“I can’t get you out of my head,” Kylie Mingong said in 2001, and indeed, this successful single played non-stop on the radio, and many millennials (and not only) still can’t get it out of their heads.

A new study out of Australia explains exactly this phenomenon: thinking and humming the one song that’s stuck in your head.

According to Professor Emery Schubert of the University of New South Wales School of Media and Arts, these songs are easier to listen to when we are relaxed.

Some of these songs are more successful, not because their melody is catchy, but because they are repetitive and the brain gets used to them.

Causes

In a study that published the professor mentions that we usually get stuck on the choruses of the songs.

“What attracts us to a song is usually repeated in the music, mostly in the chorus. Thus, we conclude that the phenomenon of a song “sticking” to us may not have to do with the musical characteristics themselves, but with the repetition of music,” notes Schubert.

However, repetition is only part of the equation. Whether a song is memorable for us is also influenced by other factors, such as how recently we heard it or how familiar we are with a particular musical genre.

In addition, according to the same study, we should be in what is known as a “low-attention state.” “This state is also known as mind wandering, it is a state of relaxation,” said Schubert. “In other words, if you’re deeply involved in the environment you’re in, if you’re really focused on the task, then you won’t get stuck on a song.”

Studying this phenomenon could help answer questions about consciousness and how stimuli are organized and remembered in our brains, he says.

Schubert’s research identifies different types of songs that “stick” to us: there are those that come to mind only once, and there are those that are repeated more than once.

How to make a song light you up

For many, a song stuck in the head is enjoyable, but that can easily change if we don’t like the stuck song. After all, the phenomenon can be partially controlled.

“A song can go crazy if you listen to it in its entirety, think of a different one, or think of specific elements that remind you of it, such as lyrics or memories associated with the music or lyrics,” the professor advises.

IN Previous research it turned out that in addition to the song of Kylie Minogue, but which are easily “sticky” in memory, there are “Bad Romance” by Lady Gaga and “Somebody That I Used to Know” by Gauthier.

According to the Guardian

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