🤖 AI Summary
This study investigates whether semantic diversity in Italian popular music lyrics has declined over time, thereby testing the universality of global semantic convergence beyond English-language contexts. Drawing on 75 years of finalist songs from the Sanremo Music Festival, the authors develop a multi-granular analytical framework that integrates word embeddings and large language models to trace diachronic semantic shifts at the levels of full texts, lyrical segments, thematic content, and individual vocabulary. The research presents the first systematic evidence of progressive semantic convergence in Italian pop lyrics, revealing patterns closely aligned with those observed in English-language songs. These findings not only validate the efficacy of natural language processing techniques for studying long-term cultural expression but also introduce a transferable paradigm for analyzing semantic evolution across linguistic and cultural domains.
📝 Abstract
In recent years, studies have revealed a decline in semantic variety across popular music lyrics, particularly in English-language songs on streaming platforms like Spotify. This research examines whether a similar trend can be observed in a different linguistic and cultural context: the lyrics of all finalist songs from the 75 editions of the Sanremo Music Festival, Italy's most renowned music competition. What sets this work apart is the development of a flexible and efficient methodology for tracking changes in semantic similarity over time, which can be applied to different datasets to study similar phenomena. Drawing on a combination of full-text, segment-based, topic-based, and word-level analyses, the approach leverages both embedding techniques and large language models. When applied to the Sanremo corpus, this framework reveals a gradual move toward increasing semantic uniformity, echoing the global patterns identified in previous studies. These findings underscore the value of natural language processing tools in uncovering long-term shifts in musical language and cultural expression.