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Lyrics Word Clouds

Conference Paper · July 2016

DOI: 10.1109/IV.2016.27

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 Lyrics Word Clouds
Michael Burch, Tobias Fluck, Julian Freund, Thomas Walzer, Uwe Kloos, and Daniel Weiskopf
VISUS, University of Stuttgart and Reutlingen University
Stuttgart and Reutlingen, Germany
Email: {michael.burch, daniel.weiskopf}@visus.uni-stuttgart.de
{tobias.fluck, julian.freund, thomas.walzer, uwe.kloos}@reutlingen-university.de
Abstract—Plenty of songs are composed, written, and released
every year being recorded in a variety of databases. Those
do not only store the audio, but also additional data like the
artists’ names, the years of release, the lengths of the songs,
or number of visits, comments, and remarks of visitors and
the like. However, another important data is the lyrics, i.e., the
textual content which can give insights about the topic, genre,
or intention of the musicians. Getting an overview about the
textual content of a song, i.e., the lyrics can become a tedious
challenge since listening to the songs or reading the texts is a time-
consuming task. To support users of song databases we propose
a visualization tool that is able to generate word clouds from
lyrics. Interaction techniques are incorporated in the tool to give
more detailed information about the occurrence of words in a
song that finally help to find insights about the genre or to just
compare the content very rapidly, for example. Our visualization
tool is implemented as a web-based interface, that stores requests,
updates the local tool database based on those requests, and
finally, provides an interactive visualization for the user.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Various songs are composed, written, and released every
year, typically stored in music databases like Youtube, Last.fm,
or the Free Music Archive to mention a few. ’More than one
million songs are released annually (not sure if that number
is just North America or global), but needless to say, there
are more songs than anyone can ever listen to in a lifetime if
they did nothing else. No wonder it is so difficult to make a
living in the music space’ has been stated by Jaime Horwitz
Rodriguez [1] reflecting that visual analysis can be of great
help to get an overview about the data and make browsing and
exploration tasks much faster.
Getting an overview about the textual content, i.e., the lyrics
is a challenging task, in particular for many of those songs.
Reading the complete song text or even listening to it becomes
a challenging task when the goal is to get a rapid overview. To
support people with such a task we designed the lyrics word
clouds which is an interactive visualization technique based on
word clouds combined with a brushing and linking between
the visualization and a more text-based representation shown
next to each other. This interactive visualization strategy is
helpful to start from an overview and leading to a detailed
representation of the lyrics as a text-based view highlighted
by already found words or insights.
Our visualization approach is in particular useful for a
number of different scenarios where the user has a certain
task in mind that he wishes to solve more rapidly than by just
listening to the songs or reading the corresponding lyrics:
• Content: A song is searched for which the textual content
is known. Consequently, not the complete song has to be
listened to, but we are interested in a more rapid detection.
If several songs have to be explored rapidly this concept
refers to as weighted browsing (we know what to look
for).
• Comparison: Comparing two or more songs can also be
done by just inspecting corresponding lyrics clouds either
in a small multiples display or by just browsing through a
longer list of them. Such a browsing concept can rapidly
support at such comparison tasks.
• Completion: Only text snippets are known and a user is
interested in the songs in which these snippets occur. It
can be helpful to base the search on lyrics clouds since
many of them filtered for the text snippets can be shown
rapidly to reduce the search space. When a matching song
is found the text snippets can be shown in a completed
fashion.
• Combination: A selected song can be inspected by
looking at the lyrics cloud or by reading the text, i.e.,
the lyrics. But as a details on demand feature we can
play the song to listen to it finally.
• Context: The lyrics cloud only provides an overview
about the word frequencies but not about the distributions.
This information can be seen by a highlight function
linking the lyrics to the lyrics cloud.
We designed a word cloud-based visualization acquiring
data from LyricWikia [2]. The system is designed in a way
that it internally and locally stores the preprocessed data in
a database that is mirrored from the original data requested
from the LyricWikia webpage. If a user requests a song that
is not already stored in our local database it is looked up on
the web and the database is updated accordingly. This process
makes requests for frequently asked songs faster since the
preprocessing step was already applied.
We illustrate the usefulness of our visualization technique
in an application scenario in which we ask for a specific song
that is not already locally stored, but has to be looked up on
the LyricWikia webpage. The word cloud overview is shown
as well as how the view can be combined with the original
lyrics highlighted with certain user-demanded words.
