"ChatGPT has no inner being, it has been nowhere, it has endured nothing, it has not had the audacity to reach beyond its limitations, and hence it doesn’t have the capacity for a shared transcendent experience, as it has no limitations from which to transcend... Judging by this song ‘in the style of Nick Cave’ though, it doesn’t look good, Mark. The apocalypse is well on its way. This song sucks" - Nich Cave writes on his Red Hand Files blog about a song the AI made in Cave's style. "Writing a good song is not mimicry, or replication, or pastiche, it is the opposite. It is an act of self-murder that destroys all one has strived to produce in the past. It is those dangerous, heart-stopping departures that catapult the artist beyond the limits of what he or she recognises as their known self. This is part of the authentic creative struggle that precedes the invention of a unique lyric of actual value".

"Social media and online music content is being prejudicially mined for evidence in criminal trials" - Ciaran Thapar looks back at years of trials against young rappers, based on their lyrics. "Most older adults are still coming to terms with the mere existence of social media, let alone the mind-boggling speed of TikTok, the nuances of British rap or the respawning etymologies of slang. But these are the people overseeing the metaphorical guillotine that now hovers over a whole generation of lost youth. Young people who have grown up under a mounting cost-of-living crisis, cared for by public services — youth clubs, schools, the NHS, the judiciary itself – that have been gutted by austerity".

"My plan for this year is to make a new record with the Bad Seeds" - Nick Cave writes in his first post of 2023 on his The Red Hand Files site. "This is both good news and bad news. Good news because who doesn’t want a new Bad Seeds record? Bad news because I’ve got to write the bloody thing". He continued on to detail the difficulty of songwriting: "Writing lyrics is the pits. It’s like jumping for frogs, Fred. It’s the shits. It’s the bogs. It actually hurts. It comes in spurts, but few and far between. There is something obscene about the whole affair. Like crimes that rhyme."

When it comes to musical tastes, people tend to favor songs with lyrics that correspond to their attachment style - researchers in the psychology department of the University of Toronto have found in a study that involved asking 570 people about their favourite songs. The participants were asked a series of questions about their relationship histories. The analysis of more than 7,000 songs revealed that people tended to like song lyrics that related to their attachment style in intimate relationships. This means most people tend to like songs that spell out what they are going through in a relationship. Vice reports about the study.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the Decriminalizing Artistic Expression Act, which limits the ways an artist’s lyrics can be used against them as evidence in criminal cases, the LA Times reports. The bill establishes a presumption that lyrics have minimal value as evidence. It covers all forms of creative expression but is especially salient for hip-hop artists, whose slice-of-life lyrics have frequently been cited by prosecutors in criminal trials as proof of guilt. The bill has been championed by the hip-hop community, the music industry and free-speech advocates.

Atlanta’s top legal representative Fanni Willis said she has no plans to stop citing rap songs' lyrics in criminal indictments any time soon, Rolling Stone reports. “I think if you decide to admit your crimes over a beat, I’m going to use it... You do not get to commit crimes in my county, and then get to decide to brag on it, which you do that for a form of intimidation and to further the gain and to not be held responsible” - Willis said during a press conference for a criminal case that does use lyrics as evidence. Her statements come months after Young Thug and Gunna were arrested for allegedly violating the RICO Act. Young Thug's lyrics were cited heavily in his indictment.

Beyoncé and Lizzo amended their songs following criticism by fans on social media. The Face argues in favor of the (responsible) power of the people: "In the case of ​“sp*z” and derogatory terms in music, cultural customs (i.e. the use of problematic terms when ignorant) don’t necessarily align with the ​“right” and ​“justified” action in real time. Values change over time, and so does the context of certain words. It’s OK for artists to learn, like every flawed human on the planet. Evolution and dismantling harmful practices is something to be embraced and welcomed, not scrutinised. These days, artists are scanning social media for feedback and potential edit suggestions. Let’s hope the fans use their power responsibly".

