Slipknot and Stone Sour Analysis: Music and Lyrics
Anna Sizemore
5/10/2020
Background and Hypothesis
Corey Taylor is the lead singer and song writer for two popular American rock bands: Slipknot and Stone Sour. Both bands are known for their deep lyrics that usually carry negative connotations, as well as their aggressive music style. However, a portion of listeners believe that the music for Slipknot is more negative for the shock value of being a heavy metal band while the lyrics of Stone Sour songs are more mellow.
I hypothesize the Corey Taylor has written similar lyrics for both bands, and that both bands carry similar negative connotations in the lyrics. I also hypothesize that the lyrics for both bands have shown to be more negative over the years, and that the music of both bands has become more negative in the same pattern. Finally, I hypothesize that both bands tend to lean more towards minor modes in their music. I hypothesize this because research regarding the connotations of music has suggested that major mode is more associated with positive music while minor mode is more associated with negative music (Parncutt, 2014).
In a recent analysis that I did on the lyrical sentiment of Slipknot and Stone Sour (found at https://rpubs.com/asizemore/592952), I found that both bands were actually similar in their negative sentiment overall. The data suggested that both bands had become more negative in sentiment in Slipknot’s 2019 album release and Stone Sour’s 2017 album release. After some feedback on my last analysis from my professor, I decided to determine the overall sentiment of an album it with a new method.
Method and Analysis
I used the Genius Package and the Spotify API to analyze both the lyrics and the music of Slipknot and Stone Sour. Throughout both sections of this analyis, I used 6 chosen albums to compare the bands. These albums were chosen due to the fact that each band released the albums at a similar time(within 1-2 years of each other), and that each album contains newly written music instead of previously released songs or covers of other artists.
Come What(ever) May (2006) by Stone Sour versus Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses) (2004) by Slipknot
Audio Secrecy (2010) by Stone Sour versus All Hope is Gone (2008) by Slipknot
Hydrograd (2017) by Stone Sour versus We are Not Your Kind (2019) by Slipknot
Lyrical Analysis Using Genius Package
To begin the analysis, I pulled the lyrics from 6 chosen albums using the Genius R package.
stoneSourAlbums <-tribble(
~ artist, ~ title,
"Stone Sour", "Come What(ever) May",
"Stone Sour", "Audio Secrecy",
"Stone Sour", "Hydrograd",
)
stoneSourLyrics <- stoneSourAlbums %>%
add_genius(artist, title, type = "album")
slipknotAlbums <- tribble(
~ artist, ~ title,
"Slipknot", "Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses)",
"Slipknot", "All Hope Is Gone",
"Slipknot", "We Are Not Your Kind",
)
slipknotLyrics <- slipknotAlbums %>%
add_genius(artist, title, type = "album")I then unnested the lyrics of all three albums and used the Afinn lexicon to perform a sentiment analysis. The Afinn lexicon provides a scale of words considered to be more negative (-5) or more positive (5) with some words falling in between those numbers.
slipknotLyrics %>%
unnest_tokens(word, lyric) %>%
anti_join(stop_words) %>%
count(word, title, sort = TRUE) %>%
inner_join(get_sentiments("afinn")) -> slipknotSentiment
stoneSourLyrics %>%
unnest_tokens(word, lyric) %>%
anti_join(stop_words) %>%
count(word, title, sort = TRUE) %>%
inner_join(get_sentiments("afinn")) -> stoneSourSentimentMean Sentiment of Each Album
I plotted the overall sentiment of each band by using the mean of the Afinn score for each of the 3 albums being compared.
slipknotSentiment %>%
group_by(title) %>%
summarize(sentiment = mean(value)) %>%
ggplot(aes(reorder(title, sentiment), sentiment, fill = title)) +
geom_col() + scale_y_reverse() +
ggtitle("Sentiment for all 3 Slipknot Albums") +
theme(plot.title = element_text(hjust = .5)) +
theme_fivethirtyeight() 
stoneSourSentiment %>%
group_by(title) %>%
summarize(sentiment = mean(value)) %>%
ggplot(aes(reorder(title, sentiment), sentiment, fill = title)) +
geom_col() + scale_y_reverse() +
ggtitle("Sentiment for all 3 Stone Sour Albums") +
theme(plot.title = element_text(hjust = .5)) +
theme_fivethirtyeight() 
Results
Come What(ever) May - Stone Sour, 2006 VS Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses) - Slipknot, 2004
Come What(ever) May by Stone Sour had a mean of approximately -1.2 while the Slipknot album that realeased at a similar time, Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses) had only a mean of approximately -.75, meaning that it was far less negative in connotation than Stone Sour.
