- Pop songs share many key features with children’s nursery rhymes
- Catchy songs often have fast tempos and common melody patterns
- Many of the tunes also tend to have unusual intervals or repeated riffs
- ‘Earworms’ tap into a key component of how our memories work
- Top catchy tunes include ‘Bad Romance’ by Lady Gaga, ‘Can’t Get You Out Of My Head’ by Kylie Minogue and ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ by Journey
Richard Gray
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Harry Pettit For Mailonline
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They are the irritating tunes that get stuck inside our heads on an endless loop for hours or even days.
But now researchers have discovered what may allow these songs to wiggle their way into our consciousness.
Researchers from Goldsmiths University of London have found pop songs that repeat in our minds continuously – known as earworms – share many key features with children’s nursery rhymes, which are designed to be easy to remember.
Researchers have found pop songs by the likes of Lady Gaga (pictured) that repeat in our minds continuously – known as earworms – share many key features with children’s nursery rhymes, which are designed to be easy to remember
THE CATCHIEST POP SONGS
1. Bad Romance – Lady Gaga
2. Can’t Get You Out Of My Head – Kylie Minogue
3. Don’t Stop Believing – Journey
4. Somebody That I Used To Know – Gotye
5. Moves Like Jagger – Maroon 5
6. California Gurls – Katy Perry
7. Bohemian Rhapsody – Queen
8. Alejandro – Lady Gaga
9. Poker Face – Lady Gaga
10. A tie between Single Ladies by Beyonce and Rolling in the Deep by Adele
Catchy songs like Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance and Move Like Jagger by Maroon 5, which are among the most common earworms, have fast tempos and common melody patterns.
Move Like Jagger, for example, has a basic rise and fall in pitch as the lyrics are sung – something that is also seen in nursery songs like Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.
This simple pattern makes them easy for young children to remember the lyrics and the tune.
These catchy songs also tend to have unusual intervals or repeated riffs, which also makes them more likely to get stuck in our heads.
‘Music is one of the true cultural universals. It can be found in ever known culture as something that we share as humans,’ lead author Dr Kelly Jakubowski told the MailOnline.
‘Music taps into a lot of primitive areas in our brain, including the “reward system”, which is also activated by other highly pleasurable activities such as eating chocolate or having sex.’
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‘Don’t Stop Believing’ by Journey (left) was listed as the third choice for test subjects, while ‘Somebody That I Used To Know’ by Gotye (right) managed a respectable fourth
The findings could be used to help predict which songs are going to get stuck in listeners heads and so help listeners avoid songs that may then be hard to dislodge.
But it could also aid songwriters and advertisers to produce tunes that will be difficult to forget.
The simple nature of many pop songs that become earworms appears to tap into a key component of how our memories work.
The study, which is published in the journal Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts, asked 3,000 people to name the songs that most often plagued them as earworms.
They then compared these to songs that had never been named as earworms but had ranked equally in terms of popularity in the charts.
‘Moves Like Jagger’ by Maroon 5 (pictured) took fifth spot. Unexpected changes in the melody like in instrumental interlude of My Sharona by the Knack and In The Mood by Glen Miller were also particularly prevalent in earworms
Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance came out as the most often encountered earworm followed by Can’t Get You Out Of My Head by Kylie Minogue and then Don’t Stop Believing by Journey.
Dr Jakubowki and her colleagues found that the chorus of Bad Romance and the opening riff of Smoke On the Water by Deep Purple employ repetitions that can make them particularly prone to getting stuck in the mind.
Unexpected changes in the melody like in instrumental interlude of My Sharona by the Knack and In The Mood by Glen Miller were also particularly prevalent in earworms.
‘California Gurls’ by Katy Perry (left) got sixth, and Queen’s (right) Bohemian Rhapsody managed a respectable seventh.
Dr Jakubowki said actively listening to the song bothering you, such as one by Justin Bieber, can also help while listening to something else can also dislodge it
Dr Jakubowki said: ‘Our findings show that you can, to some extent, predict which songs are going to get stuck in people’s heads based on the song’s melodic content.
‘This could help aspiring song-writers or advertisers write a jingle everyone will remember for days or months afterwards.’
For those struggling to get a particular tune out of their head, Dr Jakubowki also has some tips to get rid of an earworm.
Other research has suggested that chewing gum, trying to solve tricky anagrams or reading a good novel can displace the annoying tune from your memory.
Dr Jakubowki said actively listening to the song bothering you can also help while listening to something else can also dislodge it.
She said: ‘Seeking out a recording and listening to it all the way through may help to gain “closure”.
‘Distracting with another song or auditory material, such as talk radio can also work. The top song used in our study for distracting from earworms was God Save the Queen.
‘Sometimes though, letting it fade away on its own is the only way to get rid of an earworm.’
Most frequently named earworms in study:
‘Bad Romance’ by Lady Gaga (left) was listed as the catchiest ever song, with her tunes Alejandro and Poker Face also bagging eighth and ninth. Kylie’s Minogue’s (right) ‘Can’t Get You Out of my Head’ took second.
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