Cracked And Catchy

Here's something interesting from Cracked.com:

Which Is the Catchiest Song?

Nothing in the world is as subjective as music. Everyone reading this has, at some point in their life, shared a life-changing song with a friend who said, "Eh, I wish it had more drums." Besides, if record companies could rely on math to tell them what's going to be a hit, the music industry would be easy. Well, guys, we have good news ...

London researchers started by observing thousands of volunteers singing along to various songs and took careful note of which ones produced the most uncontrollable enthusiasm from the participants. Once they had their sample, they started breaking the tracks down into their core elements. So, you want a hit? You need detailed musical phrases, a lot of pitch changes, and a male voice with a high vocal range. If you have a good, shouty rock ballad with a simple, memorable hook, then you've got yourself a catchy song. For example, the top match in their experiment was Queen's "We Are the Champions":

With this simple power ballad, Freddie Mercury unleashed the perfect storm of elements that make it impossible not to sing along if you hear it playing. The simple hook embellished by Mercury's ability to switch from baritone to punch-in-the-nuts pitch and everywhere in between is the code to a complete brain hijacking.

The same can be said about "Livin' on a Prayer" by Bon Jovi, which also scored high on the list of both catchy songs and big-haired '80s bands:

According to the researchers, a song is more addictive if the vocalist manages to spit out more words before needing to take a breath, like "She says we gotta hooooold ooooooonnnn to what we've got (breathe) 'cause it doesn't make a difference if we make it or not!" Combine that with Jon Bon Jovi's powerful, high-pitched yelling in the chorus, and you have crack for the ears.

Oddly, it was reported that a key requirement of catchiness is that the singer has to be male. The researchers speculate that we're tapping into some inherent psychological intuition to follow male tribal leaders into battle. Which of course is ridiculous, because who would follow Freddie Mercury into battle? Actually, scratch that. That would be goddamn amazing.

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