The two things every song needs to be a hit, according to science
It’s easy to sit back and daydream of becoming a hero pop star. Plucked out of your local boozer after belting out a karaoke song and finding yourself flung into the spotlight, becoming an overnight sensation that sells millions of records.
It’s a beautiful dream that feels kind of simple to complete. A single ladder to the top. But what is often forgotten in the climb to become a singing sensation and pop icon is that writing a hit song is incredibly hard. Forget what it might seem like when you see the latest Simon Cowell cohort pinging their way to number one. To pen a true hit single is to toil away at making pop perfection, surely? Well, not exactly.
What makes a hit? John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and Patti Smith are some of the best songwriters of all time and have their own creative methods. If you could bottle up and sell what they have, you’d be a millionaire. While that’s sadly impossible, science has tried to provide the next best thing.
A lot of music we consider “good” stems from memories we associate with that music. In that sense, it’s impossible to work up any formula to make someone’s favourite track of all time because there are too many external factors. Someone might adore ‘If I Ever Lose This Heaven’ by Average White Band because it was the first dance at their wedding, but then could eventually loathe it if that marriage were to end poorly. Music evokes memory incredibly well, so if you are a songwriter and want to come up with everyone’s favourite song in the world, sorry, it won’t happen.
You do have the potential to write a song that most people “agree” with, though. When it comes to listening to a tune for the first time, there are certain aspects that we, as humans, listen out for and that can grab our attention.
The two elements that go into making a hit are contradictory—every song needs both predictability and unpredictability. Scientists have found that we need a “good balance” of both to connect with a song instantly. That’s why the likes of Tina Turner’s ‘What’s Love Got To Do With It’ and The Beatles’ ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’ are so irresistible.
The study’s lead author was Vincent Cheung, a PhD student, who said, “Understanding how music activates our pleasure system in the brain could explain why listening to music might help us feel better when we are feeling blue.” As such, a team of scientists from Germany and Norway analysed over 80,000 chords in 745 songs that had all been listed on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart between 1958 and 1991.
When we listen to music for the first time, we are forming expectations of what we think will happen next. We want to hear something where we can anticipate what is coming but then are also surprised by it. “Songs that we find pleasant are likely those which strike a good balance between knowing what is going to happen next and surprising us with something we did not expect,” said Mr Cheung. Essentially, the listener must be encouraged to generate and resolve expectations as the song plays.
The finding is the basis for wearing your inspirations on your sleeve. Chances are, you and your listeners will be fans of similar artists, so if that artist influences you but you continue to put your creative spin on every piece of music you make, you will likely hit the two parts of the criteria needed to make a hit. The be-all and end-all is, don’t be predictable, but don’t be too unpredictable.
