2019-01-26

Socionomics Confirmed by Study: Pop Music Turned Angry As Social Mood Turned Negative

Pop music was at its happiest in the 1950s and early 1980s, a confirmation of Socionomic theory that predicts happier, positive themes during positive mood and sad, angry and negative themes as mood turns. Using the stock market as a guide, from the late 1960s through early 1980s was a period of very negative mood. The bull market kicked off in the early 1980s and popular cultural was immediately flooded with happier tunes and heroes in the movies.

Daily Mail: Pop songs have become angrier AND sadder! Scientists analysed lyrics from 6,000 best-selling songs from the 1950s to 2016 to make the finding
Songs released during the mid 1950s were the least angry and the anger expressed in lyrics has increased gradually until peaking in 2015.

The analysis also revealed some variations with songs released between 1982 and 984 being less angry compared to any other period, except for the 1950s.

In the mid 1990s, songs became angrier and the increase in anger was sharper during that time in comparison to previous years.

The expression of sadness, disgust and fear also increased over time, although the increase was milder compared to the increase in the expression of anger.

Disgust increased gradually, but was lower in the early 1980s and higher in the mid and late 1990s.

Popular music lyrics expressed more fear during the mid 1980s and the fear decreased sharply in 1988.
Fall of communism?
Another sharp increase in fear was observed in 1998 and 1999, with a sharp decrease in 2000.
There was the Asian Crisis in 1997, a large market correction in 1998 and fear over Y2K, followed by the stock market peak in 2000.
The study also showed that joy was a dominant tone in popular music lyrics during the late 1950s, but it decreased over time and became much milder in the recent years.

An exception was observed in the mid 1970s, when joy expressed in lyrics increased sharply.
The stock market made its nominal low in 1974 and it would rally 78 percent into the 1976 high.

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