What Makes an Earworm So Catchy?

For examples, those "unusual intervals or repetitions" can be heard in the opening riff of "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple or in the chorus of "Bad Romance" by Lady Gaga, Jakubowski said. Among the top tunes that people listed as earworms were "Bad Romance" and "Can't Get You Out of My Head" by Kylie Minogue, the researchers found. Once the researchers had a list of common earworms, they compared these tunes with other songs that, though they reached similar levels of popularity and were rel