From Beyoncé to Rosalía, what is the eccentric use of capital letters in pop?

If you go to your favorite streaming platform and put on either of the two most-streamed albums this summer — Beyoncé's

and

, by Rosalía—, you will notice a great little detail: the titles of all the songs are written in capital letters.

But it is not only musical trends that have mutated over the years, so has the aesthetics of the charts.

Perhaps not the official ones, like the Spanish or British ones, which maintain their own writing and capitalization rules, but those of Spotify.

Often looking at the titles of the songs that occupy the global top 50 of the Swedish platform is enough to make the eyes spin in orbit.

The variety of types of writing is practically equal to the variety of people who inhabit the world.

Neither titles nor names are governed by the strict stylization rules of an academy or a record company.

Historically there has been a significant difference in the typographical use of capital letters in Spanish and English.

In Spanish, the first letter of song titles is capitalized, but the rest are lowercase.

But, in English, the first letter of every word is capitalized, especially all nominatives, adjectives, and verbs.

A practice that apparently comes from the first version of the US Constitution.

That is to say, where

write

in Spanish they use

In Spain, the Anglo-Saxon style has sometimes been copied, as in

by Los Planetas.

However, it is visually exaggerated and artificial.

The rules and conventions of writing names and titles have almost always been followed in the music industry.

Whether it was in the physical versions of albums (CDs and vinyls or in its digital version.

The cover of /\/\ /\ Y /\ by MIA

However, in the context of

platforms, those rules no longer apply

They exist, but they no longer dominate the digital title.

Precedents can be found in illegal download programs, such as Soulseek, where users write as they please, or even in legal platforms such as iTunes, where each person can modify the content of a disc: add and delete songs, but also Title them whatever you want, but it's more appropriate to stop at the platforms that allow artists to upload their own music, because they have changed the way artists present their songs to the world.

Rappers like Travis Scott have made themselves known by uploading

to Soundcloud, a

which, unlike Spotify, has the option of being able to upload songs directly, without the need for external distributors.

There, the usual capitalization conventions no longer had any relevance, because they were works created at home in an

without the help of record companies or professionals.

Francisco Nixon, musician and content editor for Deezer, a French-owned

platform , associates the use of capital letters specifically “with the subculture of hip hop and

.

CDs

, Photoshop crappy typography and all.

Its current use I think means an ascription to that subculture.

That amateur character, detached from any formal convention and any expectation because often the artist himself does not know if his work is going to generate an audience, is also reflected in the writing of titles, often done in a hurry, without attention to grammar, to spelling or aesthetics because what counts is immediacy.

The more spontaneous, the more authentic.

However, what was once a spontaneous practice of artists has become an industry standard, a

strategy that allows musicians to expose their personality to the market.

Artists like the aforementioned Rosalía (or ROSALÍA on Spotify) and Beyoncé, or Bad Bunny and Lil Nas X, present the titles of their songs in capital letters

while others like Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo, FKA twigs or , in Spain, Alba Reche or daniel sabater (so written) opt for lowercase.

Sometimes these same artists use capital letters to title their albums but lowercase to nominate the songs contained on those albums (Billie Eilish's debut is an example).

Others choose both options at the same time, like Belén Aguilera.

on your drive

each track written with a high case is followed by another written with a low case.

And British rapper Slowthai splits his double album

into two halves, the first of which features titles in uppercase, the second in lowercase.

The first represents, in his words, the “mask” that he puts on in front of others, while the second denotes his “true self”.

What does Rosalía say that using lowercase does not go with her.

Some artists choose an even more experimental method.

All the songs on

by Kendrick Lamar, are titled in capital letters with a period at the end, as a sentence.

However, others by J. Cole or Willow (daughter of Will Smith) are not only written entirely in lowercase but also with spaced letters, such as

or

a method that seems to convey the idea that something extremely transcendent is being told that is not it fits inside a song… much less inside its title (special mention deserves the use of emojis by groups like Axolotes Mexicanos or even Coldplay on their latest album).

The conclusion to which this phenomenon invites us to think is that uppercase and lowercase letters have become one more method of expression for artists, such as lyrics, melodies or graphic art.

These are artists who have grown up with the Internet and with the habit of sending and receiving text messages via mobile phones or computers, for whom playing with forms of writing has been habitual or even natural (the Madrid singer and producer Rusowski It

has themes titled

or

that they seem to be taken from a WhatsApp conversation).

It is also no coincidence that artists who are presumed to be more "extroverted", flashy or explosive such as Rosalía or Lil Nas X use capital letters to make themselves noticed (the effect of the titles of

or

it's almost histrionic), while others like girl in red or mori, who create more introspective music, opt for lower case to create an intimate setting, a space where you can listen carefully to all their secrets.

All of them are sending a clear message of what they want to convey with their art, and how they want the public to perceive them.

The type of writing allows them to do so.

André Gianzo, graphic designer and art director, believes that “on Spotify, where most of the lyrics are written in low case, using high case can be a way to attract attention, to break with the established.

Historically, the capital letter means to shout, to bother”, so the use of lower case means the exact opposite.

Nevertheless,

There are interesting precedents for this phenomenon that go beyond rap mixtapes published on platforms like Soundcloud.

In 2010, MIA released the album Maya, whose title is actually written with forward slashes,

and which can only exist thanks to a modern keyboard (interestingly, one of the tracks on the album it's called

the name given in English to the capital key).

Long before, Japanese pop artists such as Capsule or Ayumi Hamasaki were already messing around with uppercase and lowercase letters in the titles of the songs contained in their albums.

A purely aesthetic practice that denoted a desire to play with the norm or even transgress it.

Nowadays it is common for Japanese or Korean artists to alternate different alphabets in their song titles.

This is the case of Utada Hikaru and her 2021 single,

Further back in time emerges the precedent of ee cummings, a poet from the 1940s who wrote in lowercase (although not exclusively) for reasons of poetic expression.

Exactly the same ones that can be wielded by today's musicians who are also associated with a poetic ability such as Taylor Swift, who, in her recent

stage , has titled all of his compositions in lower case, presumably with the intention of projecting an intimate and collected character.

Even more curious is the case of music called

(lowercase music), a type of extremely minimalist ambient music composed of practically imperceptible sounds and noises that are amplified in the recording.

One of its inventors, Steve Roden, who released a record featuring the different ways he manipulated sheets of paper, has stated that

music “carries a certain sense of calm and humility, it doesn't demand attention, it has to be discovered. .

It's the complete opposite of capital letters, which are loud and draw attention to themselves."

A good summary of what the strategic use of upper and lower case means today in the world of pop music.

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