Pop music is the recorder of our times, the very DNA of our culture, faithfully documenting our love and loss, our revelry and unease, our hopes and confusion. From the decadent glamour of the disco era to the rebellious cries of rock and roll, to the street declarations of hip-hop and the personal confessions of today’s internet age, every hit single is a unique time capsule. But what if we could open all the time capsules from the past 50 years at once? What would we discover by using algorithms to “read” these tens of thousands of lyrics? Just what kind of social history, a pulse spanning half a century, lies hidden beneath them?
To be continued…