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Chart words: what language hits are sung in, and what they are about, in six countries

We analysed the Shazam top 100 in Russia, Kazakhstan, the US, the UK, Germany and Brazil: which language the hits are sung in, what they are about and how much they repeat.

· UpSound Research

Key findings

  1. Germany’s Shazam top 100 has 13 songs with Cyrillic titles. Among songs with lyrics found, 7 are sung in Russian and 8 in German.
  2. Love is universal: it comes up in 40% to 54% of songs in every one of the six countries. Money peaks at 12%.
  3. Russia’s Shazam chart splits down the middle: 48 songs have Cyrillic titles and 49 Latin ones; among songs with lyrics found, Russian and English are tied at 33 each.
  4. Open lyrics databases know Russian hits less well: lyrics were found for 65% of Cyrillic-titled songs in Russia’s chart versus 88% of the rest.

Every week Shazam publishes the songs people identify most in each country. We took the top 100 for 20–26 October 2026 in six countries — Russia, Kazakhstan, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and Brazil — found the lyrics in an open database and counted which language the hits are sung in, what they are about and how much they repeat themselves.

We never publish lyrics, only numbers about words and themes. Every figure in this article is computed by code, and the tables are downloadable under each chart.

Which language the hits are sung in

We only know a song’s language if its lyrics were found, and not every song has lyrics available. So the share of a language in a chart is a range: the low end counts songs whose language we confirmed, the high end assumes every song without lyrics is in that language.

The US and UK charts are almost entirely English. In Germany, German-language songs make up 8% to 22% of the top; in Brazil, Portuguese makes up 19% to 35%. The rest is mostly English.

Russia’s chart splits down the middle. 48 songs have Cyrillic titles and 49 Latin ones, and among songs with lyrics found, Russian and English are tied at 33 each. Counting songs without lyrics, Russian makes up 34% to 57% of the top — and so does English.

Spanish shows up too: the week’s number one in both the US and Germany is a Spanish-language song, “BbY WOW” by KAROL G, Judeline & rusowsky.

How many hits are sung in the country’s own language

Share of top-100 songs in the local language. The solid part is songs whose lyrics were found and language detected. The hatched part is songs without lyrics: we can’t tell how many of them are in the local language, so the share is a range. For Kazakhstan the local language is Kazakh; Russian is counted separately.

  • United Kingdom92–96%English
  • United States90–95%English
  • Russia34–57%Russian
  • Brazil19–35%Portuguese
  • Kazakhstan10–46%Kazakh
  • Germany8–22%German
Source: Shazam Top 200 (CSV), LRCLIB · analysis by UpSound ResearchDownload data (CSV)
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<iframe src="https://blog.upsound.ai/embed/en/chart-words-2026-10/local-language/" title="How many hits are sung in the country’s own language" width="100%" height="560" style="border:0" loading="lazy"></iframe>
Data table
CountryLocal languageSongs in topConfirmed localNo lyricsShare: fromShare: to
RussiaRussian97332234%57%
KazakhstanKazakh99103610%46%
United StatesEnglish9888590%95%
United KingdomEnglish9890492%96%
GermanyGerman998148%22%
BrazilPortuguese98191519%35%

Share of English-language songs

Share of top-100 songs in English, as a range like the chart above. A song’s language is detected from its words, not from the artist’s country.

  • United Kingdom92–96%
  • United States90–95%
  • Germany62–76%
  • Brazil61–77%
  • Russia34–57%
  • Kazakhstan22–59%
Source: Shazam Top 200 (CSV), LRCLIB · analysis by UpSound ResearchDownload data (CSV)
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<iframe src="https://blog.upsound.ai/embed/en/chart-words-2026-10/english-share/" title="Share of English-language songs" width="100%" height="560" style="border:0" loading="lazy"></iframe>
Data table
CountryConfirmed EnglishNo lyricsShare: fromShare: to
Russia332234%57%
Kazakhstan223622%59%
United States88590%95%
United Kingdom90492%96%
Germany611462%76%
Brazil601561%77%

Russian songs abroad

The most surprising line comes from Germany. Its Shazam top 100 includes 13 songs with Cyrillic titles — a count taken straight from the chart, no lyrics required. Among songs whose lyrics we found, 7 are sung in Russian and 8 in German.

One of them is Tatiana Bulanova’s “Ледяное сердце” (“Icy Heart”), which charts in Russia and Kazakhstan as well. Germany’s Shazam chart seems to reflect not only German listeners but also the country’s large Russian-speaking community.

Songs with Cyrillic titles in the top 100

How many top-100 songs have a Cyrillic title — counted from the chart itself, no lyrics needed. In Kazakhstan, Cyrillic covers both Kazakh and Russian.

