Catchiest song of all time? A Spice Girls tune, say British scientists
Scientists say if you wanna be the pop star with the catchiest song of all time, 鈥渨hat you want, what you really really want,鈥� to have is a word "hook" that latches onto a listener鈥檚 mind super fast.
In the case of The Spice Girls鈥� hit "Wannabe," the study of 12,000 people found it takes just 2.29 seconds to recognize the song when it begins at the chorus "if you wanna be my lover鈥�"
Anyone seeking something man-made and sold to the general public which operates at that kind of speed may have to leave the world of song and hit the race track in search of an Ariel Atom 鈥� which moves just a hair slower than a Spice Girl tune. The Atom is the fastest accelerating street legal road car on the planet thanks to its ability to go from zero to sixty miles per hour in just 2.3 seconds, according to .听
Manchester's Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) published the results of a year-long聽聽of what makes a song stick in your head 鈥� the Spice Girls鈥� 鈥溾�� came in at No. 1.
Researchers used the 鈥樷�� test, which is online for continued use by the general public.
The MOSI site offers two versions of the test. It asks listeners to try to name a song randomly selected from over 1,000 best-selling tunes when it began playing from the hook 鈥� or to take a time trial to see how fast you can recognize the song from the hook.
The second most recognized song was Lou Bega鈥檚 Mambo No.5, which the average panelist recognized in 2.48 seconds. In the fastest car circuit, that would make Bega more of a Bugatti Veyron Supersport that clocks-in at 2.46 seconds for making 0-60 mph as .听
Here is full list of songs that speed to work on a listener鈥檚 memory, according to the new study. The second time listed is聽where the song's catchiest "hook," like a refrain, falls in the song.
1. Spice Girls - Wannabe - 2.29 seconds (0:45)
2. Lou Bega - Mambo No. 5 - 2.48 s (0:50)
3. Survivor - Eye of the Tiger - 2.62 s (2:04)
4. Lady Gaga - Just Dance - 2.66 s (1:39)
5. ABBA - SOS - 2.73 s (2:25)
6. Roy Orbison - Pretty Woman - 2.73 s (1:07)
7. Michael Jackson - Beat It - 2.80 s (0:38)
8. Whitney Houston - I Will Always Love You - 2.83 s (3:09)
9. The Human League - Don't You Want Me - 2.83 s (3:05)
10. Aerosmith - I Don't Want to Miss a Thing - 2.84 s (2:22)
11. Lady Gaga - Poker Face - 2.88 s (0:57)
12. Hanson - Mmmmbop - 2.89 s (1:44)
13. Elvis Presley - It's Now Or Never - 2.91 s (2:14)
14. Bachman-Turner Overdrive - You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet - 2.94 s (1:48)
15. Michael Jackson - Billie Jean - 2.97 s (1:25)
16. Culture Club - Karma Chameleon - 2.99 s (0:41)
17. Britney Spears - Baby One More Time - 2.99 s (0:33)
18. Elvis Presley - Devil in Disguise - 3.01 s (1:21)
19. Boney M. - Rivers of Babylon - 3.03 s (0:23)
20. Elton John - Candle in the Wind - 3.04 s (0:39)
This study is reminiscent of the聽"hit potential" computer software work led by Dr. Tijl de Bie that used an algorithm designed to automatically analyze audio tracks and predict where聽a song is likely to fall on the Billboard charts.听
Based on the 50 years of聽UK聽top 40 singles, songs were checked for 23 features including loudness, tempo, duration, energy and "danceability."
While the computer made some very accurate selections, like Adele鈥檚 鈥淩olling in the Deep,鈥� it missed on Mumford and Son as the 2012 Grammy winners.
The Hooked on Music study relies completely on the ear of the fan and speed of human memory recall.
Perhaps, all of this may lead to the next big study: How to remove a song that鈥檚 stuck in a listener鈥檚 head.
