Soundcheck

i'm confused though, are these unique words? because there's a lot of repetition in pop songs.

do we count every 'kiss'?

do you think it has something to do with the more lyrics a song has, the more unique it is and the less likely you are to be plagiarizing?

Yea !

I long for the good old days when very very few words meant SO MUCH !

Like the old standard - BIRD IS THE WORD

4 Words but a world of meaning!

Yes, the man spent time counting words in songs. Stop making it seem like this was ridiculous. the man is a researcher and research is pain-staking. Stop this trend where intelligent people are made to feel as though they should apologize for doing enormous amounts of work, or work that is very detailed.

the examples given are all hip-hop/rap based. of course the lyric count is higher than instrumental psych. rock from the sixties.

i don't think the amount of words has a real effect on the music. some of my favorite bands like the strokes or walkmen have short songs and fewer words than most bands putting music out today. the songs that do have tons of words almost seem like they don't even care what they're saying they're just looking to fill space

It's a little disingenuous to compare counting the number of words to one of today's popular songs to the lyrics in a Simon and Garfunkel song or a James Taylor ballad. For the sake of rhyme, today's songs often introduce meaningless or unnecessary words just to accommodate the word that rhymes. Also, the repetition of the same phrase over and over is hardly a good use of words. Unlike an opera aria where a word or phrase may be repeated for multiple measures to allow the vocal coloratura of the singer, the words in today's songs are often repeated over and over to the same one or two notes and the same drone rhythm.

i agree with Al Fair, the refrains, bridges, and chorus are repeated ad nauseum, and these repetiions are exhausting to hear. just to get the 5:30 minute track.

Let's get back to the 2:30 track ; if it can't be said in 2:30 then it is really a waste of time.

this kiss song is sampling -reverbing itself ... how would this be performed live ??

In the 50' and 60's, the pop hits were approximately 2 minutes to 2 minutes and 30 seconds. This was basically arequirement of AM radio. With the advent of FM songs got longer. My guess is that today's top 10 hits are much longer than 2 and minutes....which would partially account for the ability to have/need for more words.

Isn't this a kind of spin on the criticism launched against Mozart? Too many 'notes'?

Granted this historical reference is based on the play Amadeus, not scholarly research, but why not have lots of words?

Some musicians create a 'wall of sound'... certainly the effect of a 'wall of words' has its place too.

Perhaps this has already been addressed, but I think that the rise of rap and hip hop has had a lot of influence on pop styles, including the number of words-and the quality of storytelling--in the lyrics. When the biggest musical revolution of the past 25 years is one that utilizes individual words (and even syllables) to create a new sound, of course traditional pop and rock would scramble to catch up.

Man, the Ventures are so awesome.