Music is something basic for a human being and scientists have something to say about it. For example, there are scientific studies that would answer questions such as why we remember some songs, or which songs are the catchiest and even the worst song of the world can be defined in some way. Moreover, they can identify which songs provide the maximum amount of joy to the listeners. Needless to say, some research has recently catalogued the most jingle-worthy rock chorus.
In order to find an answer, the researchers explored the most popular songs and their common attributes. A project run by the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester asked participants to take part in several existing online games which were aimed at scientists, to help determine which tunes were the catchiest. One such game involved making players listen to the initial few seconds of a song’s chorus and then shouting out the title as fast as possible.
Dr. Ashley Burgoyne, who belongs to a group that examines the ways people understand music, where both the performance and listening take, tells her attitude towards this experiment.
“Of course, I belong to a group that studies musical cognition as a whole…In other words, we were trying to figure out the reasons behind selective attention in music. Why does a certain piece of music stay in our head for a longer time than others? Some studies show that once you are exposed to a particular music that is very evocative and you like it, listening to it can be help to a person. The catch however, is picking the perfect pieces.”
Pop songs seemed to be the most predominant with a number of them getting to the top of the cake and ‘Wannabe’ by Spice Girls topping the list as the most catchy. However in the rock genre, the song with the most singable chorus is the one called “You ain’t seen nothing yet” from the Canadian hard rock band Bachman-Turner Overdrive formed by Randy as recently as 1972.