If you were asked to name the saddest music artist, who would spring to mind? Elliott Smith would probably get a mention; Nick Drake would surely be in the conversation; Joni Mitchell on Blue would also be a great shout. Of modern artists, though, it turns out that Billie Eilish has a strong claim to being the official saddest artist around.
That’s according to the word experts over at Crossword Solver who analysed the lyrics of the 120 most-streamed artists and the 1,000 most-streamed songs on Spotify to discover which contemporary chart acts are the happiest and saddest.
Dark-pop purveyor Eilish had 18.1% of sad words in her lyrics, followed by Ava Max with 17.3%. Australia was represented by rap superstar The Kid LAROI (17%), while Megan Thee Stallion (16.5%) and Machine Gun Kelly (14.9%) also had a hefty amount of sadness in their songs.
The happiest chart acts, meanwhile, were led by Olivia Rodrigo who had 24.6% of happy words in her lyrics. Bruno Mars and – shock, horror – Lizzo (23.1%) were next, followed by Rihanna (22.5%) and Sam Smith (22.4%).
But what’s the official saddest song, I hear you ask. That’s Kendrick Lamar’s “HUMBLE.”, which has a whopping 51.4% of lyrics deemed to be sad. BENEE’s “Supalonely” (50.8%) and XXXTentacion’s “SAD!” (50%) were also found to be seriously gloomy.
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The happiest song was – shock, horror again – a Maroon 5 number, with “What Lovers Do” found to have a 72.3% positivity rating. That was followed by Ariana Grande & The Weeknd’s “Love Me Harder” (59.7%) and Hailee Steinfeld’s “Love Myself” (58.6%).
So the next time you’re feeling down and really want to sonically wallow in the mire, Billie Eilish is a safe bet; if you want to raise your spirits, Maroon 5 is the way to go (although we strongly suggest that you don’t).
