Why we need more 80s and 90s music in our lives – politicalbetting.com

Music both reflects and shapes our culture. When I turned 18 in 2011, it felt like most pop music was about partying and drinking. The frequency of words like “club”, “bottle”, “vip” peaked in this year – then fell dramatically in the late 2010s…2/6

— Tom Calver (@tomcalver.bsky.social) 2025-12-28T11:55:07.838Z

But as well as social norms, the lyrics also reflect deeper societal moods. Back in the 1980s, sentiment analysis shows, pop songs were often about positivity and anticipation. Since then, they have taken a turn towards anger, sadness and even disgust3/6

— Tom Calver (@tomcalver.bsky.social) 2025-12-28T11:55:07.839Z

Affection and desire have, and always will, dominate music.But while songs in the 80s and 90s typically spoke to the devotional side of love – “forever”, “soul”, “always” – modern songs are more likely to reference the physical: “taste”, “body” and “sex”.4/6

— Tom Calver (@tomcalver.bsky.social) 2025-12-28T11:55:07.840Z

Most telling of all, I think, is that music is becoming considerably more self-obsessed. It was common for popular songs of the past to contain lots of collective words “we”, “us”, “together”. Today’s songs, however, are narcissistic, dominated by “me”, “myself” and “I”5/6

— Tom Calver (@tomcalver.bsky.social) 2025-12-28T11:55:07.841Z