  • Russia48 of 97
  • Kazakhstan46 of 99
  • Germany13 of 99
  • Brazil1 of 98
  • United States0 of 98
  • United Kingdom0 of 98
Source: Shazam Top 200 (CSV), LRCLIB · analysis by UpSound ResearchDownload data (CSV)
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<iframe src="https://blog.upsound.ai/embed/en/chart-words-2026-10/cyrillic-titles/" title="Songs with Cyrillic titles in the top 100" width="100%" height="560" style="border:0" loading="lazy"></iframe>
Data table
CountrySongs in topCyrillic titlesOf them with lyrics found
Russia974831
Kazakhstan994626
United States9800
United Kingdom9800
Germany99137
Brazil9811

Fall into the chart

Scroll down: the story moves from Russia’s whole chart to a single song, and from that song to a theme that runs through all six countries.

#5

Ледяное сердце

Tatiana Bulanova

  • любить
  • растопить
  • сильно
  • сердце
  • душа
  • лед
  • клясться
  • оживить

love

  • Brazil54%
  • Russia51%
  • Germany51%
  • United States51%
  • United Kingdom47%
  • Kazakhstan40%
  1. This is this week’s Shazam chart in Russia: 97 distinct songs in the top hundred. Bright tiles are songs in Russian — 33 of them. Dark tiles are other languages. Empty tiles are songs whose lyrics are missing from the open database.
  2. Let’s fall into one song — number 5 in the chart: “Ледяное сердце” by Tatiana Bulanova. These are the words it uses most.
  3. The word “любить” belongs to the theme “love”. It appears in 51% of the songs in this chart — 37 of 72.
  4. And this is how often the theme “love” comes up in other countries’ charts.

What the hits are about

For each theme we collected words in every language of the charts: “love” covers love, amor, Liebe, любовь and their verb forms. A song counts towards a theme if at least one of those words appears.

The leading theme is the same everywhere. Love comes up in 40% to 54% of songs in each country; night follows at 34% to 45%.

What hits are about: 8 themes in 6 countries

Share of songs that mention the theme at least once, in any language. The words behind each theme are listed in the methodology. Hover a cell for its interval: a gap of a few points may be noise.

lovenightheartmoneydancetearsgodeyes
Russia51%43%24%7%24%11%8%24%
Kazakhstan40%38%23%8%18%7%3%27%
United States51%45%24%12%17%14%10%16%
United Kingdom47%35%24%9%18%12%9%14%
Germany51%42%22%10%16%12%4%20%
Brazil54%34%23%7%8%12%6%19%
Source: Shazam Top 200 (CSV), LRCLIB · analysis by UpSound ResearchDownload data (CSV)
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<iframe src="https://blog.upsound.ai/embed/en/chart-words-2026-10/concepts/" title="What hits are about: 8 themes in 6 countries" width="100%" height="560" style="border:0" loading="lazy"></iframe>
Data table
Countrylovenightheartmoneydancetearsgodeyes
Russia51%43%24%7%24%11%8%24%
Kazakhstan40%38%23%8%18%7%3%27%
United States51%45%24%12%17%14%10%16%
United Kingdom47%35%24%9%18%12%9%14%
Germany51%42%22%10%16%12%4%20%
Brazil54%34%23%7%8%12%6%19%

Money is rare: even where it is most common, it appears in 12% of songs (in the United States). God appears in 3% to 10%.

For most themes the gaps between countries are within the margin of error — each chart has a few dozen songs with lyrics. The honest conclusion is not “who loves more” but “love and night are sung about the same way everywhere”.

Top words

These are the words that appear in the most songs of each chart. The tag next to a word shows its language when it is not the local one.

The top words of each country’s chart

Share of songs that use the word at least once. Words are lemmatized; function words and the most common light verbs are excluded. The tag shows the word’s language when it is not the local one.

Russia

72 songs with lyrics

  1. loveEng.
  2. timeEng.
  3. nightEng.
  4. danceEng.
  5. любовь
  6. babyEng.
  7. ночь
  8. любить
  9. сердце
  10. глаз

Kazakhstan

60 songs with lyrics

  1. nightEng.
  2. loveEng.
  3. ночьRus.
  4. рукаRus.
  5. timeEng.
  6. любитьRus.
  7. любовьRus.
  8. глазRus.
  9. надоRus.
  10. мысльRus.

United States

93 songs with lyrics

  1. love
  2. good
  3. night
  4. baby
  5. time
  6. find
  7. run
  8. heart
  9. lie
  10. life

United Kingdom

91 songs with lyrics

  1. love
  2. good
  3. time
  4. baby
  5. night
  6. light
  7. heart
  8. life
  9. day
  10. leave

Germany

83 songs with lyrics

  1. loveEng.
  2. nightEng.
  3. timeEng.
  4. lifeEng.
  5. goodEng.
  6. runEng.
  7. babyEng.
  8. lightEng.
  9. findEng.
  10. endEng.

