Jump to:
- Musicians who curse the least
- Interesting findings about musicians that curse the least
- Musicians that curse the most
- Interesting findings about musicians that curse the most
With streaming platforms and TikTok taking the music industry by storm, it seems like musicians are starting to care less about keeping their lyrics radio-friendly. That means swearing has become more and more common in music (and everyday life). With this trend in mind, the team at All Home Connections wanted to find out which musicians used the most and least profanity over the past year.
Methodology
To get our data, we looked at the top 200 songs for the past year on Spotify to determine the most popular recording artists. From there, we removed repeat artists and compiled a list of artists that had made the top 200 at least 100 times in the past year (Spotify updates the top 200 weekly). Next, we used Genius to scrape all of those artists’ lyrics, and then determined which curse words appeared the most. Finally, we used the word count and the number of curse words to determine the percent of curse words in the artist’s lyrics/songs.
In total, we analyzed 1,320,336 words in song lyrics to determine which artists had the highest and lowest percentage of swear words.
Keeping it Clean—the Musicians Who Cursed the Least
We ranked musical artists by the percentage of curse words per word in their lyrics—it turns out, Bruno Mars keeps his songs amazing (just the way they are) without swearing. From “Smokin Out the Window” to “Fly As Me,” only 0.16% of Bruno Mars’ lyrics were explicit from his tracks that made the top 200 on Spotify in the past year. That’s 48 curse words in total! The musician with the second-cleanest songs? That title goes to Justin Bieber, who only cursed 96 times in the past year, accounting for 0.18% of his lyrics.
So, which other top recording artists found a way to the top of the Billboard charts without getting explicit?
Infographic title: Musicians from the top 200 most played songs that cursed the least
Interesting Findings about Musicians with the Cleanest Lyrics
- For the second year in a row, Taylor Swift ranked third among the music artists that swear the least, with 0.19% of her lyrics being curse words, compared to 0.21% last year.
- People’s Choice award-winner Olivia Rodrigo curses more than Taylor Swift or Justin Bieber.
- For the second year in a row, Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, Dua Lipa, and Billie Eilish ranked among the music artists with the cleanest lyrics, although Eilish’s music contained more than twice as many swear words this year compared to last year (112 compared to 46).
Talk Dirty to Us—the Singers that Cursed the Most
For the second year in a row, DaBaby tops our list as the musician with the dirtiest mouth. With hits like “Lonely” and “ROOF,” DaBaby clearly sees no need to keep his lyrics family friendly—he had the highest percentage of curse words per lyric at 3.16% and 2,654 total swears. Billboard Music award-winner Juice WRLD ranked second among the music artists that swear the most, with 2.48% of his lyrics containing swear words.
Want to know who else played dirty this year? Here’s how the rest of the top 10 stacked up:
Interesting Findings About Musicians with the Dirtiest Lyrics
- The 23 artists on our list accounted for a combined 19,328 curse words, and the average percentage of swear words per lyric was 1.46%.
- Out of the top 10 artists that cursed the most in the past year, only one was a woman—Doja Cat.
- For the second year in a row, Juice World, Doja Cat, J Cole, Lil Uzi Vert, and Lil Baby ranked among the musicians that swear the most.
- Travis Scott, who ranked #10 last year among the music artists who cursed the least, with 313 total swear words, ranked #9 this year among the artists who swear the most, uttering 1,120 swear words in his lyrics over the past year.
All Home Connections is an authorized AT&T retailer.
Reporters can email questions to alicia@attsavings.com.