Artificial intelligence in music: Sanremo songs’ analysis

How does apply artificial intelligence in music? Sanremo has always been an iconic event of Italian musical culture, capable of influencing tastes, emotions and trends.

But what do the Sanremo songs’lyrics really tell us? Can the words of a piece of music tell something deeper about its authors and the feelings they convey?

We thought about applying artificial intelligence in music by analyzing song lyrics in a new way, going beyond the explicit meaning and investigating their linguistic structure.

Written by portrait team

Artificial intelligence in music: text analysis with AI

Songs evoke emotions because they often recall personal and collective experiences. But what would happen if we analyzed the “functional” words of a musical text?
To answer this question we brought artificial intelligence to Sanremo.
When we think of artificial intelligence applied to music, we often imagine generative AI systems capable of composing songs.

To apply artificial intelligence in music we used Portrait to analyze Sanremo’s songs.

PortraIt is Athics’ psychometric analysis technology, capable of detecting the main psycho-attitudinal traits of the interlocutor, without the risk of incurring “bias” on the contents of the communication, but by exclusively analyzing the functional terms indicative of the “modalities of interlocution”.

Artificial intelligence in music with Portrait

Methodology: how did we analyze the Sanremo songs?

The purpose of the analysis is to bring out the main aggregate psychometric traits of the authors of the songs and does not involve any type of judgment on the theme of the songs, on the music and on the perceived quality of the song itself. Furthermore, the emotions that the singer expresses on stage during the performance are not taken into consideration.

To do this we analyzed the functional words present within the lyrics of the Sanremo 2025 edition and positioned each song within a “petal” graph.

The aggregate traits of a psychometric profile are various and can refer to different areas: relationships, personality, cognitive aspects, attitudes, etc.
For our analysis we have selected, among those available on our platform, the aggregate traits that can be traced back to introspective aspects and the world of musical writing:

Altruism (Individuals who dedicate significant time to volunteering and genuinely care about the well-being of others)
Adventurous (Subjects who love traveling to exotic places and experiencing adventurous activities such as rock climbing or skydiving)
Creativity(An individual who is creative in ideas, art, or problem solving)
Cheerfulness (One who is often cheerful, optimistic and in good spirits.)
Emotion (How an individual expresses emotions, for example, whether he or she is reserved or outgoing in expressing affection or happiness)
Extroversion (A person who is sociable and draws energy from social encounters and interactions with others)
Friendliness (How friendly, affable and well-disposed an individual is towards others)
Intellectual (How interested an individual is in intellectual topics, such as reading books or participating in philosophical discussions)

Artificial intelligence in music: the map of the psychometric traits of Sanremo’s songs

From the result of our analysis, the traits of cheerfulness, sociability, emotions and extroversion are common to all 29 songs.

24 songs reflect an adventurous personality, 11 are positioned as intellectual, 12 reflect a creative personality, only 3 are altruistic.

Portrait’s analysis aligned with the Accademia della Crusca

It is interesting to note how the results of our experiment are aligned with the analysis of the Accademia della Crusca, published recently.

According to Prof. Lorenzo Coveri, full professor of Italian Linguistics at the University of Genoa and one of the leading scholars of the language of Italian song, the general flattening of the texts would be due to the recurring presence of the same authors.

Even in our analysis, the psychological imprint of the author shines through in the text constantly, regardless of the specific content of the song. This confirms the power of psychometric analysis in revealing profound elements of the personality through writing.

The analysis highlighted how the lyrics of Sanremo songs, beyond their explicit meaning, reveal distinctive traits of the authors’ personality through the analysis of functional words as indicators of communicative style. This research demonstrates how the application of artificial intelligence tools in Sanremo can offer a new point of view on the analysis of musical lyrics.

Not just musical pieces

The psychometric analysis conducted with Portrait does not limit itself to offering new perspectives on the interpretation of musical lyrics, but represents a concrete opportunity for the business world. Companies of every sector and size can benefit from identifying the stable traits that emerge in communication, using them to refine marketing strategies, personalization of the customer experience, communication and human resources management. Understanding the linguistic patterns of customers, employees or partners allows you to build more effective messages, improve engagement and optimize decision-making strategies. In a context where personalization is the key to success, tools like Portrait offer a competitive advantage, transforming language analysis into a strategic asset for understanding and anticipating market needs.

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