II. R ELATED W ORK
Nowadays we are able to rapidly search for the music
and the songs we like or we are specifically interested in
by looking them up at web pages like Youtube, Last.fm,
the Free Music Archive, or LyricWikia to mention a few of
a really long list. Those services provide a wealth of data
about the songs but they typically do not provide a good
overview as a starting point for further explorations and insight
detections. Those data bases are more designed in a list-
based textual representation allowing to do specific individual
requests, sometimes enhanced by filtering techniques based on
certain keywords or song features. Visualization techniques are
rarely used to display the data content of those data bases.
In particular, text-based visualizations might be applicable
to such a data set scenario like word clouds that provide
a good overview about the frequently used words in the
lyrics, hence giving a coarse and rapid glimpse about the
content of a song. There are several word cloud layouts and Fig. 1. Illustration of the basic process in the lyrics word cloud application:
improvements focussing on that, like the work of Kaser and The client makes requests to the internal local database. If the requested song
Lemire [3] who try to reduce the white space in HTML-based is not already stored it is further requested from the LyricWikia webpage.
Then the local database is updated.
word clouds and provide more white space balanced versions.
Much of the former work focuses on generating more compact
representations giving more words the chance to be displayed
like Seifert et al. [4] who implemented a more space-filling
version of a layout algorithm applying convex polygons to
define boundary regions. The famous word cloud generation
tool Wordle [5] is applied in modified versions in approaches
like ManyWordle [6] or Rolled-out Wordles [7].
There are further word cloud techniques that make use
of clustering, for example [8], [9], or also layout strategies
typically known in the field of graph drawing and denoted
by force-directed placements [10]. Also the semantic rela-
tionships might be taken into account when laying out the
word cloud [11], [12]. The ThemeScape visualization [13],
for example, is based on topographical landscapes. Fig. 2. The local database contains three tables for managing artist, title, and
word list data.
Some word cloud ideas try to show relationships among
words in a more direct way which is not in focus of our work
but might be an option for future work. For example, in several requests consisting of name of the artists and the title of the
methods [14], [15], [16], [17], [18] those word relations are song to the server (see Figure 1) which is a unique request
made visible by using explicit links, tree representations, or for identifying the data. Next a database request decides about
by applying interactive highlighting techniques. Typically, one the further steps concerning the parsing of the data. In a first
word cloud for each text source is used, but in recent years request it is checked if the song of the requested artist is
researchers tried to find a way to combine those into a single already stored locally. If the song is not already in the local
word cloud [19], [20], [21], [22], [23]. Also time-varying word database a further request is sent to the LyricWikia server. If
clouds became of special interest [24], [15], [25], but since we the song is found in the LyricWikia database the complete
are dealing with static lyrics data we only exploit approaches HTML file will be send to the client where a parser is applied
for word clouds without specific focus on time dependency. to extract the important data for further processing.
III. DATA H ANDLING
B. Preprocessing
In this work we primarily deal with lyrics data but treat other
data sources like song writer names, lengths of the songs, year The parser is implemented as a PHP script running on the
of release and so on as secondary data that can be shown on server that processes the via POST sent input data of the client.
user’s demand. The lyrics data is used to generate an overview It is first tested if the input data leads to a result. An internal
about each song to support the rapid finding of keywords, i.e., database request decides the further steps done by the parser.
interesting words in the textual data. Is the song found in the database the lyrics as well as the word
list with the occurrence frequencies are sent back to the client
A. Data Extraction and Requests based on a JSON format. If the database request is without
We implemented a simple client-server architecture that is in result both parameters are sent to LyricWikia as a normal URL
particular advantegeous for a web-based tool. The client sends request as CURL. After this step the complete HTML page is
Fig. 3. Song requests can be done in a trivial way just as Google requests. To start the interactive visualization we just have to type in an interpret and a
corresponding song. The data is requested, preprocessed, and finally, visualized.
transformed into a DOM object which is finally parsed into
the lyrics only.