Brazil

83 songs with lyrics

  1. loveEng.
  2. timeEng.
  3. goodEng.
  4. babyEng.
  5. nightEng.
  6. heartEng.
  7. dayEng.
  8. lifeEng.
  9. callEng.
  10. lightEng.
Source: Shazam Top 200 (CSV), LRCLIB · analysis by UpSound ResearchDownload data (CSV)
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<iframe src="https://blog.upsound.ai/embed/en/chart-words-2026-10/top-words/" title="The top words of each country’s chart" width="100%" height="560" style="border:0" loading="lazy"></iframe>
Data table
CountryRankWordLanguageShare of songs
Russia1loveEnglish26%
Russia2timeEnglish18%
Russia3nightEnglish18%
Russia4danceEnglish17%
Russia5любовьRussian17%
Russia6babyEnglish17%
Russia7ночьRussian17%
Russia8любитьRussian15%
Russia9сердцеRussian14%
Russia10глазRussian14%
Kazakhstan1nightEnglish18%
Kazakhstan2loveEnglish17%
Kazakhstan3ночьRussian15%
Kazakhstan4рукаRussian15%
Kazakhstan5timeEnglish15%
Kazakhstan6любитьRussian13%
Kazakhstan7любовьRussian13%
Kazakhstan8глазRussian13%
Kazakhstan9надоRussian13%
Kazakhstan10мысльRussian13%
United States1loveEnglish44%
United States2goodEnglish37%
United States3nightEnglish33%
United States4babyEnglish31%
United States5timeEnglish31%
United States6findEnglish24%
United States7runEnglish23%
United States8heartEnglish23%
United States9lieEnglish22%
United States10lifeEnglish22%
United Kingdom1loveEnglish43%
United Kingdom2goodEnglish35%
United Kingdom3timeEnglish31%
United Kingdom4babyEnglish30%
United Kingdom5nightEnglish30%
United Kingdom6lightEnglish25%
United Kingdom7heartEnglish24%
United Kingdom8lifeEnglish23%
United Kingdom9dayEnglish23%
United Kingdom10leaveEnglish21%
Germany1loveEnglish37%
Germany2nightEnglish28%
Germany3timeEnglish27%
Germany4lifeEnglish24%
Germany5goodEnglish23%
Germany6runEnglish20%
Germany7babyEnglish20%
Germany8lightEnglish19%
Germany9findEnglish18%
Germany10endEnglish18%
Brazil1loveEnglish39%
Brazil2timeEnglish29%
Brazil3goodEnglish27%
Brazil4babyEnglish25%
Brazil5nightEnglish20%
Brazil6heartEnglish18%
Brazil7dayEnglish18%
Brazil8lifeEnglish18%
Brazil9callEnglish18%
Brazil10lightEnglish18%

Length and repetition

Pooling the songs from all six charts without duplicates, the median Russian-language hit has 240 words, and the median English-language one has 312. Russian hits are shorter but repeat themselves about as much: the median Russian-language song has 33% repeated lines, the median English-language one 37%.

Where songs repeat themselves the most

Median share of repeated lines per song: how many lines of a song’s lyrics have already appeared earlier in the same song.

  • Germany39%
  • Russia39%
  • United Kingdom35%
  • Brazil35%
  • Kazakhstan33%
  • United States33%
Source: Shazam Top 200 (CSV), LRCLIB · analysis by UpSound ResearchDownload data (CSV)
Embed this chart
<iframe src="https://blog.upsound.ai/embed/en/chart-words-2026-10/repetition/" title="Where songs repeat themselves the most" width="100%" height="560" style="border:0" loading="lazy"></iframe>
Data table
CountryRepeated lines (median)Words per song (median)
Russia39%234
Kazakhstan33%228
United States33%333
United Kingdom35%290
Germany39%305
Brazil35%313

What this study does not say

  • Shazam is not streaming. The chart shows which songs people identify — new, unfamiliar, overheard. The most-streamed songs may rank lower because people already know them.
  • One week. This is a snapshot of 20–26 October 2026. We will repeat the count every month and track what changes.
  • Open lyrics databases are incomplete. Lyrics were found for 83% of songs, and coverage is worst for songs in Cyrillic: in Russia’s chart, 65% of Cyrillic-titled songs versus 88% of the rest. That is why language shares are given as ranges.
  • Kazakh is counted more roughly. There is no lemmatizer for Kazakh, so themes in Kazakh songs are matched by word stems.

Methodology

We took the first 100 rows of the weekly Shazam chart for 20–26 October 2026 in six countries, merged duplicate versions of the same song and looked up lyrics in the open LRCLIB database. Each song’s language was detected from its words. Words were lemmatized and counted once per song; function words were excluded.

How we work

Sources

For the press

You may use the numbers and charts with a link to the study. The data is available as CSV, and charts can be embedded with the code below.

How to cite

UpSound Research. Chart words: what language hits are sung in, and what they are about, in six countries. October 26, 2026. https://blog.upsound.ai/en/research/chart-words-2026-10/

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