SCROLL, LISTEN, REPEAT...

Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition

The quality of songs and song lyrics was the baseline to ‘Scroll, Listen, Repeat’ at this year’s exhibition.

Isla Sheridan and Emily O’Sullivan from St Bricin’s College, Belturbet, were behind the study.

“It’s about how music has gotten more repetitive, less meaningful, more explicit. Quality has gone downhill in general since the ‘80s until now, especially with social media on the rise, with songs becoming trendier and more repetitive,” Isla explained.

Exhibiting in the Social and Behavioural category, the junior group found that ‘80s songs had a richness of vocabulary lacking in today’s lyrics.

Isla observed that ‘80s music was happier and more upbeat, in comparison to 2020s’ music, which was found to be more emotional, sadder and vulgar.

She stated that there was more of a focus on real talent in the ‘80s adding that autotune was not required: “You’ll never get a voice like George Michael now. It’s all auto-tuned, fake and robotic.”

The project was inspired by an interest in music and the desire to find out whether music had gone downhill with social media and the TikTok genre.

Isla paid tribute to her teacher Daryl Dunne and thanked the University of Limerick for helping with data analytics.