Analysis of the data from the Official UK Charts Company also showed 12.6% of 2011 hits had lyrics about heavy drinking, with 3% containing references to specific brands of alcohol.

Nowadays the average UK adult sinks 10.11 litres of pure alcohol per year, ranking 25th highest in a world's league table. That equates to around 505 pints of lager or 112 bottles of wine.

For reference, a typical-strength medium (175ml) glass of wine has around 2.3 units of alcohol, a pint of 4.6% ABV lager has 2.6 units in it, and a single (25ml) gin and tonic contains 1 unit of ...