Lizzo has decided to change the lyrics in 'Grrrls' the latest single from her forthcoming LP 'Special', after receiving criticism for using ableist language. The song’s original lyrics, “Hold my bag, bitch, hold my bag/Do you see this shit? I’ma spaz,” have been changed to: “Do you see this shit? Hold me

Spotify has announced it will make a new Lyrics feature available to all global users, both Free and Premium, across platforms, The Verge reports. The feature is powered by lyrics provider Musixmatch. Lyrics will be available across platforms from the “Now Playing” view or bar, depending on the platform. On mobile, users can swipe up from the “Now Playing” screen to see the track’s lyrics scroll by in real time as the song is playing. On the desktop app, you can click the microphone icon from the “Now Playing” bar instead. And on the Spotify TV app, you’ll navigate to the top-right corner of the “Now Playing” view to enable Lyrics from the lyrics button.

John Hinckley Jr., the would-be assassin of former American President Ronald Reagan, complained about alleged unpaid royalties for a song he says he "co-wrote" with the band Devo. Hinckley wrote a poem as an obsessive verse written to actress Jodie Foster, who Hinckley had been stalking and hoped to impress by assassinating Reagan. Devo's Gerald V. Casale said that DEVO was "blown away by the poetic sociopathy" of Hinckley's poetry and used a few of his verses in their song 'I Desire'. It seems he got at least $610 in royalties so far. Newsweek brings the crazy story.

WordTips has a great feature - Singers Vocabularies. They counted the words used by 100 modern stars and the 100 greatest singers of all time and added up the number of unique words they used per 1,000 and used the formula for the feature. What they found is that the star with the biggest vocabulary overall is legend Patti Smith, who uses 217 unique words per 1,000 - she used 2,669 different words across a total word count of 12,291. The modern singer with the biggest vocabulary is Billie Eilish who uses 169 per 1,000. Legend Luther Vandross and modern star Trey Songz are tied with 66 for the smallest vocabulary. The song with the most unique words is Lou Reed’s 'The Murder Mystery', recorded by The Velvet Underground, with 639 words.

"It’s delightful that there are still questions Siri and Alexa can’t answer, and that people argue fervently about rock lyrics from more than 45 years ago" - LA Times writes in an article about the Internet argument over a Bruce Springsteen lyric. The song is 'Thunder Road', it begins 'Born to Run', the 1975 album that made Springsteen a star, and it's the opening lyrics - “The screen door slams, Mary’s dress waves”, or is it "sways"? The problem is, Springsteen isn't sure himself. In the original album gatefold design of 'Born to Run', the lyrics are printed “Mary’s dress waves”, but on page 220 of his best-selling 'Born to Run' memoir, Springsteen says “‘the screen door slams, Mary’s dress sways’ — that’s a good opening line”. Or maybe Boss just doesn't want the story to end, as he admits in his Broadway show: “I come from a boardwalk town where everything is tinged with just a bit of fraud. So am I. I’ve never seen the inside of a factory, and yet, it’s all I’ve ever written about… I made it all up”. Springsteen's longtime manager Jon Landau settled the matter in the New Yorker - “The word is ‘sways. That’s the way he wrote it in his original notebooks, that’s the way he sang it on 'Born to Run', in 1975, that’s the way he has always sung it at thousands of shows, and that’s the way he sings it right now on Broadway. Any typos in official Bruce material will be corrected”.

Kidz Bop is an American brand of compilation albums featuring children singing contemporary pop songs, with an important difference - the lyrics are made kid-appropriate changing explicit lyrics to more decent ones. How does exactly Kidz Bop change lyrics? Take this quiz and find out.

MewithoutYou's singer Aaron Weiss has used the "f-word", which had them, as a Christian band, banned from radio and the album got pulled from record stores. The band is to disband this year, and meanwhile, his fans ponder band's parodying of cultural mores.

Lyrics service Genius is suing Google for allegedly copying its song lyrics and using them in search results. Genius is asking for $50 million in damages from Google and its partner LyricFind, the Verge reports. Genius says they caught Google twice - first they placed straight and curved apostrophes within the lyrics of 301 songs […]

Genius Media Group has accused Google of stealing lyrics published on its site to populate its search engine results. Genius has asked Google in 2017 not to use lyrics taken from their platform, they sent a follow-up letter in April. Genius said that using lyrics taken from the platform violates both the company’s terms of […]