Recently someone sent me this interesting article about "earworms" which is "a term for a song stuck in one's head, particularly an annoying one," according to Wikipedia. I had absolutely no idea that there was a term for this particularly irritating phenomenon! What struck me most about this article is that researchers were able to confirm the existence of these so-called earworms and that at least 98% of people have had songs stuck in their head! Apparently, musicians/music lovers and those with "compulsive tendencies" may be more affected than others. Not only that, this "stuck song syndrome" is more frequent and lasts even longer for musicians! One of the reasons being that they are more exposed to music and encounter more repetition during rehearsals. The areas of the brain that are involved in listening to and creating music also plays another role for musicians. Another interesting point about earworms is that women are more susceptible to earworms than men! There haven't yet been any reasons as to why this is. As for now, it'll remain a mystery...My earworms come in various degrees of intensity and levels of aggravation. What is the absolute worst possible scenario for me is when I have a song stuck in my head and I don't know the lyrics. So what happens is that the same part keeps repeating over and over again and I can't for the life of me get that song out of my head. The song simply bores into my head, it won't let go, and even worse, there's simply no known cure. What I usually end up doing is to try talking to someone about it (and hopefully pass the song along to them) or I try humming a different song (only to find that the new song gets stuck in my head). There is a web site called "Maim That Tune" that picks a substitute earworm for you (this is like hitting yourself in the thumb with a hammer so you can forget about your backache).
Despite the fact that these tunes are just so unbearably memorable, there are surprisingly positive things that can come out of earworms. Singer-songwriter Neil Diamond says those repetitive notes that won't go away have spawned some of the greatest hits of his career! I'm waiting for that day...
Here they are, the top 10 earworms!
1. Kylie Minogue, Can't Get You Out of My Head
2. James Blunt, You're Beautiful
3. Baha Men, Who Let the Dogs Out
4. Mission Impossible theme
5. Village People, YMCA
6. Happy Days theme
7. Corinne Bailey Rae, Put Your Records On
8. Suzanne Vega, Tom's Diner
9. Tight Fit, The Lion Sleeps Tonight
10. Tiffany, I Think We're Alone Now
2 comments:
The most annoying effect of the earworm on me is when I'm really tired and just ready to go to bed, the song just keeps lingering in my head and makes my brain being clearer than ever. The result? Another sleepless night!!
I love that term, "earworm". In German they use the same term, although it's called "ohrwuerm", which means the exact same thing. I wonder if it's a German translation of an English/American word (probably...) or the other way around? Not sure. It reminds me of this music software that some record company execs and producers have used that quantifies and charts the various aspects of "hit" and "non-hit" songs. Supposedly it can create a scientifically (or pseudo-scientific) sound model of what musical aspects go into creating a hit song. These are the songs that become earworms. No matter how annoying they are, they are memorable that apparently is what makes something a hit. Supposedly these potential hits are processed by this program to "check their mathematics", to see if they match the patterns of previous hits. If they do, they have a good chance of becoming hits themselves. I'm not sure how well this works, to be honest. The traditional record business is in freefall right now anyway, soon to go the way of the Dodo bird and the USSR. Even if this method for finding earworms really works, it didn't do them much good. Besides, someone will always come up with an earworm in the most unlikely place. They'll certainly live on in TV jingles.
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