Audio Secrecy - Stone Sour, 2010 VS All Hope Is Gone - Slipknot, 2010
Compared to the earlier album, Audio Secrecy by Stone Sour was much lower on the sentiment scale at about -0.7. On the other hand, the mean score of All Hope is Gone by Slipknot was approximately -1.0, which is about 25% more than the last album and far more negative in connotation than the Stone Sour album released around the same time.
Hydograd - Stone Sour, 2017 VS We Are Not Your Kind - Slipknot, 2019
Hydrograd by Stone Sour did not appear to change much in sentiment compared to the last album. However, the score for We Are Not Your Kind by Slipknot has continued to grow to right above -1.0, which is the most negative score for Slipknot and right under the most negative score of all the albums.
I then analyzed the top 10 most negative/most occuring words found in the lyrics for each album.
Top 10 Negative Words for Come What(ever) May - Stone Sour, 2006 VS Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses) - Slipknot, 2004
slipknotLyrics %>%
filter(title %in% "Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses)") %>%
unnest_tokens(word, lyric) %>%
anti_join(stop_words) %>%
count(word, sort = TRUE) %>%
inner_join(get_sentiments("afinn")) %>%
arrange(desc(-value)) -> slipknotalbum1_neg## Joining, by = "word"
## Joining, by = "word"| word | n | value |
|---|---|---|
| bastards | 1 | -5 |
| damn | 2 | -4 |
| catastrophic | 1 | -4 |
| hell | 1 | -4 |
| rape | 1 | -4 |
| die | 15 | -3 |
| damage | 4 | -3 |
| hate | 4 | -3 |
| kill | 3 | -3 |
| crisis | 2 | -3 |
stoneSourLyrics %>%
filter(title %in% "Come What(ever) May") %>%
unnest_tokens(word, lyric) %>%
anti_join(stop_words) %>%
count(word, sort = TRUE) %>%
inner_join(get_sentiments("afinn")) %>%
arrange(desc(-value)) -> stonesouralbum1_neg## Joining, by = "word"
## Joining, by = "word"| word | n | value |
|---|---|---|
| motherfucker | 3 | -5 |
| bastard | 1 | -5 |
| shit | 6 | -4 |
| fuck | 4 | -4 |
| damn | 2 | -4 |
| fucking | 2 | -4 |
| hell | 2 | -4 |
| ass | 1 | -4 |
| bullshit | 1 | -4 |
| fucker | 1 | -4 |
Slipknot: 34 occurances of top 10 negative words, mean of -3.6
Stone Sour: 23 occurances of top 10 negative words, mean of -4.2
Although Slipknot had a larger amount of negative words, the Afinn score for the words in the Stone Sour lyrics were more negative which led to a more negative mean.
Top 10 Negative Words for Audio Secrecy - Stone Sour, 2010 VS All Hope Is Gone - Slipknot, 2010
slipknotLyrics %>%
filter(title %in% "All Hope Is Gone") %>%
unnest_tokens(word, lyric) %>%
anti_join(stop_words) %>%
count(word, sort = TRUE) %>%
inner_join(get_sentiments("afinn")) %>%
arrange(desc(-value)) -> slipknotalbum2_neg## Joining, by = "word"
## Joining, by = "word"| word | n | value |
|---|---|---|
| bitch | 1 | -5 |
| fucking | 4 | -4 |
| shit | 3 | -4 |
| catastrophic | 1 | -4 |
| damned | 1 | -4 |
| fuck | 1 | -4 |
| fucker | 1 | -4 |
| hell | 1 | -4 |
| whore | 1 | -4 |
| dead | 21 | -3 |
stoneSourLyrics %>%
filter(title %in% "Audio Secrecy") %>%
unnest_tokens(word, lyric) %>%
anti_join(stop_words) %>%
count(word, sort = TRUE) %>%
inner_join(get_sentiments("afinn")) %>%
arrange(desc(-value)) -> stonesouralbum2_neg## Joining, by = "word"
## Joining, by = "word"| word | n | value |
|---|---|---|
| fucking | 5 | -4 |
| hell | 4 | -4 |
| fuck | 1 | -4 |
| fucked | 1 | -4 |
| pissed | 1 | -4 |
| die | 16 | -3 |
| hate | 10 | -3 |
| destroy | 9 | -3 |
| bad | 4 | -3 |
| dead | 4 | -3 |
Slipknot: 35 occurances of top 10 negative words, mean of -4
Stone Sour: 55 occurances of top 10 negative words, mean of -3.5
Although Stone Sour had a larger amount of negative words, the Afinn score for the words in the Slipknot lyrics were more negative which led to a more negative mean.
