Who Are the Happiest, Saddest & Angriest Music Artists of All Time?

%=======D ņ Who are the... OANGRIEST, OHAPPIEST & SADDEST Musical Artists OF ALL TIME? Like all art, music is highly emotional and subjective. Often, the music we listen to matches our mood. Recent break up? Put something sad (or angry) on. But when the sun is shining you want a tune to accompany the good times. With this in mind, we ran song titles and lyrics of some of the world's most popular musical artists through IBM Watson's Tone Analyser to determine their overall mood. Just how happy were The Beatles (Yoko, anyone?), can Coldplay shake their slightly dull reputation and is Kanye as confident as he likes to make out? IBM TONE ANALYSER Musical Artist's Mood (Based on Analysis of Song Titles in Entire Discography) Artist % Anger % Disgust % Fear % Joy %Sadness KANYE THE BEATLES ROLLING STONES BEYONCE TAYLOR SWIFT ELVIS RIHANNA I DAVID BOWIE ADELE ARIANA GRANDE COLDPLAY | U2 PINK FLOYD RATM METALLICA IRON MAIDEN THE WHO NIRVANA FRANK SINATRA BOB DYLAN HAPPINESS IS A WARM GUN Without a doubt, The Beatles spread much happiness in the 1960's with their songs of love and joy, but even their career wasn't 100% happy: KEY: Joy Milestones 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 +2 Beatles tour America +1 John meets Yoko Brian Epstein Dies Now we're not suggesting any of these milestones directly resulted in the peaks and troughs here, BUT it's well documented how these events affected The Beatles' mood and their relationships with one another. Overall Career Mood? JOY (Based on Analysis of Song Titles in Entire Discography) Anger HAPPIEST SONG: Lovely Rita 1967, Sgt. Pepper McCartney Sadness Disgust SADDEST SONG: While My Guitar Gently Weeps 1968, White Album Harrison Joy! Fear LET'S COMPARE... So whilst The Beatles discography (based on song title) was overwhelmingly positive, what do the song titles of their peers The Rolling Stones or modern artists, like Kanye West, reveal about their mood? % Mood Detected (Based on Analysis of Song Titles in Entire Discography) Anger Anger Sadness Disgust Sadness Disgust Joy Fear Joy Fear THE ROLLING STONES U2 ANGER PASSIONATE Perhaps unsurprising given Bono's humanitarian work the titles of some of their for UNICEF, Band Aid and tracks "Street Fighting other good causes clearly Man" or the classic “I Can't shines through from their Get No Satisfaction". discography. Anger Anger Sadness Disqust Sadness Disgust Joy Fear Joy Fear DAVID BOWIE COLDPLAY CONCERNED FEAR Never afraid to stretch the Coldplay scored surprisingly boundaries of his talent, high in 'Fear' – perhaps Bowie's songs were largely down to Chris commonly strewn with Martin's self-confessed images of future dystopia. worrisome emotional state. Anger Anger Sadness Disgust Sadness Disgust Joy Fear Joy Fear KANYE KIM KARDASHIAN'S TWEETS? perhaps... FEAR ANGER + JOY? So what could the And who wouldn't be scared ego-crazed Kanye West of their partner tweeting possibly be scared of? Well... details of your personal life on average 11 times a day? COMMON GROUND So whilst we found massive emotional variance between acts, there are a few things many acts have in common. One, perhaps unsurprisingly for people that earn a living by performing, is extraversion (in this case, the desire for attention). How Extraverted Are Musical Artists? (Based on Analysis of Song Titles in Entire Discography) The Fear Fear was the most common emotion or mood detected in song titles, with around 48% of the artists tested scoring over 50% in the fear category. (Based on % Fear detected in Song Titles from Entire Discography) Very Afraid Fairly Afraid Barely Afraid 20% 48% 32% ANALYSING THE HITS (Based on Analysis of Song Lyrics) Who hasn't shed a tear at Sinead O'Connor's “Nothing Compares 2 U"? Or shredded the air guitar in euphoria at Queen's “Don't Stop Me Now"? Using poll data from various sources, we analysed the songs that were voted highest for kindling a certain emotional response. HAPPINESS SADNESS Queen "Don't Stop Me Now" Johnny Cash / NIN "Hurt" 49% НАРPY 23% SAD Abba "Dancing Queen" Sinead O'Connor "Nothing Compares 2 U" 76% НАРPY 64% SAD The Beach Boys "Good Vibrations" Roy Orbison "Crying" 98% HAPPY 94% SAD ANGER CONFIDENCE wha?! Green Day "Basket Case" Kanye "I Love Kanye" 89% ANGRY 0% CONFIDENT RATM "Killing In The Name Of" Survivor "Eye of the Tiger" 97% ANGRY 57% CONFIDENT Eminem "Kim" Christina Aguilera "Beautiful" 100% ANGRY 92% CONFIDENT THE BEST SONG EVER In both 2004 & 2010, the Bob Dylan song "Like a Rolling Stone" was voted the best song of all time by Rolling Stone magazine. Let's analyse it! Bob Dylan "Like a Rolling Stone" (Changing emotion during song) - % Disgust - % Anger - % Sadness 0:00 1:00 2:00 3:00 4:00 5:00 6:00 Anger Sadness Disgust Overall Career Mood? CONCERNED Joy Fear CONCLUSIONS Whilst humans can detect the general mood of a song simply by its rhythm or the choice of chords we also understand the subtlety and beauty of lyrics, of hidden meanings and irony, something one would expect a computer to struggle with. But, on the whole, the IBM Watson Tone Analyser did suprisingly well in most cases and without the bias of having a favourite band or genre. Whilst confirming our beliefs about a number of artists, it has also potentially exposed lesser-known passions and fragilities. #SORRYKANYE Sources: brought to you by eng.wikipedia.org I play.google.com tone-analyzer-demo.mybluemix.net ibm.com | rollingstone.com upvenue.com | nme.com thrillest | billboard.com applerecords.com Superfi www.superfi.co.uk Frank Sinatra Nirvana The Who Iron Maiden Metallica RATM Pink Floyd U2 Coldplay Ariana Grande Adele David Bowie Rihanna EXTRAVERSION