David Henard’s 2014 Research about Lyrics Cited in German-language Article about Music Today
David Henard, professor of marketing in Poole College’s Department of Business Management, worked with the author of this German-language article on the state of music – and lyrics – in Germany. The writer cites Henard’s 2014 paper about lyrics in popular music.
“People like what they’re used to hearing. Therefore, there is a reinforcing effect there, “says Dahmen of the Popakademie Mannheim. “But we live in the time of the algorithms. It is always the question: what does the majority want to hear? That’s where clicks decide, but in a few places people are helped to discover things for themselves.
“According to research by David Henard, a professor of marketing at North Carolina State University, people have been discovering the same thing lyrically for decades. In his 2014 study , he and his colleagues analyzed all American chart toppers for the most common words since the 1950s. Not surprisingly: Love, Baby, Man and Girl are permanent guests in the top ten.
View the article here in German; click the pop-up translate tool in your browser to read in English.
