Pop Music, Abba and the dreaded Earworm...
I read recently about a program that some company was testing that would be able to indicate the likelihood that a pop song would be successful. I don't remember the details, but their original intent had something to do with analyzing pop songs for some other purpose (which now escapes me). They were surprised to find that all the successful songs they analyzed showed marked similarities when their results were charted. Using these results, they proposed using their software on unreleased songs to see how they stacked-up against their success rate charts, thus making it possible to rate the potential success of the unreleased song. Reportedly, record producers and music industry types are interested in the results of further tests. (This last sentence to be read in a dry, sarcastic manner.)
One of the items I bet they're tracking (whether they're aware of it or not) is the "earworminess" of each song.
An Earworm, as defined by The Word Spy (a website devoted to recently coined words and phrases) is "A song or tune that repeats over and over inside a person's head." This comes from the German word Ohrwurm (which pretty much translates as "ear worm" and is used to refer to the kind of worm that can crawl into your ear. No great surprise there.)
Now, I wake up with songs running through my head all the time and I've always wondered what the word for that was--now I've got one and I'm going to just ignore what the Word Spy article says about people that experience this tending toward neuroses.
After seeing Mama Mia in Vegas, Dani had to have the CD. Then we had to listen to it while we were out driving the other day, and THEN we had to compare the songs from the show to the original versions by Abba. Suffice it to say that in the past couple of weeks, I've heard a LOT of Abba. Now I'm constantly waking up with Abba songs running through my head and I've decided that one of the reasons that they were such a monstrous success is the insidious nature of their songs--as exemplified by their earworminess. If I can't get the damn stuff out of my head, and I'm not that fond of them, then think what must happen to people that actually like their music!
Unless, of course, this is one of those cruel twist-of-fate kind of things where my earworms tend toward music I don't like as opposed to music I wouldn't mind running through my head. This, of course, wouldn't surprise me. But then, I'm apparently neurotic.
But at least I've got a word for it now!
I read recently about a program that some company was testing that would be able to indicate the likelihood that a pop song would be successful. I don't remember the details, but their original intent had something to do with analyzing pop songs for some other purpose (which now escapes me). They were surprised to find that all the successful songs they analyzed showed marked similarities when their results were charted. Using these results, they proposed using their software on unreleased songs to see how they stacked-up against their success rate charts, thus making it possible to rate the potential success of the unreleased song. Reportedly, record producers and music industry types are interested in the results of further tests. (This last sentence to be read in a dry, sarcastic manner.)
One of the items I bet they're tracking (whether they're aware of it or not) is the "earworminess" of each song.
An Earworm, as defined by The Word Spy (a website devoted to recently coined words and phrases) is "A song or tune that repeats over and over inside a person's head." This comes from the German word Ohrwurm (which pretty much translates as "ear worm" and is used to refer to the kind of worm that can crawl into your ear. No great surprise there.)
Now, I wake up with songs running through my head all the time and I've always wondered what the word for that was--now I've got one and I'm going to just ignore what the Word Spy article says about people that experience this tending toward neuroses.
After seeing Mama Mia in Vegas, Dani had to have the CD. Then we had to listen to it while we were out driving the other day, and THEN we had to compare the songs from the show to the original versions by Abba. Suffice it to say that in the past couple of weeks, I've heard a LOT of Abba. Now I'm constantly waking up with Abba songs running through my head and I've decided that one of the reasons that they were such a monstrous success is the insidious nature of their songs--as exemplified by their earworminess. If I can't get the damn stuff out of my head, and I'm not that fond of them, then think what must happen to people that actually like their music!
Unless, of course, this is one of those cruel twist-of-fate kind of things where my earworms tend toward music I don't like as opposed to music I wouldn't mind running through my head. This, of course, wouldn't surprise me. But then, I'm apparently neurotic.
But at least I've got a word for it now!
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