A study analyzing 38,467 songs from 230 popular artists found that emotional content in lyrics has steadily declined. Researchers tracked words tied to sadness, joy, anger, anxiety, family, and friendship — spanning albums released between 1947 and 2024. Within individual careers, sadness words fell while anxiety-related words rose. Across generations, newer artists wrote with less sadness but more anger than earlier acts. Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, and Janis Joplin ranked among the saddest lyricists studied. Joy didn’t replace heartache — both faded equally. Family and friendship references also declined over time. Genre had little impact on the trend. Researchers say the data cannot explain why the shift occurred.