A long time ago I read a book by Adam Corolla. One of his key factors in determining whether a song was good or not was how repetitive the lyrics were .

And now I see this article.
www.wmtv15news.com/2024/03/31/music-lyrics-have-become-more-repetitive-since-1980s-study-says/?fbclid=IwAR1HKFCl94IzZ44EEgnMZHQ0n2xskhWy6V86NEvnCF2B5BZ6FFxqZWDkBVg

Does it really matter? I'm not sure, I've used the argument to pick on the Beatles in the past. But that's just to rib people. But, I grew up in the techno 90s. And I still enjoy EDM . So one word is all that is needed to make a song, whether repeated or just with a beat drop.

I'm sure this is linked to the impact that streaming has had - we know that songs get to the hook a lot faster now because of the need to catch a listener's ear enough to get to the 30 second mark and have it count as a play. There's no option for a Billie Jean type build anymore.

Girls, we run this mutha (yeah)
Girls, we run this mutha (yeah)
Girls, we run this mutha (yeah)
Girls, we run this mutha, girls
Who run the world? Girls (girls)
Who run the world? Girls (girls)
Who run the world? Girls (girls)
Who run the world? Girls (girls)
Who run this mutha? Girls
Who run this mutha? Girls
Who run this mutha? Girls
Who run this mutha? Girls
Who run the world? Girls (girls)
Who run the world? Girls (girls)
Who run the world? Girls (girls)
Who run the world? Girls (girls)

Who run the world? Girls (girls)
Who run the world? Girls (girls)
Who run the world? Girls (girls)
Who run the world? Girls (girls)
Who run the world? Girls (girls)
Who run this mutha? Girls
Who run this mutha? Girls
Who run this mutha? Girls
Who run this mutha? Girls
Who run the world? Girls (girls)
Who run the world? Girls (girls)
Who run the world? Girls (girls)
Who run the world? Girls (girls)

Roll credits:

Afrojack – writing
Diplo – writing
Jordan "DJ Swivel" Young – recording
Serban Ghenea – mixing
John Hanes – mix engineering
Beyoncé Knowles – vocals, writing, production
The-Dream – writing, production
Vybz Kartel – writing
Phil Seaford – mixing assistance
Switch – writing, production
Shea Taylor – co-production
Pat Thrall – recording
Pete Wolford – mix engineering assistance

Around the world - daft punk

We have a band in Australia that made a career out of repetitive lyrics and no chord changes.
The band: The Angels:

Repetition is something I've observed in Rage Against The Machine. They repetitively use repetition as a songwriting device. Just pick any RATM song and there'll be several phrases repeated ad nauseam, one or two riffs in the entire song. It's not a criticism either - in my view they are very good at making that repetition sound important and stick in the listener's ear without getting boring.

Like anything else in art, repetition is a device that can be used to great effect or not, depending on the skill of the creator.

I always loved Oasis's Live Forever as it was the same verse three times. Always thought it was hilarious that they could not write two more and just repeated the one over and over again.

I also always found it funny that death metal had some of the most complex lyrics with pages of non-repetitive stuff, that no one can understand when actually sung. The Cradle of Filth was hilarious for this in their early stuff.

Also MC Lars spoofs on this in Crunk so hard.