Now that’s what I call evolutionary! To celebrate The BRITs, new Mastercard research reveals how music has evolved over the last 40 years from ways we consume it, to key components that helped artists win prestigious awards.
Music’s Evolution Over 40 Years
Mastercard, proud partner of the BRITs for over two decades and sponsor of the highly coveted category 鈥楽ong of the Year鈥� (SOTY), collaborated with Musicologist and Berklee College of Music Professor, Dr. Joe Bennett to develop a piece of research that analyses how music has evolved over 40 years, both in the way it has been created and consumed.
What Makes a ‘Song of the Year’?
Whilst there is no guaranteed blueprint for success, through analysis of over 300 songs from the past 40 years of The BRIT Awards鈥� nominees and winners of 鈥楽ong of the Year鈥�, the findings revealed key characteristics of the nation鈥檚 favourite hit tracks and how they鈥檝e evolved.
- Social media influence –聽In the 2000鈥檚 platforms like聽MySpace launched the careers of popular artists like聽Lily Allen,聽Panic! At The Disco,聽and聽You Me At Six. Today, platforms including TikTok, are a major creative influence on new music
- Short song length – In the 80鈥檚 the average song length was 4.30, today this has shortened to 3.07
- Shorter song title聽– Over 50% of the SOTY nominees had one-word titles in 2021, almost double when compared to the 80鈥檚 and 90鈥檚 (27%)
- Start the song with the chorus –聽the first winners of聽SOTY started with verses, winners now typically start with choruses for quicker snappier intros
- Multiple songwriters create the track –聽Single writer songs were common in the early 1980s but modern tracks average five songwriters
- Heartbreak songs –聽From the 329 songs analysed 60% of the lyrics were about romantic love
How Music Has Changed Since 1982
Dr. Joe Bennett, Professor of Modern music at Berklee College of Music said: 鈥淭he BRIT Awards Song of The Year dataset has provided us with wonderful insights into trends in British musical preferences across a 40-year period, since the first Song of The Year award in 1982. We have uncovered noticeable characteristics of songs: track duration, title length, according to new technologies, listener preferences, and cultural trends. There is no perfect way to write a song, 鈥嬧�媡hough listening to the whole 21-hour playlist it revealed the enormous diversity of artistic approaches and musical styles prevalent in British music between the 1980s and today.鈥�
Agnes Woolrich, Vice President Marketing & Communications, UK&I聽said: 鈥淢usic is ever changing, so we were聽interested to explore how innovation and聽our changing lifestyles, especially our use of social media,聽has influenced the creation of music, as well as the different ways in which people enjoy it. These fascinating insights will help us find new ways to connect millions of Mastercard cardholders with their passion for music.
