The University of Amsterdam partnered with Manchester's Museum of Science and Industry to conduct a year long experiment in how people identify pop songs
Saturday, November 08, 2014
This Is The Most Recognizable Pop Song Ever
The University of Amsterdam partnered with Manchester's Museum of Science and Industry to conduct a year long experiment in how people identify pop songs
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Before reading the full article I was expecting something that was a bit more scientific in explanation and less based on the quality of the music. It does make sense however as a person you will remember the repetitive noise more so then the unique and individualistic ones. Not saying I am a huge fan of any of the songs on the list I will say a lot of them are just really radio popular songs and may be easily identified because of how frequently they are played. I guess them being repetitive and catchy would be a good reason for them to be played so frequently and become really popular. I was hoping for more out of this article and am a little disappointed but at the end of the day I would have been able to identify all these songs just by hearing them too.
It doesn't surprise me that the popular songs are the ones that people remember the most even though they are not that good at all. The are designed to be catchy and capture the audience's attention at all costs. I wonder how many songs the study chose to include, because there are millions. The song recognition game that was imbedded within the article is boring and not well put together. You listen to a song, when you recognize it you click a button. The song resumes after four seconds and you need to identify if the song was in the correct spot. When I see the song tittle, Wannable, I can't put the song into context, but when I hear it I completely understand why its so recognizable.
It doesn't surprise me that the popular songs are the ones that people remember the most even though they are not that good at all. The are designed to be catchy and capture the audience's attention at all costs. I wonder how many songs the study chose to include, because there are millions. The song recognition game that was imbedded within the article is boring and not well put together. You listen to a song, when you recognize it you click a button. The song resumes after four seconds and you need to identify if the song was in the correct spot. When I see the song tittle, Wannable, I can't put the song into context, but when I hear it I completely understand why its so recognizable.
As easy as it was to pick out each of the songs, I don't exactly thing that this proves anything. A popular song-good or not- will be picked out over an unpopular song in any case. That's not science, that's logic. The list of songs that they came up with are generally recognizable songs- but that doesn't mean they are the MOST recognizable. There were no tests done or anything, this was all based on opinion. As interesting as it is, It still fails to impress me.
A lot of the songs on the list I knew immediately, a few of them I had to look up but once I heard them I knew them. Of course repetitive songs are going to be the most recognizable, especially when they are played on the radio multiple times. Because they are repetitive, their easy to remember and people tend to want to sing along because they can grasp the lyrics and melody easily. Also, a lot of these songs are used in movies. For example, Eye of the Tiger is used in many movies in scenes that have to do with motivation, working out, rising up! And so when people joke about having motivational music playing in the background while running, boxing, doing homework, gaining courage to speak up, they play Eye of the Tiger to make a pop culture reference. I am actually surprised that 'We are the Champions' isn't on this list!
Firstly, I would like to point out the fact that this is a terribly and inaccurately generalized experiment. The survey was conducted as an online game on a website that only a select type of person would visit. Sounds like a very specific demographic to me, and is therefore not at all justified find the most recognizable pop song EVER. That is a grossly huge overstatement. Additionally, because the survey was given as a game, those who create the game must have had to select the pool of pop songs to choose from. Therefore, it is highly likely that there were extremely recognizable pop songs that were not even presented as an option. While this survey's results are still interesting to examine, in no way can they be proven to represent "the most recognizable pop song ever."
I would have loved to have gotten more information on the experiment. How did they choose which songs they used? Did they just go down the top ten list? If so, what years were covered? Why choose pop songs rather than a different genre? Given the setup, why did this experiment take a year, when you could do a similar experiment using the internet in about a week or so. I'm also confused why we needed to do an experiment to find out that distinctive, repetitive songs are easier to recognize, as it seems fairly straightforward. On the other hand, I wonder if you could somehow apply this research to figuring out why we get songs stuck in our heads.
I think this is a really interesting study to do in terms of how people recognize music. This can also be extrapolated into answering the question of, what is catchy, when you compare the most easily recognized songs. That being said however, i was curious about how the study was conducted so i played their little game thing online and i found it to be less than effective. I assumed before i started that they were going to play a song and then i would have to click something as soon as i recognized the song, and then identify it. Instead after clicking saying that you recognized it, it went off for 4 seconds then came back on and you had to identify if it was in the correct spot. There were several large issues with this. First,, you could easily recognize a song without knowing all the lyrics, second, instrumental songs were quite difficult, and third, i often knew the song but im not very musical so my timing was off.
This is so interesting! I wonder what the scientific analysis entailed, and how they identified different things about the songs deemed "most recognizable". I think that beyond the catchy qualities of the songs listed, the songs have to have been popularized at some point because most songs that are easily recognized are played often on the radio or otherwise. Though I don't know all of the songs by name, I definitely know the tunes and some, if not all, of the words.
