The Radiohead song guaranteed to give you chills, according to science
It’s an impossible moment to truly and adequately describe. You’ll be stood in a venue, the shock of seeing an artist in real life has subsided, but then suddenly, your hair is on edge as another song kicks off and catches you just right.
Getting goosebumps feels magical. It feels like some kind of animalistic reaction to emotions too tough to speak or portray through facial expressions. Instead, it’s like every cell of your being has to react, but shaking a little, sending shivers through you.
Whether the shivers are through fright, anxiety or the lovely experience of getting shivers through sheer beauty, the body reacts the same. It’s one of its more intoxicating reactions as people actively seek out the sensation, throwing themselves into thrills, watching horror films, or just seeking out good art.
There’s a science behind that. Music is so plugged into our senses that it can have all kinds of effects, beyond making you tap your toes. Music can help you concentrate, help you sleep. It can help you access certain emotions if the conditions are right, and for a long time now, scientists have been fascinated by trying to understand what kinds of songs breed what kind of effect.
Around the world, daily, scientists are out there making playlists of songs that claim to be scientifically mood boosting, or almost chemically relaxing. But out of everything, the mythical goosebump and the magical shiver remain two of the hardest responses to understand, let alone capture in song.
According to a study done at Queen Mary University, a song that makes you shiver is typically “sadder, slower, less intense, and more instrumental than matched tracks.” They also said these songs tend to be “more sophisticated,” which they took to mean “relaxing, quiet, non-danceable, slow, non-electric, and instrumental.”
That’s why the shivers usually land during a slower point of a live set, or why it tends to be moody, sad, atmospheric songs in your headphones that get you. Need an example? Try Radiohead’s ‘Scatterbrain’.
Picked from Hail To The Thief, this isn’t one of the band’s stadium-sized rock songs. Neither is it one of their odd, glitchy electronic moments. Instead, it’s mostly Thom Yorke, a simple guitar and a classic beat holding it down. His voice sounds impassioned, and the subtle sounds in the background almost sound like wind noises, as if a storm is blowing through the piece.
Pulling together an extended 700-song playlist of tracks guaranteed to make you shiver, Radiohead seemed to be a band they kept going back to, as the group seemed to already know the golden recipe. Beyond ‘Scatterbrain’, ‘Daydreaming’ also featured as another track scientifically proven to make you shiver.
It’s unsurprising, really. This is what the band do best as they’ve long since had poignant emotions viscerally nailed down in their music, and when that’s merged with grand, textured instruments, goosebumps feel like a given.
