(Credits: Far Out / Nicholas Jeffries / Carlos Coronado)
“No, never heard it,” says your friend, who shrugs off a song suggestion like it’s second nature. All you need to do is play about three seconds of the chorus for them to sit up in their chair and go, “Oh, this one?” That’s the power of the catchy chorus, an element of music that can be as binding as it is annoying. The Beatles, AC/DC and Kiss have all contributed to the plethora of catchy choruses available within classic rock, but what song is the most recognisable?
Arguably, music wouldn’t be as dominating an art form in the modern world were it not for the chorus. There is a lot of music, which is a solo experience, something you put on in your earphones and enjoy in isolation. However, the big shows, the festivals and the stadium crowds are held in such high regard not only because of the fact they’re fun but also because of how oddly connective it is singing the same words to the same song with a bunch of strangers. The chorus makes this incredibly easy to do, as after only a few listens, a track can become engrained in our memory.
It’s still unclear what makes a chorus catchy. There are some tracks you could hear once, not listen to again for years, but then instantly recognise the minute it is played. Then, there are others that you can listen to on multiple occasions but will still need a reminder as to what you’re hearing. Why? Science wants to understand, but before it can, it needs to know what some of the catchiest choruses are so it can see what they have in common.
The Museum of Science and Industry recently did a study in Manchester where users would head to a website to play various games that helped scientists better understand what songs are the catchiest. One of those games involved naming a song as quickly as possible after just hearing the beginning of the chorus.
“I work within a group that studies music cognition in general – any way in which the brain processes music – and we were particularly interested in music and memory and why exactly it is that certain pieces of music stay in your memory for such a long time,” said Dr Ashley Burgoyne discussing the experiment.
He continued, “There has already been some research that shows that if you can find the right piece of music, something that had a very strong meaning, playing that piece of music can be very therapeutic. But the challenge is figuring out what is the best piece of music.”
The results came back, and given that such a massive element of pop music is recognisability and accessibility, it isn’t a surprise that many big pop hits were quickly picked up. It turns out the song with the catchiest chorus overall was ‘Wannabe,’ by the Spice Girls, while the likes of ‘Mambo No 5,’ ‘Just Dance,’ and ‘Beat It’ also made the cut.
When it came to classic rock, the choices were slightly more sparse. However, the track that was revealed to be the most recognisable to those who were taking part in the experiment was ‘You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet,’ by Bachman-Turner Overdrive. It’s not much of a surprise, as the song has a chorus that has been filling lungs and dance floors for years now.
Now that there is an understanding of some of the catchiest songs, the next step can be trying to link them and better understand the qualities that make them catchy. Until then, though, we can only keep listening while science runs its tests and garners results. It does feel like we have only just scratched the surface of what links music and memory, and realistically, we ain’t seen nothing yet.