This list doesn't surprise me at all. People are forgetful and so repetition helps thing stick always,whether we like it or not. According to Adnoro, he views this kind of music as what is destroying our society because it is mindless. This kind of music was created for nothing more than an escape from our dull jobs that tire us out so much. This kind of mindless music helps us unwind and reset so we can go back to these jobs day after day and be productive to the controlling capitalist industry who puts out this music. This kind of music has no deeper meaning and was created through standardization of what the industry thinks we the people want in combination of what they have trained us to want all to turn a profit and make them richer.
The part I was most interested in this article is when it talks about why these songs are so popular. It speaks to the fact that the songs are repetitious. The secret formula the author is referring to is something known as "stomp & swerve". The stomp is the drive of the song, what brings you in and sets you up for the rest. It dates back to the times of John Phillip Sousa and the rise of the march band. Represented in the songs on this list by a heavy kick drum or a strong synth bass-line, it sets a steady foundation for the entire song. Swerve, is what sets the song apart from the rest. It's the extra oomph that gives the song something almost sharp, yet sharp enough to stick in your ear. Examples here are: The heavy first down beat on the guitar strum on Eye of the Tiger. The triplet on just before the fourth beat of the synth line in Mambo No. 5. It's the meeting of these two musical components that bring the song to live and make it exciting and hot. The constant drive of Roy Orbison's kick drum interrupted by a wavering and faltering guitar riff. Micheal Jackson's guitar arpeggio rises at a constant beat and is punctuated by a sudden drop in key and downward tone. Most impressive is Whitney Houston use of the formula. The stomp is not there, but the listener can feel it. It's Houston's silky, flowing waves of vocal harmony that rebel and break the rules of a beat that isn't even there. It's in 4/4 time, but there's no tempo, just rebellion. So in truth, it's the song's use of the stomp & swerve formula that made them great to begin with, it's what made them popular and so easily recognizable. The great thing about this phenomenon though, is that the meaning of the words don't really affect the success of it, which explains why some of these songs became popular, but are not recognized as the "best" songs of all time.
I never really thought about what made a song recognizable. After taking the test and listening to the songs on the list i determined popularity isn't really the main factor, the main factor is the sound, the songs each have a very distinct sound then most other music out there. It is pretty interesting how quickly we can identify music, however, i think there are probably better ways to test song recognition then the way they did on the website.
How dare they call The Human League's "Don't You Want Me" not great?!
And so one sees the flaws in this thought provoking, but poorly executed experiment. Music taste is a widely variable thing, maybe one of the most unique aspects to any person. So what might be recognizable to me, might not necessarily be easily identifiable to the person next to me. I have to admit, I did not know quite a few of the songs that were played. Also, from a scientific standpoint, what does being able to match up to the song after "recognizing it" prove? What if your rhythm is off? What if you know the song, but get the lyrics wrong? There are just too many variable with this to make any findings valid or credible.
First off, the game that was included in this article was pretty fun. Testing my knowledge of music is definitely fun and realizing that there's songs that I didn't even know that I knew was incredibly fun.
Secondly, the fact that it's the "annoying" songs that are the most recognizable is surprisingly accurate. I always find myself humming songs that I hate. I guess next time I want to be a one hit sensation I'll just have to write the most annoying song possible.
I suppose this isn't really surprising. I think people are forgetting that "Most Recognizable Pop Song Ever" != "Best Pop Song Ever." That's why you can listen to songs that are catchy or stay in your head, but still dislike them. That being said, I suppose creating catchy music is just as valid an avenue to selling records as creating "good" music. Granted, the songs in the top ten are not entirely cringeworthy, which I assume implies that catchiness and goodness are not mutually exclusive categories. I think you need to have a bit of both in order for songs to truly take off. Excuse me while I go listen to hyper repetitive synth for the next two hours.
I actually just listened to a radio commentary on this experiment a few days ago. My response was very ambivalent. On one hand I was quite surprised at the range of songs that people recognized. They are all pretty evenly form different generations but were all recognized the best by people of 2014. On the other hand, I am not surprised. These are songs people have heard over and over again between the radio, tv, and other people. I would be interested in seeing which are the most recognizable pop songs of 2000-2014. I wonder if Lady Gaga's Just Dance would still be on the list or if it would move to No1.
