The most metal words

By putting NIB through NLP, we finally know which words most frequently crop up in heavy metal. The lyrics to 222,623 songs were analysed using Natural Language Processing, um, processes and now we know that the most metal word in English is ‘burn’. Surprised? Me neither but we also know that the least metal word is ‘particularly’, which is brilliant. I can go to gigs and not say the ‘p’ word and stay cool. The man responsible for this important (to me) list is data processing genius Iain at Degenerate State. Here’s more:

Most Metal Words

Rank	Word	Metalness
1	burn	3.81
2	cries	3.63
3	veins	3.59
4	eternity	3.56
5	breathe	3.54
6	beast	3.54
7	gonna	3.53
8	demons	3.53
9	ashes	3.51
10	soul	3.40
11	sorrow	3.40
12	sword	3.38
13	goodbye	3.28
14	dreams	3.28
15	gods	3.24
16	pray	3.22
17	reign	3.15
18	tear	3.12
19	flames	3.12
20	scream	3.11

Least Metal Words

Rank	Word	Metalness
1	particularly	-6.47
2	indicated	-6.32
3	secretary	-6.29
4	committee	-6.16
5	university	-6.09
6	relatively	-6.08
7	noted	-5.85
8	approximately	-5.75
9	chairman	-5.69
10	employees	-5.67
11	attorney	-5.66
12	membership	-5.64
13	administrative	-5.61
14	considerable	-5.60
15	academic	-5.51
16	literary	-5.49
17	agencies	-5.48
18	measurements	-5.47
19	fiscal	-5.45
20	residential	-5.45

What is most interesting, is the detail of the process that is described in the article. It’s textbook stuff and easily replicateable.