Comparison of popular music in the United States and the United Kingdom: Computerized analysis of 42,714 pieces

Abstract

The present research employed computerized analyses of all those pieces to have achieved any degree of commercial success in either the United States (US) or the United Kingdom (UK) in terms of energy, beats per minute, and several emotion scores. Analyses showed differences between these two commercially complete musical cultures in all variables except one of the emotion scores; that the relationship between popularity and each of the remaining variables was similar across the two countries; but that there were differences in the representation of genres. These findings indicate that it is possible to identify quantitative differences between musical cultures, and may have implications for ethnomusicology and the nascent digital music streaming industry.