Which alcohol brands are mentioned the most in popular music?

It seems you can’t put the radio on these days without the mention of artists popping bottles of Cristal, the drink often used as a shorthand to success. Although it may seem the high-end Champagne has swamped popular music in the past decade, a study by Boston University School of Public Health and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health reveals the popular drink isn’t even in the top four alcohol brands mentioned in successful singles.

The study, which “aimed to assess the prevalence and context of alcohol brand references in popular music” took Billboard’s year-end charts from 2009 to 2011 – spanning the genres urban, pop, country, and rock – and studied how prevalent alcohol references were. Of the 720 songs, 166 (23%)  included an alcohol mention, with 46 of these (6.4%) mentioning a specific brand.

Jack Daniel’s whiskey was the most mentioned brand, followed by Hennessy cognac, Grey Goose vodka, and Patron tequila. The four made up more than half of the brand mentions.

And while alcohol remains a massive social problem, the report reveals that, not surprisingly: “The context associated with alcohol brand mentions was almost uniformly positive or neutral. Public health efforts may be necessary to reduce youth exposure to these positive messages about alcohol use.”

This may be more a sign of the celebratory club-ready music that usually permeates the end-of-year charts, than any new movement celebrating alcohol. Ruminations on ruined lives, substance abuse problems, and life-changing mistakes don’t tend to go down too well in the clubs. With the report not factoring in the EDM explosion of 2012-2013, it will be interesting to see how quickly the shift has moved, statistically speaking, towards other intoxicants dominating otherwise radio-friendly tracks.