Top 10 Negative Words for Hydograd - Stone Sour, 2017 VS We Are Not Your Kind - Slipknot, 2019
slipknotLyrics %>%
filter(title %in% "We Are Not Your Kind") %>%
unnest_tokens(word, lyric) %>%
anti_join(stop_words) %>%
count(word, sort = TRUE) %>%
inner_join(get_sentiments("afinn")) %>%
arrange(desc(-value)) -> slipknotalbum3_neg## Joining, by = "word"
## Joining, by = "word"| word | n | value |
|---|---|---|
| bitch | 1 | -5 |
| motherfucker | 1 | -5 |
| motherfucking | 1 | -5 |
| hell | 8 | -4 |
| fuck | 7 | -4 |
| fucking | 3 | -4 |
| fucked | 2 | -4 |
| shit | 2 | -4 |
| bullshit | 1 | -4 |
| liar | 17 | -3 |
stoneSourLyrics %>%
filter(title %in% "Hydrograd") %>%
unnest_tokens(word, lyric) %>%
anti_join(stop_words) %>%
count(word, sort = TRUE) %>%
inner_join(get_sentiments("afinn")) %>%
arrange(desc(-value)) -> stonesouralbum3_neg## Joining, by = "word"
## Joining, by = "word"| word | n | value |
|---|---|---|
| motherfucker | 8 | -5 |
| bastard | 2 | -5 |
| bastards | 1 | -5 |
| shit | 11 | -4 |
| fucking | 10 | -4 |
| fuck | 7 | -4 |
| damn | 6 | -4 |
| hell | 6 | -4 |
| ass | 2 | -4 |
| dick | 1 | -4 |
Slipknot: 44 occurances of top 10 negative words, mean of -4.2
Stone Sour: 54 occurances of top 10 negative words, mean of -4.3
Stone Sour has 54 occurances and has a mean sentiment score of -4.3 when looking at the top 10 words, however, the album We Are Not Your Kind still Scores lower on the sentimate scale according to the toal mean, indicating that it may have a more robust amount of negative words outside of just the top 10.
Lyrical Analysis Conclusion:
According to the data, my original analysis of this data was incorrect, it appears that when looking at the total means of negative sentiment using the Afinn lexicon, Slipknot has continued to be more negative in sentiment over time. However, Stone Sour’s most negative sentiment score was from their 2004 album, Come What(ever) May, and their sentiment score has been about half of that one in the latest two albums analyzed.
Interestingly, when looking at the top 10 negative words and their occurances in each album set, Stone Sour has a more negative mean score for two out of three of the sets. For the first comparison, this makes sense because Stone Sour’s overall mean sentiment score for that album was significantly higher than Slipknot. On the other hand, the top 10 set compared on the latest album indicates that Stone Sour has a more negative mean score although Slipknot is overall more negative in sentiment for that pair of albums. This could possibly be because Slipknot puts out very long songs with far more words, making the lyrics more robust with a possibility of having more words that score low on the Afinn lexicon and that aren’t appearning in the top 10 list.
Music Analysis Using Spotify API
I accessed the music of both Slipknot and Stone Sour using Spotify’s API
Mean Valence for all Albums
I then analyzed the valence of each album. Valence is a measure ranging from 0 to 1 that, according to Spotify documentation, describes the positivity of that track. 1 on the scale relates to higher valence and higher positivity while 0 relates to lower valence and more negativity.
Mean Valence of Slipknot Albums
slipknot %>%
group_by(album_name) %>%
filter(album_name %in% c("Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses", "All Hope Is Gone", "We Are Not Your Kind")) %>%
summarise(mean(valence)) %>%
arrange(desc(`mean(valence)`)) %>%
kable | album_name | mean(valence) |
|---|---|
| All Hope Is Gone | 0.3423745 |
| We Are Not Your Kind | 0.2555071 |
| Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses | 0.2053045 |
Mean Valence of Stone Sour Albums
stonesour %>%
group_by(album_name) %>%
filter(album_name %in% c("Come What(ever) May", "Audio Secrecy", "Hydrograd")) %>%
summarise(mean(valence)) %>%
arrange(desc(`mean(valence)`)) %>%
kable | album_name | mean(valence) |
|---|---|
| Come What(ever) May | 0.4073333 |
| Audio Secrecy | 0.3205714 |
| Hydrograd | 0.3194167 |
Density Plot for each
A density plot is a visual repersentation of how valence occurs within the albums.
