Only 32% of a sample of genre visuals have wheels

Posted on November 30, 2021

While listening on the go is arguably one of the best ways to experience music, a new study has found that, compared to other popular genres, music videos for rock and metal music songs are the less likely to spotlight motor vehicles.

Car insurance comparison site Compare.com take inventory of The most popular cars in music videos, by genre. According to their methodology, the researchers analyzed 250 popular music videos – 50 each falling under the genre categories of rock and metal, country, EDM, hip-hop and pop – drawing sources from top video lists of publications like Ranker, Loudwire, Rolling Stone and CMTas well as popular YouTube playlists.

Manually coding the appearance of cars, trucks, and other vehicles in the clips, they noted vehicle type, make, and primary color to determine which were most popular in each genre, as well as which genres needed the most. of speed.

“Popular music has been synonymous with cars since the advent of motor vehicles,” begins the introduction to the anonymous study.

“Since the introduction of music videos in the early 1980s, cars have played a major role in the visual aspects of a song’s promotion – Whitesnake’s ‘Here I Go Again’ is just one example of a ’80s classic with a memorable car scene,” they continued, wryly quoting a rock video.

Perhaps counterintuitively, the results concluded that only 32% of rock and metal music videos provided the power, while hip-hop selections went up to 76%. Naturally, country videos had over 10 times more pickups than any other genre.

More rock and metal-specific stats include that Bon Jovi is obviously the most car-obsessed band in the genre, with “It’s My Life” having the most engine of any video. During this time, Chevy convertibles and Cadillacs proved to be the most prominent makes and models, most of which appeared in black or white. The most popular non-motor vehicle? A tour bus, synonymous with the rock star’s posh (read: smelly) lifestyle.

“Karma Police” Thom Yorke may be sulky, but he knows there are probably no surprises here; though famed Poet Laureate Chad Kroeger once sang, “We all wanna be big rockstars / And live in hilltop houses, drivin’ 15 cars.” And we’re no mathematicians, but shouldn’t that mean a minimum of 15 cars per rock video?

This might require further investigation.

Discover the full study hereand see the chart for his rock and metal finds below.