Comparative Analysis Between the Empowering Lyricism of Queer and Non-Queer Pop Music Artists

Abstract

Symptoms of depression experienced by self-identified LGBTQ+ (queer) high school students across the United States continue to be concerningly high. Part of what is found to have contributed to the onset of depression symptoms experienced by U.S. queer high school students is the lack of representation, applicability to, and inclusivity of LGBTQ+ individuals in the media due to its constant portrayal of heteronormativity. This study investigates this problem in the area of musical media. To acquire a better understanding of how this issue affects this study’s demographic, a survey was given to queer high school students in a northern Californian high school, and a one-sided two-sample t-test was also conducted to statistically analyze the average ratings of confidence reported after analyzing both types of lyricism. Survey results showed that the average level of increased confidence experienced after analyzing LGBTQ+ artists’ lyrics was approximately 3.15 out of 5, whereas identical survey question responses after analyzing lyrics written by heterosexual and cisgender artists were approximately 2.83 out of 5. This study’s unique analysis of how effective empowering mainstream American pop song lyrics are to queer high school students in empowering them finds that queer high school students generally find the empowering lyricism of LGBTQ+ artists to be slightly more empowering than that of heterosexual and cisgender artists. Findings in this study also support the conclusion that most queer high school students agree that LGBTQ+ representation and inclusivity could be more common in the mainstream American pop song industry.