slipknot %>%
group_by(album_name) %>%
filter(album_name %in% c("Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses", "All Hope Is Gone", "We Are Not Your Kind")) %>%
ggplot(aes(x = valence, y = album_name, fill = ..x..)) +
geom_density_ridges_gradient() +
xlim(0,1) +
labs(x= "Valence Score", y = "Album") +
ggtitle("Valence for all 3 Slipknot Albums") +
theme(plot.title = element_text(hjust = .5)) +
theme_fivethirtyeight() +
theme(legend.position = "none") ## Picking joint bandwidth of 0.0687
stonesour %>%
group_by(album_name) %>%
filter(album_name %in% c("Come What(ever) May", "Audio Secrecy", "Hydrograd")) %>%
ggplot(aes(x = valence, y = album_name, fill = ..x..)) +
geom_density_ridges_gradient() +
xlim(0,1) +
labs(x= "Valence Score", y = "Album") +
ggtitle("Valence for all 3 Stone Sour Albums") +
theme(plot.title = element_text(hjust = .5)) +
theme_fivethirtyeight() +
theme(legend.position = "none") ## Picking joint bandwidth of 0.0777
Valence Conclusion
According to the figures above, the valence of all three Slipknot albums is lower and therefore indicating of more negativity than the Stone Sour Albums. Also, according to the density plots, the valence of Stone Sour is more spread out while Slipknot’s valence seems to mostly sit at a sharper point closer to 0. The exception to this is their 2010 album, All Hope is Gone.
It does appear that Slipknot’s valence score was actually lowest in their 2004 album, Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses) album, and highest in their 2010 All Hope is Gone album. In regards to Stone Sour, Stone Sour’s valence has decreased at every album and is most negative in their 2017 album, Hydrograd.
Modes for Each Artist
I then anaylzed the mode for both bands. According to the Spotify documentation, the mode refers to the modility of the track, which is either major or minor.
slipknot %>%
filter(album_name %in% c("Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses", "All Hope Is Gone", "We Are Not Your Kind")) %>%
count(mode_name, sort = TRUE) %>%
ggplot(aes(reorder(mode_name, n), n)) +
geom_col() +
labs(x= "Mode", y = "Score") +
ggtitle("Mode for all 3 Slipknot Albums") +
theme(plot.title = element_text(hjust = .5)) 
stonesour %>%
filter(album_name %in% c("Come What(ever) May", "Audio Secrecy", "Hydrograd")) %>%
count(mode_name, sort = TRUE) %>%
ggplot(aes(reorder(mode_name, n), n)) +
geom_col() +
labs(x= "Mode", y = "Score") +
ggtitle("Mode for all 3 Stone Sour Albums") +
theme(plot.title = element_text(hjust = .5)) 
Mode Conclusion
For both bands, the total mean of the mode indicates that there is more major modality than minor. Slipknot has significantly higher scores, but this is most likely due to the fact that Slipknot has longer songs. Slipknot seems to be an outlier to the idea that major mode relates more positivity while minor mode relates more to negativity (Parncutt, 2014). However, it is possible that these modes invoke such feelings more so than represent them in music.
Overall Conclusion
To recap, my hypothesis was the following:
1.) Corey Taylor has written similar lyrics for both bands, and that both bands carry similar negative connotations in the lyrics.
2.) The lyrics for both bands have shown to be more negative over the years, and that the music of both bands has become more negative in the same pattern.
3.) Both bands tend to lean more towards minor modes in their music.
Hypothesis 1
Although both bands do rate more on the negative side of the Afinn lexicon, Slipknot has continued to rate more negatively throughout the years that they chosen albums were released. However, Stone Sour started our with a very negative lexicon score and then has generally stayed consistent with a much less negative score compared to the first album. Therefore, this hypothesis is wrong, as their mean scores are not close enough to say that both bands have had similar negative connotations in every album.
Hypothesis 2
As stated above Slipknot’s albums have scored a more negative sentiment over time but Stone Sour’s albums have actually scored less negative. On the contrary, Slipknot’s valence score from the Spotify API has actually increased over time while Stone Sour’s valence score has leaned toward more negative over time. This hypthothesis was also wrong.
Hypothesis 3
Both bands had more than double to amount of major modility compared to minor modility. This hypthothesis was also wrong.
Overall, the data indicates that the bands do not have similar sentiment scores and there seems to be no correlation between the negative sentiment and the Spotify valence score. Therefore it is hard to argue against the idea that Stone Sour is more mellow and less negative than Slipknot in general. Perhaps he see’s the song writing for each band as two different kinds of creative outlets.