Due to the fact that the structure of the LyricWikia pages
is always the same we exploit unique character sequences
enclosing the lyrics data to extract the textual data and to
write it into a variable. If this variable remains empty, a
response is sent to the client that tells that there is no
entry for the transmitted parameters. If the variable is not
empty, the corresponding text will be cleaned and preprocessed
for further analysis and visualization steps. As a next step
two variables are required that store the words with their
occurrence frequencies in a JSON format and the original
lyrics text. By this subdivision into two variables we are able
to integrate interaction techniques on the client side.
If all those steps are processed, database requests are
executed and it is checked if the artist is already stored in
the database, in a negative case it will be added. Moreover,
the song title, the lyrics, and the word list are also added.
C. Local Database
We use a database with three tables (see Figure 2 for more
details), i.e., the artist, the song title, and the word list are
required. The table for the artist consists of a sequence of
identification numbers. Each number is generated when first
writing the artist to the database, meaning the number becomes
unique giving the primary key. Also the name of the artist is
stored. The second table contains the song data that reflects all
attributes attachable to a song such as title, lyrics text, length,
year of release and the like. Again, an identification number is
generated. A third table stores the word list with the occurence
frequencies for generating the word clouds.
IV. V ISUALIZATION T ECHNIQUE
For visually encoding the lyrics data we make use of a
word cloud in a user defined word cloud layout. This serves
as overview representation for the lyrics data in which the user
can interact to get more insights about the textual data. Several
interaction techniques are implemented to further support a
viewer with a visual analysis.
A. Visual Design
To benefit from simple usability as a starting point for
further interactions we just provide two text fields similar to
requesting information using Google (see Figure 3). The user
starts typing in a title plus an author and the tool tries to find
the corresponding data in the local database. If this request
does not lead to a result, a request to the LyricWikia webpage
is activated.
If the data for the respective request is found it is sent
back, preprocessed, and a word cloud is generated. For the
word cloud generation, the tool takes into account the already
preprocessed text into words attached to their occurrence
frequencies. The preprocessing is important since this is ben-
eficial for interaction, i.e., the lyrics data does not have to be
preprocessed again each time if someone does a new request
for the same song.
The visualization shows the lyrics text on the left hand side
while the word cloud is displayed at the right hand side. This
gives an overview about both, the actual text in its real form
and a word frequency-based and color coded word cloud.
The color coding can already be used as visual linking to
understand both the overview about the word frequencies and
where in the text those occur.
B. Interaction Techniques
Our visualization tool supports several simple interaction
techniques with which the number of displayed words can be
reduced and with which views can be interactively linked.
• Song request: The most important interaction technique
is the request for songs that are preprocessed first, inter-
nally stored, and then transformed into a corresponding
lyrics word cloud.
• Brushing and linking: Words from the lyrics word cloud
can be selected (brushing) that are then highlighted in
the lyrics view (linking). This can be done for each word
separately or by displaying all corresponding words in
the same color coding for a visual linking.
• Filtering: Once the song data is preprocessed it can be
filtered for word occurrences, substrings, and/or word
lengths, for example.
 Fig. 4. A request for ACDC and the song Highway to Hell results in the following lyrics word cloud.
• Word cloud layouts: Different word cloud layouts can
be generated like spiral (default), Archimedian, or rect-
angular layout.
• Frequency encoding: The word occurrence frequency
can be mapped to three different word size functions:
logarithmic, square root, and proportional to the number
of words.
• Stop word elimination: Apart from generating a word
cloud from the complete lyrics, users are also supported
by a stop word elimination process. This typically reduces
the number of displayed words without any meaning.
• Word highlighting: Selecting words by mouse clicks
leads to highlighting them in the corresponding lyrics text
in the same color coding as in the word cloud.
• Word color coding: The user can select a color coding
for each of the words in the word cloud while a suitable
color coding is chosen as a default setting right from the
beginning.
• Song replay: Songs can be played as an extra details on
demand feature.
• Details on demand: Hovering over a word gives details
about the occurrence frequency while additional requests
can give details about artists, length, album, or year of
release to mention a few.
• PNG export: The produced word cloud can be exported
as a PNG image file.
V. A PPLICATION E XAMPLE
In this section we show a stepwise illustration of our lyrics
data extraction and visualization tool. The first step demands
for opening a browser and typing in the URL of the Lyrics
Word Clouds tool. A text field is shown as demonstrated in
Figure 3 where we can type in artist and song name, then
press the button Generate Wordcloud.
