Here's what they learned. Read more >
I'm taking it easy when I take the bus
How one local jingle became our national transit jam. Read on >
Why you get sick of your favorite song
It happens all the time. A new album comes out, you listen to it, and before you know it, you have a new favorite song. So you play it again. And again. And again. It’s on loop for days: in the car, at home. Maybe you even hum it to yourself while you work. Read more >
Tornado Sirens, an Old Technology, Still Play a Vital Role
For residents of tornado-prone regions like Oklahoma, Texas and the southern Plains, the piercing wail of outdoor sirens in May — the most active month — is a warning to seek shelter because a funnel cloud has been spotted or is on its way. Read on >
Repetition
The Listening Service - an odyssey through the musical universe with Tom Service. Join him on a journey of imagination and insight, exploring how music works.
Today - repetition. Listen to the episode >
Stuck on repeat: why we love repetition in music
Music of every genre, every culture and every period employs repeated phrases for effect. Why do we love to listen to the same things again and again? Read on >
Repeat After Me: It’s Normal to Play the Same Song Over and Over Again
“Dad, can you please play another song?”
The request came on a recent Sunday morning from my 14-year-old son, as I was in the kitchen listening for the 12th straight time to Wes Montgomery’s 1965 recording of John Coltrane’s “Impressions” — a whirlwind of sensational guitar playing, complemented by bass (Arthur Harper), piano (Harold Mabern), and drums (Jimmy Lovelace) that lift Montgomery’s chords into the sonic stratosphere.
But this gem of musical dervish-ness — Montgomery and jazz at their best — is only three minutes and 37 seconds long. I want the song’s feeling to last much, much longer. And I have the power to do that, by changing the YouTube URL just a tiny bit. In a few seconds, I’ve commanded my computer to repeat the song ad infinitum. Read on >
A Quasi-Scientific Look at How a Hit Song Becomes a Barroom Classic
"Livin' on a Prayer." "Come on Eileen." "Fat Bottomed Girls." All of these songs, plus a handful of others, have become American bar classics, their appeal spanning all ages and locales. Kenny Herzog talks with music critics about the making of a timeless barroom hit. Read more >
The Lead Review: Ed Power On Nisennenmondai's #N/A
With the Japanese group's Adrian Sherwood-produced album out this week on the dub producer's On-U Sound label, Ed Power examines the allure of their minimalism and hypnotic relentlessness. Read more >
New ways into the brain's "music room"
Whether to enliven a commute, relax in the evening or drown out the buzz of a neighbor’s recreational drone, Americans listen to music nearly four hours a day. In international surveys, people consistently rank music as one of life’s supreme sources of pleasure and emotional power. We marry to music, graduate to music, mourn to music. Every culture ever studied has been found to make music, and among the oldest artistic objects known are slender flutes carved from mammoth bone some 43,000 years ago — 24,000 years before the cave paintings of Lascaux. Read on >
The science of air guitar and car karaoke
The science of air guitar and car karaoke: How music teaches our brains to imagine what's coming next. Salon speaks to a cognitive scientist about neuroscience research, and music as a universal human activity. Read on >
Atlas Obscura: The Science Behind Why Holiday Jingles Get Stuck in Our Heads
When a song gets stuck in our head, the trigger could be anything. The scent of freshly baked holiday cookies. The sight of a Christmas tree glowing with lights. The ambient melody of the dreidel song blasting from the windows of a Mitzvah tank as it barrels passed you on the street, filling Brooklyn with echoes of Hanukkah music. Read more >
Mental Floss: Why Does a Word Sometimes Lose All Meaning?
It’s a bizarre scourge afflicting editors and writers, casual readers, and pretty much anyone pondering a word for any length of time. Consider the word flower. F-l-o-w-e-r. Flowers. The flower in the field. The flower in the grass. Flower. Flower. Flower. Read more >
The Music Show, ABC Radio Australia: On Repeat
Listen to the program here >
The Express Tribune, Pakistan: Stuck on repeat
There might be thousands of new tracks circulating on the airwaves but there is still something uncanny about Ali Haider’s Puraani Jeans that these tunes simply cannot live up to.
Every time the song comes on, a rush of nostalgia hits us hard and makes us press the repeat button. The same is true for evergreen movies like Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham and shows like Friends that have struck a chord in our hearts. We know the songs and scripts by heart but can still shamelessly binge-watch these all-time greats whenever we get the chance. But have you ever wondered why we never get sick of them? How does one explain this desire to watch or listen to things on repeat? Read more >
Inquiring Minds: How Music Plays the Mind
An interview with Indre Viskontas at the annual meeting of the Society for Music Perception and Cognition in Nashville. Listen here >
Today: Earworm?
It's almost "song of the summer" time. Whether that belongs to Taylor Swift ("Style"), Britney Spears ("Pretty Girls") or someone else, one thing's clear, you won't be able to avoid it. It will get relentlessly stuck in your head.