Billboard Top 100 Data Study
In this data study, we analyzed the top 100 Billboard songs by syllable count, total words, and total characters.
Top 10 songs by syllable count
| Song | Artist | Syllables |
|---|---|---|
| Not Like Us | Kendrick Lamar | 1,114 |
| Dum, Dumb, And Dumber | Lil Baby, Young Thug & Future | 1,058 |
| Sticky | Tyler, The Creator Ft GloRilla, Sexyy Red & Lil Wayne | 992 |
| TV Off | Kendrick Lamar Ft Lefty Gunplay | 903 |
| GBP | Central Cee Ft 21 Savage | 865 |
| Tweaker | GELO | 854 |
| Hey Now | Kendrick Lamar Ft Dody6 | 844 |
| 30 For 30 | SZA Ft Kendrick Lamar | 843 |
| DTMF | Bad Bunny | 828 |
| Defying Gravity | Cynthia Erivo Ft Ariana Grande | 816 |
Top 10 songs by word count
| Song | Artist | Words |
|---|---|---|
| Not Like Us | Kendrick Lamar | 896 |
| Dum, Dumb, And Dumber | Lil Baby, Young Thug & Future | 817 |
| TV Off | Kendrick Lamar Ft Lefty Gunplay | 788 |
| GBP | Central Cee Ft 21 Savage | 734 |
| Hey Now | Kendrick Lamar Ft Dody6 | 724 |
| Sticky | Tyler, The Creator Ft GloRilla, Sexyy Red & Lil Wayne | 719 |
| 30 For 30 | SZA Ft Kendrick Lamar | 700 |
| Tweaker | GELO | 688 |
| Stuff | Lil Baby Ft Travis Scott | 619 |
| Help Me | Real Boston Richey | 592 |
Top 10 songs by character count
| Song | Artist | Characters |
|---|---|---|
| Not Like Us | Kendrick Lamar | 4,475 |
| Dum, Dumb, And Dumber | Lil Baby, Young Thug & Future | 4,338 |
| Sticky | Tyler, The Creator Ft GloRilla, Sexyy Red & Lil Wayne | 4,039 |
| GBP | Central Cee Ft 21 Savage | 3,575 |
| Tweaker | GELO | 3,535 |
| TV Off | Kendrick Lamar Ft Lefty Gunplay | 3,489 |
| 30 For 30 | SZA Ft Kendrick Lamar | 3,426 |
| Hey Now | Kendrick Lamar Ft Dody6 | 3,389 |
| Peekaboo | Kendrick Lamar Ft AzChike | 3,222 |
| Stuff | Lil Baby Ft Travis Scott | 3,164 |
Top 10 songs by average syllables per word
| Song | Artist | Avg syllables per word |
|---|---|---|
| Rosones | Tito Double P | 1.75 |
| Weltita | Bad Bunny & Chuwi | 1.73 |
| Lo Que Le Paso A Hawaii | Bad Bunny | 1.72 |
| Tu Boda | Oscar Maydon & Fuerza Regida | 1.71 |
| Baile Inolvidable | Bad Bunny | 1.70 |
| Nadie | Tito Double P | 1.70 |
| La Mudanza | Bad Bunny | 1.70 |
| Bokete | Bad Bunny | 1.63 |
| Dos Dias | Tito Double P & Peso Pluma | 1.63 |
| DTMF | Bad Bunny | 1.61 |
Interesting takeaways
- Kendrick Lamar appears 4 times in the top 10 songs by syllable count, speaking to his lyrical complexity and dense rhyme schemes
- Not Like Us by Kendrick Lamar has the most syllables, words, and characters of any song in the Top 100
- The average word count across all 100 songs is 397.96 which would take an average reader approximate 3.1 minutes to read
- Defying Gravity by Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande is the longest song in the Top 100 at 7 minutes and 40 seconds.
- The average length across all Top 100 songs is 3 minutes and 29 seconds.
- Bad Bunny’s lyrics are denser on a per-word basis, meaning he packs more syllables into fewer words compared to other artists.
For more information on this data study, please contact us at hi@syllablecounter.io. You can use our free syllable counting tool at SyllableCounter.io to gather similar insights on any body of text.