Photo: Wenn
A new study from Musixmatch has ranked the 99 best-selling artists in order of vocabulary size and it turns out Kanye West has a larger vocabulary than Bob Dylan.
Inspired by a study last year investigating the largest vocabulary in Hip Hop, Musixmatch expanded the idea across 25 genres and 99 artists. To measure vocabulary, the research team examine the artist's 100 lyrically dense songs. Only six artists in the list have released less than 100 songs, so it's a justified metric.
The results are an interesting read. Unsurprisingly, Eminem tops the leaderboard with 8,818 separate words, nearly 2000 more than the second place finisher, Jay Z. Looking at the top six artists with the largest access to synonyms, five are hip-hop artists.
Bob Dylan takes number five, whereas Kanye West inches above him with about 200 extra words. However, the freeweelin' singer-songwriter did have the largest N.W.I (New Word Interval) that measures how often an artist uses a new word in any song - Dylan averaged a new word every nine words.
Other notable artist's and their positions: Prince (11), Beyonce (15), Rolling Stones (30), Guns'n'Roses (45), The Beatles (76) and a gentleman's (93) for Kenny G. You can view the whole investigation here.
The greatest thing to consider from this data is that it only represents the best-selling artists, not the broad and diverse spectrum of artists so don't feel bad if you're favourite band didn't make the cut.
MusixMatch summarise it best: “This analysis should not be interpreted as saying that one musician is better than the other, it is just another insight into the work of these amazing artists. It gives us a peek into the minds of different songwriters, some tear your heart with just a few words while others paint an intricate picture with a thousand words.”
