The 'Happiest Song In The World' Was Revealed And Lots Of People Don't Approve
Never thought science could tell you what the happiest song in the world was? Well, you thought wrong. Science has weighed in on the subject and their answer is: "Don't Stop Me Now," by Queen.
Listen to it now if you, uh, want to be happy.
A study performed at the University of Missouri had subjects listen to “upbeat” music for a fortnight and concluded music makes people happier.
Now, I'm not sure conducting such a study is any more necessary than conducting a sex study where subjects orgasm with attractive partners for two weeks to prove sex is, um, dope.
Anyway, researchers, working off that study, decided to figure out which song made the subjects the happiest.
Now, I can only assume they didn't test every song in existence — if they had they would've asked me for a copy of my band's (Pug Army -- find us on Bandcamp!) newest EP, “World War Pug,” but that's beside the point.
Neuroscientist Jacob Jolij studied 126 songs from the last 50 years, compiled by surveying British people to pick which songs made them happiest.
The results are both pretty obvious and oddly specific.
The pattern was very clear. The average tempo of a 'feel good' song was substantially higher than the average pop song. While the average tempo of pop songs is around 118 beats per minute (BPM), the songs that made the list had an average tempo of around 140 to 150 BPM.
“Don't Stop Me Now” was mentioned by almost two thirds of those surveyed.
Lots of people don't agree with this assessment. Specifically, Reddit disagrees emphatically.
I will permit you to slog through that page at your leisure, but one user put it well:
It's also must depend on what cultural background you come from. All countries must have their versions of ultimate feel good songs.
This is obviously true.
And to be clear, only 2,000 people were studied in this paper. So the claim that it's the happiest song is, naturally, a gross exaggeration.
The point is, that in looking at all the songs mentioned, they found a pattern for the precise type of song that makes people happy.
And this is one of of those songs.