My question after reading this article is "What was it that made these songs so popular?" I mean I was around for when the Spice Girls and Mambo No. 5 were the biggest things to come out in the 90's, but all the other songs? Were they attached to popular movies? I also thought that there would be more of an explanation as to how these songs made this list. I wonder if the popularity of certain songs is either a help or a hinderance for a sound designer. I also wonder, since these songs are so popular and recognizable, what copyright hoops you would have to jump through (or not jump through?) in order to use them in a production or a film. And if you did, would you be able to use it in a way where it would just make a cameo?
It's a funny idea that the most recognizable songs are annoying. When I think about it, that is true for many of the most recognizable things around us. The garishness of a loud voice, bring logo or sign, or jingle makes it stick out from its surroundings and, as such, stick out in our minds. I read an article the other day, it may have been on here, that talked about repetition and its importance in modern songs. We like songs that repeat more. One reason we might like these songs is because they are more recognizable.
This article made me think a little. I, like Rachel, am curious as to what makes these songs so much more recognizable than any other song. Like, you can start singing Eye of the Tiger, or hear it playing, and practically everyone will start humming, singing, mouthing the words, or nodding their heads. It's not like Eye of the Tiger is played all that often, but when people hear it, they immediately catch on and start singing along. Like Ben, and the article itself, said, it's not like these songs are superb or the best songs ever, they're just catchy for some reason. If someone could find a way to graph the chord progressions or other elements of these songs and compare them to other songs, I wonder what they would find, if anything.
As a lot of others have said these aren't necessarily the greatest, but definitely some of the most catchy and memorable ones that people get stuck in their head, so that's not surprising. That being said, like Sarah, I was expecting something more substantial from this article or at least more text. I'm guessing that the author went off a lot of the songs they heard and what the majority of people remember, which I guess makes sense, out of millions of songs.
I think that looking into what creates a commercially successful song is absolutely fascinating, after all we are all kinda here to do that with one form of art or another. A common theme I noticed across that list (keeping in mind I do not know all of the songs on that list) was that a decent amount of those songs are very simple melodically. Changing just one note in the main riff of 'Pretty Woman' would yield a significantly different riff, while if you changed one note in in a Tchaikovsky symphony it wouldn't be noticed by even a decent amount of classical musicians. Now I am not demeaning any of these songs for having a simple musical composition, but it is a fairly interesting trend.
Looking at the list of top ten songs that were there, I recognized most of the, and with seeing the ones I recognized, it took just a split second to get the lyrics and beat to pop into my head. Some songs just have the catchy feel to them, others not so much. It’s amazing how songs differ. It’s almost like learning your role. Sometimes you struggle with the language, other times it just rolls off the tongue like it was first nature. Everyone knows Bohemian Rhapsody, you can be almost anywhere in the song when it comes on and start singing along. For me, sometimes even the most popular song might be just foreign to me, I just might not enjoy listening to it, but music taste is to each his own as pizza is to everybody. You got to love pizza, but whoever it doesn’t love music is just plain on weird.
Alright, so this is a cool concept, but I really would rather see a little more scientific analysis rather than just the correlative data. I think I can make some assumptions based on the simplicity of the music, the repetition, and the popularity of the song. I clicked on the link provided and did the challenge myself, and found that the recognition was much easier than knowing whether the song was in the right place after four seconds. I see that they were trying to test how "well" we know the song we say we recognize, but I think that if they're going to test for each of these things, it should be tested separately. It's far too easy to hear the first note or two of a song, say you recognize it (because you do, and correctly), but not remember it clearly enough to match up the exact lyrics within the timing. If these elements were separated, I think the results would be far more accurate.
This experiment, while interesting, seems like a no-brainer to me. Songs with extremely distinctive, even annoying, melodies and rhythms are always going to be easier to recognize than generic songs. This is always true, not just in music. For example, in a group of strangers, you are more likely to notice the stranger you have seen before with the nose ring and blue hair then the one you have seen in khakis and a sweater.
Just because a song i recognizable does'nt mean that the song isn't great! I have listened to "I Will Always Love" plenty of times and it is recognizable to me because it is such a wonderful song! sonngs that have strong impacts in our lives are the ones that usually stick in our heads. Just because the author of this article dislikes a few of these songs does'nt make this list of most recognizable songs a bad list at all. Songs that change a culture are usually well written and thought out. They have a catchy tune and memorable lyrics. Thats what makes a song good.
I agree COMPLETELY with Mr. Strange. I recognize a great deal of those songs immediately, but not because the are annoying or less wanted but rather because I enjoy them. For example "I don't want to miss a thing" is one of the most beautiful songs that I know. Like wise "I Will Always Love You" strikes my heart constantly. Though I will agree to the fact that the repetitive nature of the songs certainly has part in their recognizable nature I can not say with good conscious that they are any lesser of songs or even annoying for that matter. But what I will say is it is very interesting to know how recognizable songs can be to so many various people.
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