Kanye West has a larger vocabulary than Bob Dylan, according to study

Celine Dion is the only artist to appear in both the top 15 for vocabulary size and certified album sales, and, with a word count of 3,954, she more or less parallels Prince, whose count totals 3,906.

A new report by song analysts Musixmatch examined the 99 top-selling artists across 25 different genres, looking at each musician’s 100 densest songs and recording how many different words were used.

Right down towards the bottom are the Spice Girls at 91 with 1,497 words, but Bruno Mars is 92nd with 1,489 words.

“To prevent the analysis from being skewed purely by the number of songs released, the vocabularies are compared across the 100 densest songs (by total number of words) that they have released”, wrote Musixmatch. Eminem topped the list at 8,818 words, while Jay Z came in just behind the Detroit rapper with 6,899. However, the analysis excluded Bruce Springsteen, Chicago, Def Leppard, Journey, The Beach Boys and The Doors because they haven’t granted permission for Musixmatch to use their lyrics. Dylan, who has been considered one of America’s finest songwriters, made it to the fifth spot with 4,883 words. Perhaps the top four was to be expected, as rap is by nature dense, given the focus on lyricism.

“Given how articulate and descriptive his songs are, it is no wonder Bob Dylan ranks so highly”, the study says. The “Blowin” In The Wind’ hitmaker has also been found to use new words most frequently, with an average of one every nine words. Kenny G is at the very bottom with 809 words, which isn’t surprising at all.

However, the company insists that the findings should be seen as an insight into the artists’ work, and not as one musician being better than the other.

“It gives us a peek into the minds of different songwriters, some tear your heart with just a few words while others paint an intricate picture with a thousand words”.

The study follows another last year that investigated the biggest vocabulary in hip-hop, seeing Aesop Rock coming out on top.