Why the Internet Loves Lyrics

According to a recent New York Magazine article, two percent of all web searches are for lyrics (hence all the terrible websites dedicated to cross-selling you music you don’t want and ringtones you shouldn’t buy). As soon as we could connect to the internet, we used it to connect with our favorite music — and we keep finding new ways to do that.

Before there were lyrics videos on YouTube, there was Bob Dylan holding cue cards for his “Subterranean Homesick Blues” in D.A. Pennebaker’s documentary Dont Look Back. But the modern version begins with Cee-Lo’s “Fuck You.” Before Cee-Lo, most lyrics videos were fan-made and low quality. “[Cee-Lo] released this video that’s pure typography,” says Kevin O’Keeffe, a pop culture writer for The Atlantic. “It’s one blue screen and words appearing on top of each other and sliding in and out. It’s the form we know now as the lyrics video.” 

Cee-Lo’s profanely funny break-up song was a perfect fit for the lyrics video, and it launched the trend in 2010. Since then, lyrics videos have racked up hundreds of millions of views for everyone from Romeo Santos to Vampire Weekend to Katy Perry.

Lyrics videos can introduce you to a song’s meaning, but if you want to go deeper, there’s Genius. Originally known as Rap Genius, the site was best known for annotating hip-hop lyrics. But recently, the site began to seriously consider music of any genre (and also historical documents, Shakespeare, prescription drug bottles, and more). Recently, Genius hired the New Yorker’s longtime pop critic, Sasha Frere-Jones, as an executive editor.

“One of the functions of this site is simply trying to get the lyrics right,” Frere-Jones says of Genius, but he’s also in it to create a historical record. He thinks Genius has the potential to celebrate music on a scale that’s never existed before. “For anyone who loves these facts and words, it feels very helpful,” he says. “We’re dealing with production, culture, transmission of symbols.” Frere-Jones and his fellow editors are there to guide the community and elevate the discourse. “We don’t want stuff like ‘J. Cole kills it on this one!’ That’s not an annotation, that’s just what you think."

Special thanks to Matt Kielty and Andy Mills.