Psychology & Psychiatry

Music therapy could help manage the pain of bereavement

Grief has always inspired songwriters. Popular songs including Let Me Go, by Gary Barlow, Eric Clapton's Tears in Heaven and The Living Years by Mike and the Mechanics, were all written as a way of working through the grief ...

Other

Exploring the features of music that people fall asleep to

A new study has identified several characteristics typical of music associated with sleep, such as being quieter and slower than other music. However, popular sleep music playlists on Spotify also include faster, louder, ...

Psychology & Psychiatry

What makes pop songs so catchy?

"Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy… But here's my number, so call me, maybe."

Medical research

Harmonic surprise found to be key to pop chart success

A combined team of researchers from Georgetown University and Secret Chord Laboratories has found that for a pop song to find success on the charts, it needs to have some degree of harmonic surprise. In their paper published ...

Health

Four alcohol brands dominate popular music mentions

Patron tequila, Hennessy cognac, Grey Goose vodka, and Jack Daniel's whiskey—accounted for more than half of alcohol brand mentions in the songs that mentioned alcohol use in Billboard's most popular song lists in 2009, ...