51茶馆

January 17, 2023

What makes pop songs so catchy?

New book explores hooks in popular music

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

These wise and catchy words are those of Canadian singer-songwriter Carly Rae Jepsen from her 2012 hit 鈥楥all Me Maybe鈥�. The song topped the music charts across the world, including in the United States, Canada and Australia.

But what was it about that song that made it so popular? Why, 10 years later, is it still so memorable? What makes any song stand out and be easily remembered?

These questions are just some of many that are explored in (Palgrave McMillan 2022) 鈥� a new book co-authored by 51茶馆 (UOW) researcher and Dr Jadey O鈥橰egan (Sydney Conservatorium of Music).

It鈥檚 the first book-length study of hooks in popular music that attempts to explain why some songs get stuck in our heads and why these 鈥榟ooks鈥� are the guiding principle of modern popular music.

Dr Byron from UOW鈥檚 School of Psychology said the book defines a hook as a musical moment or musical phrase that stands out and is easily remembered.  These are the bits of songs that are more likely to end up as 鈥榚arworms鈥�, the elements of the songs that become stuck in our head.

鈥淗ooks are deeply personal 鈥� what is a devastatingly effective hook for one person, might slide right past another person unnoticed,鈥� Dr Byron said.

鈥淗ooks can be a rhythm, a timbre, or a melody and they鈥檙e not something that鈥檚 added on top, they really are the defining fabric of pop music.

鈥淭hat鈥檚 not to say other genres don鈥檛 use hooks, you see hooks in the riff in rock music, but for pop music itself, we just think it鈥檚 the core of what makes it pop.鈥�

The book gives a range of examples of hooks in popular songs from the last 30 years, including the catchy chorus of the 2001 hit Can鈥檛 Get You Out Of My Head by Kylie Minogue, Third Eye Blind鈥檚 1997 song Semi Charmed Life and this 2022鈥檚 memorable hit As It Was by Harry Styles.

Dr Byron said hooks are important for modern pop music because artists want their songs to stand out.

鈥淚t鈥檚 been said in radio that if people hear a song they don鈥檛 know, they鈥檒l wait about seven seconds before changing the station and it鈥檚 probably the same for modern streaming services,鈥� Dr Byron said.

鈥淧op songs have to make an impact quickly and to stand out to the listener, they need to have a hook.

Dr Byron adds that the concept of a hook is not new.

鈥淭hrough our research we found the term hook being used to refer to a subsection of a piece of popular music that is notable in some way has occurred since at least the 1960s.鈥�

The authors are both musicians but had different motivations for writing the book. Dr Byron鈥檚 expertise lies in music psychology, and in particular the way that music interacts with memory. While Dr O鈥橰egan focuses on teaching music at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

鈥淚 am very interested in the psychology of what makes a song stand out and why some songs are easy to remember and I wanted to explore that in this book,鈥� Dr Byron said.

鈥淔or me as a psychologist it鈥檚 intriguing for something to be remembered because there are lots of things we don鈥檛 remember at all. We barely remembered what we did a week ago, so for people to remember anything at all, there must be something special about it..

鈥淚f a bit of a song is getting our attention, if there is a bit of a song that we鈥檙e remembering, then it鈥檚 doing something right and it鈥檚 almost exploiting the specifics of how our memory and attention works.鈥�

For Dr O鈥橰egan the impetus for the book came from her teaching background and experience.

鈥淚 teach contemporary music and a lot of my students are songwriters, producers and performers and in class we often talk about this idea of ear candy,鈥� Dr O鈥橰egan said.

鈥淪tudents would ask me where they could go to learn more about these concepts, and I realised there wasn鈥檛 really anywhere I could send them.

鈥淎nd then I realised we really needed to write something.鈥�

The end result was a 459-page online textbook that covers everything from the psychology of memorability to the role of the study of hooks in popular musicology.

Hooks in Popular Music is a comprehensive piece of work that fills a gap in the literature discussing the importance of what makes a song catchy, and as Alanis Morissette memorably said in 1995, it鈥檚 the kind of stuff You Oughta Know.