visual analysis

A while ago I saw a video on YouTube (see below) about pop music. There was a method used to analyse the lyrics of modern pop songs: Visually. It clicked with me, I immediately had to try it.

It’s described in the video as well, but in short: the words of the lyrics are written from left to right and top to bottom, starting in the upper left corner of a square. Whenever the same word is found on the top and on the left side, the point where vertical and horizontal line from this point going into the square meet is filled. You end up with a line connecting the upper left and lower right corner – but also many different constructs for the chorus and any other time where words are repeated throughout the song.

Analysis of Impossible in blue tones (many short lines parallel to the center line from top left to bottom right)

I created a little programme in JavaScript to analyse any lyrics I enter. The results for the four songs I fed to it were great, albeit flawed. There was a couple of spaces that I forgot to remove, but you can still make out the general “visual structure” of the songs.

Analysis of Is Everybody Going Crazy in purple tones. Some lines parallel to the center line, mostly towards the end.

Analysis of Unperson in orange tones. Lots of squares, especially towards upper left half.

I really loved what these songs were turned into, and recently I stumbled upon “generated art”, and it sparked an idea in my head.

I try to keep to a 3 week schedule of posting here, but life is tough and exciting and I can’t always keep up. I can recycle old art, but I’m running out of things I truely want to talk about. I want to create new art, and I finally have a head full of ideas again, but I need time to fully realize these pieces.

So this is where generated art can come in. What I have in mind is returning to a biweekly schedule, but with a twist. Every other post could be me talking about a song I like – and a programme I have written creating a visual for it.

This programme may turn out to be a slightly improved version of the lyrics analyser I’ve already created, or it may become something even cooler – I’m not sure yet. But with my christmas break having just started I’m sure I’ll figure something out. I’m very excited for this and I hope I can post some more generated art very soon. It would give me an extra week per proper painting while still reducing the wait for a new post. I hope I can switch to this schedule soon.

Here’s the video that gave me the idea for the method.