Repetition and Popularity in Early Modern Songs

TY - CHAP

T1 - Repetition and Popularity in Early Modern Songs

AU - Lassche, Alie

AU - Karsdorp, F.B.

AU - Stronks, Els

PY - 2019

Y1 - 2019

N2 - This study explores the relation between repetition and popularity in Dutch historical songs. Previous studies on song lyrics have shown that contemporary songs stand a greater chance of reaching #1 of the Billboard’s hit chart when their lyrics are more repetitive (Nunes, Ordanini, and Valsesia 2015; Alexander 1996; Ellis et al. 2015; Bradlow and Fader 2001). This preference for repetitive structures is a well-known cognitive bias (see e.g. Rubin 1995), yet little is known about whether similar preferences were at play in historical popular song lyrics. The current study aims to address this question by quantitatively modelling the relationship between popularity and various forms of repetition in the lyrics of a large-scale collection of historical songs and, subsequently, relating our findings to observations in the modern era. While we acknowledge the effect of musical repetition on a song’s popularity and the way this can affect our results, we focus in this study on textual repetition.

AB - This study explores the relation between repetition and popularity in Dutch historical songs. Previous studies on song lyrics have shown that contemporary songs stand a greater chance of reaching #1 of the Billboard’s hit chart when their lyrics are more repetitive (Nunes, Ordanini, and Valsesia 2015; Alexander 1996; Ellis et al. 2015; Bradlow and Fader 2001). This preference for repetitive structures is a well-known cognitive bias (see e.g. Rubin 1995), yet little is known about whether similar preferences were at play in historical popular song lyrics. The current study aims to address this question by quantitatively modelling the relationship between popularity and various forms of repetition in the lyrics of a large-scale collection of historical songs and, subsequently, relating our findings to observations in the modern era. While we acknowledge the effect of musical repetition on a song’s popularity and the way this can affect our results, we focus in this study on textual repetition.

M3 - Contribution to conference proceedings

BT - DH 2019: Proceedings of the 2019 Digital Humanities Conference

ER -