As you probably know, we love a good chart and anything body part-related. Now, thanks to data visualization artists Fernando Viégas and Martin Wattenberg’s Fleshmap, we get the best of both worlds. They listened to over 10,000 songs to create their visual compendium of odes to visible body parts (this makes the inner organs obsolete — so if you were hoping to find out how often heavy metal bands reference the brain, you’re out of luck) in 10 different music genres.
We break down their findings after the jump.
In all but three genres (hip hop, blues, and gospel) the eye is the most popular body part to sing about, while hands are a close second. We were surprised to learn that alternative music doesn’t mention body parts very often — in fact, you’ll find the ass referenced in less than 2% of songs.
Which brings us to hip-hop, the genre which references the most body parts (47 total), and features “ass” in a whopping 23.64% of songs (booty and butt were cited separately, for those of you thinking the percentage is low). We also learned that hip-hop artists enjoy varying the vocabulary used to reference both gender’s genitals, and that toenails are mentioned in 0.09% of the songs.
While examining this chart, we couldn’t help but think of our favorite body-centric tracks.
Now tell us: What are your favorite body-part songs? More importantly, can you name a hip-hop song about toenails? [via Boing Boing]