July 31, 2008 10:48

Music fans claim finding accurate lyrics is getting harder

Downloads and inaccurate sites makes it hard to find song words

Fans have said that finding accurate song lyrics is harder today than five years ago, according to a new survey.

With downloads becoming more popular, the old fashioned method of reading words from the sleevenotes is not always available.

However, the survey for The National Year Of Reading has found that that many fans still want access to lyrics from an official source.

The results say that 90 per cent of the 4,000 questioned said that reading the lyrics helped them fully appreciate the music, but half claimed that they were harder to find than they were in 2003.

Around 75 per cent of 18-25 year-olds said that they did not trust the content found on some lyrics websites, which are often inaccurate.

Honor Wilson-Fletcher, who organised the survey, said he hoped that lyrics would be made avaliable when songs and albums are purchased digitally.

"What most surprised us in this survey was how it goes across all the generations," he explained. "It didn't matter if you were 16 or 65, the emotional importance of lyrics was completely consistent."