent and Purity by 21.45 percent.

It should be noted that vices like Betrayal showed only marginal changes across time, alongside virtues like Authority and Fairness actually increased moderately.

“Popular music provides a unique lens through which to explore cultural change. Because music is such a widespread and influential form of expression, analyzing lyrics at scale allows us to identify patterns that would otherwise remain invisible,” Dr Charalampos Saitis, Assistant Professor of digital music processing at Queen Mary University of London, and a co-investigator CDT in AI and Music added.

“Music both reflects and shapes the world around us. Understanding how moral narratives evolve in lyrics can help us better understand wider changes in culture, identity and collective values around important social issues.”

The team also found associations between attributed artist’s gender categories and their lyrical content. Women, they observed, are more likely to use lyrics associated with care and loyalty, while men and mixed-gendered groups showed a higher propensity for lyrics that reflected negative themes, like harm, subversion, and degradation. However, they stress that these results should be interpreted in light of the binary artist gender classification and the very substantive artist gender imbalance in the dataset.

Ultimately, the research shows that music can be a valuable record for how a society communicates its emotions, meaning, and values. This makes it an important source of information at a time when discussion around mental wellbeing, social cohesion, and cultural change continue to play out in the public sphere.

The paper is published in Scientific Reports.