The majority of research on music aesthetics treats music and lyrics as discrete entities, despite the artistic imperative that they should relate to one another in some way. This research computer analyzed both the music and lyrics of the songs to have reached the weekly UK top five singles chart from January 1999 to December 2013 ( N = 1,414). The findings indicate that the typicality of a given set of lyrics relative to the corpus as a whole was associated with their popularity; that there were numerous associations between each of six mood scores assigned to the music and various aspects of the lyrics (e.g., passionate music was associated with lyrics addressing hardship and less concern with precise numerical terms); and that the relative contribution of the lyrics and music to overall popularity varied according to the means by which these were operationalized so that, for instance, music and lyrics contributed equally to explaining peak chart position, whereas music outperformed lyrics in explaining the number of weeks spent on the top five. Pop music and its lyrics are related to one another, and the relationship can be explained to some extent via existing concepts in the aesthetics literature.

The majority of research on music aesthetics treats music and lyrics as discrete entities, despite the artistic imperative that they should relate to one another in some way. The present research computer-analyzed both the music and lyrics of the songs to have reached the weekly United Kingdom top 5 singles chart from January 1999-December 2013 ( N = 1,414). The findings indicate that the typicality of a given set of lyrics relative to the corpus as a whole was associated with their popularity; that there were numerous associations between each of six mood scores assigned to the music and various aspects of the lyrics (e.g., passionate music was associated with lyrics addressing hardship and less concern with precise numerical terms); and that the relative contribution of the lyrics and music to overall popularity varied according to the means by which these were operationalized so that, for instance, music and lyrics contributed equally to explaining peak chart position, whereas music outperformed lyrics in explaining the number of weeks spent on the top 5. Pop music and its lyrics are related to one another, and the relationship can be explained to some extent via existing concepts in the aesthetics literature.

The present research employed computerized analyses of all those pieces to have achieved any degree of commercial success in either the United States (US) or the United Kingdom (UK) in terms of energy, beats per minute, and several emotion scores. Analyses showed differences between these two commercially complete musical cultures in all variables except one of the emotion scores; that the relationship between popularity and each of the remaining variables was similar across the two countries; but that there were differences in the representation of genres. These findings indicate that it is possible to identify quantitative differences between musical cultures, and may have implications for ethnomusicology and the nascent digital music streaming industry.

Several previous studies support the claim that liking for music can be predicted by its arousal-evoking qualities and typicality; and that emotional responses to music can be captured by two dimensions, namely sleepy-arousing and unpleasant-pleasant. The present research tests these ideas via all 204,506 pieces of music to have featured on sales and/or radio airplay charts in the United States, representing the entire commercial musical culture. Energy scores were related to popularity, although not always in the predicted direction. Atypical songs enjoyed more commercial success. Energy and beats per minute data were associated with seven mood scores for each piece, such that higher values were associated with the expression of moods towards the arousing pole of the sleepy-arousal dimension. Popularity was also associated with mood scores, demonstrating those moods associated most clearly with commercial success; and mood scores differed between genres, with implications for music therapy, research on music and mental health, and the uses of music in commerce.

The circumplex model of affect claims that emotions can be understood in terms of their relative positions along two dimensions, namely pleasant-unpleasant and active-sleepy; and numerous studies of small samples of music have yielded data consistent with this. The present research tests whether the energy and beats per minute (proxies for the arousal dimension) and popularity as expressed in terms of sale charts (a possible proxy for the pleasantness dimension) could predict scores on six moods in 143,353 musical pieces. Findings concerning energy were clearly consistent with the circumplex model; findings for beats per minute were consistent though more equivocal; and findings concerning popularity yielded only limited support. Numerous relationships between popularity and mood were indicative of the commercial market for specific genres; and evidence demonstrated considerable differences in the mood scores between genres. In addition to the circumplex model and aesthetic responses, the findings have implications for music marketing, therapy, and everyday listening.

Research on musical preference has been dominated by two approaches emphasizing, respectively, the arousal-evoking qualities of a piece or its typicality of the individual’s overall musical experience. There is a dearth of evidence concerning whether either can explain preference in conditions of high ecological validity. To address this, the present research investigated the association between sales of 143,353 pieces of music, representing all the music that has enjoyed any degree of commercial success in the United Kingdom, and measures of both the energy of each piece (as a proxy for arousal) and the extent to which each piece was typical of the corpus. The relationship concerning popularity and energy was U-shaped, which can be reconciled with earlier findings, and there was a positive relationship between the typicality of the pieces and the amount of time they featured on sales charts. The population-level popularity of an entire corpus of music across several decades can be predicted by existing aesthetic theories, albeit with modifications to account for market conditions.