(Picture: Patrick Kovarik/ AFP / Getty Images)

Turns out our favourite kind of music is getting stupid. Shocker.

A study into how intellectual popular music is has shown that the lyrics are pretty naff these days, in fact they’re more suitable for primary school children, if you take out the expletives and sexual references.

Andrew Powell-Morse conducted the study, analysing 225 songs in four different datasets and he chose the songs based on if they’d held on to the top of the Billboard chart for a few weeks.

The study looked at the complexity of the lyrics, such as word length and readability – as in if a song can be understood by a year one pupil, then it’s pretty stupid.




And it turns out quite a few are.

(Picture: Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images for Variety)

He does point out though that certain things aren’t considered, like meanings and metaphors etc. Basically he’s done the study just for lols, he says.

His study shows that since 2005 there’s been a pretty steep decline in the sophistication of lyrics.

The results were a bit surprising.

The ‘dumbest’ hip hop lyrics award goes to…Beyonce apparently. She scored the lowest word count for her songs and the least sophistication, and that her lyrics could be understood by a year two student. Chris Brown and Kanye West weren’t far behind.

(Picture: Andrew Powell-Morse/ Seatsmart.com)

Taylor Swift scored pretty low for country music.

And for pop, the worst offender for stupid lyrics was Kesha, scoring an average readability age of a year one pupil. Lady Gaga and Katy Perry aren’t far off, and surprisingly Mariah Carey actually comes out on top as the most complex.

(Picture: Andrew Powell-Morse/ Seatsmart.com)

Turns out the songs have been getting simpler and simpler over the last 10 years.

(Picture: Andrew Powell-Morse/ Seatsmart.com)

But before you start panicking that because of your love of queen Bey you must be as dumb as a rock, Andrew makes a good final point: ‘More than anything, these findings are a reminder of just how fun dumb can be.

‘In the end, there’s nothing wrong with that.’

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