The artist and the song is requested and the data is pre-
processed into word occurrence frequencies. From the prepro-
cessed data a lyrics word cloud is generated. In this specific
scenario we requested the song Highway to Hell from ACDC
and obtained the lyrics word cloud shown in Figure 4 with
the actual lyrics text placed to the left hand side (Figure 5). In
a next step the user can decide to use the same color coding
 Fig. 5. The lyrics text is shown on the left hand side while the lyrics word cloud is displayed to the right hand side.
Fig. 6. Color coding both views simultaneously supports visual comparison tasks.
for the lyrics text as in the lyrics word cloud. This supports
the visual comparison of the lyrics and the word occurrence
frequencies (Figure 6).
By having a look at the lyrics word cloud for this song
we can for example try to get an overview about the word
occurrences that we refer to as content. If other songs (of the
same artists or of others) are requested, those can be visually
compared by inspecting the word clouds, i.e., a comparison
is done. If only text snippets are known like highway and hell
as in this example scenario we might be interested in seeing
other words and how frequent they occur in the lyrics, i.e., a
completion is done. Reading the lyrics and visually inspecting
the connections between the text and the lyrics word cloud
leads to a combination. Also the distributions of the word
frequencies can be explored in both the word cloud and the
lyrics, i.e., the context can also be observed.
VI. D ISCUSSION AND L IMITATIONS
Various implementation challenges can occur while devel-
oping the lyrics word cloud visualization.
• Web technologies: We had to understand and combine
several web technologies like HTML5, CSS 3, JavaScript,
SVG as well as the JavaScript libraries D3.js and jQuery.
•Data preprocessing/filtering: The data preprocessing
and filtering demands for fast techniques that support
interactivity.
• Data storage: Since vast amounts of song data exist, a
mirroring of the data to a local database demands for an
efficient storage process.
• Runtime environment on client side: The runtime
environment on the client side is important to let the lyrics
word cloud run efficiently.
The algorithmic and performance scalability is in particular
important for achieving an interactive visualization.
• Word extraction: Efficiently extracting the words from
a lyrics text and counting the occurrence frequencies has
to be done once for each requested song.
• Layout generation: Layout algorithms are important for
the word cloud generation. Producing word clouds with
reduced white space regions can produce space-filling
lyrics word clouds.
• Word accessibility: Achieving a fast brushing and link-
ing interaction feature demands for accessing words
rapidly.
• Word color coding: The initial color coding of the words
in the word cloud can be challenging since similar color
hues can be perceptually difficult to observe.
 Visual scalability is crucial to display lyrics word clouds
containing many different words, but the more words are in
use the more challenging also algorithmic and performance
scalability will become.
• Number of displayed words: The number of displayed
words has an influence on the interpretability of the word
cloud. The mental map is important for visual compar-
isons which gets more challenging if the clouds contain
more and more words. Moreover, words may appear at
different positions in different clouds demanding for a
search task depending on the number of displayed words.
• Word cloud layout: The layout (spiral, Archimedian,
rectangular) also has an influence on visual scalability.
The user can interactively switch between several layouts.
• Complexity of datasets: The number of extracted words
as well as the distribution of the word frequencies has an
impact on the lyrics word cloud generation. If the differ-
ence between frequencies is too large, also a logarithmic
or square root function can be applied to the occurrence
number.
• Interpretability of word clouds: In a word cloud we
typically only show individual words, longer word se-
quences have to be inspected in the corresponding lyrics
text. Maybe, word clouds for longer text snippets might
be worth investigating to get a better overview about the
semantics.
VII. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK
In this paper we illustrated how lyrics data can be requested
from the LyricWikia database and how it can be transformed
into a lyrics word cloud. To reach this goal, the textual data
has to be preprocessed first and stored to a local database
to guarantee better and faster interactivity. Those interaction
techniques are integrated in our lyrics word cloud, for example,
to visually connect the lyrics to the overview-based word
cloud visualization. We illustrate the usefulness of the tool
by applying it to a song that has to be requested first from
LyricWikia. We described limitations and challenges con-
cerning implementation details, algorithmic and performance
issues, and visual scalability. For future work, we plan to also
integrate the music notes into our visualization although this
kind of data is difficult to obtain. Also feedback of music
database users might be worth investigating while also more
algorithmic analyses should be implemented making the lyrics
word cloud technique a visual analytics approach.
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