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The 5 Greatest Songs (According to Science)


What a difference a month makes.

These days, “scientific research” may as well not exist outside of the Corona-crisis. The eyes of progress are firmly fixed on antivirals, vaccines, and antibody tests.

But one recent study has blithely bucked this trend.

Back in late February, the day Bernie emerged as the Democrat front-runner following a decisive win in the Nevada caucus, researchers from the Anglia Ruskin University were wrapping up a year-long psychological study. In the midst of the current pandemic, the aim of their work sounds rather twee, perhaps even trivial. Yet their findings, published on Monday, offer an intriguing glimpse into our collective affinity with pop music.

The study’s lead researcher, Prof. Bo Lox, explains that her team aspired to combine “stochastic, neural, and hormonal” data, so as to gauge a person’s physiological response to popular records from the past thirty years. Lox noted that “preliminary testing highlighted the importance of using internal, subconscious responses to determine a person’s enjoyment of a song. Galway [Girl], for instance, tested far more negatively in survey-based research. Without our advanced methods, we would have had to account for individual reticence, in much the same way that electoral pollsters have to account for ‘Shy Tories’.”

2,500 volunteers took part in the experiment. Some, like Daniel Wilkes from Kettering, are self-confessed music aficionados. I got in touch with Wilkes, and, over an insightful afternoon phone call, he reflected on what initially drew him to the study:

I’ve always considered myself a man of taste. No Coldplay after X&Y. 2Pac and Biggie, of course, but none of this modern mumble dribble. I mean, anyone can drawl into an auto-tuner, right? My favourite band is probably Metallica… at least, that’s what I thought, until taking part in Lox’s research. You’ll laugh, I know, but my highest ranking song was actually “Swish [Swish]” by Katy Perry [and Nicki Minaj]. At first I was appalled. But, science is science. I actually listened to it on yesterday’s run — in an ironic way, at first. But a dozen repeats later, I’ve got to admit … it kind of slaps.”

However, not everybody involved was as open-minded as Wilkes. Lox provided me with an email sent to her by one of the volunteers, who shall remain anonymous out of respect for their privacy. The volunteer was disgruntled after being informed that their physiology was most powerfully attuned to Drake’s afrobeat-inspired hit, “One Dance”. While some of the email is too explicit to record here, I will offer a short extract:

It’s total bullsh*t! I LOATHE One Dance. It CANNOT be my favourite song. One Dance is the most inane, derivative rubbish I’ve ever heard. Even at sub 3 mins it overstays its welcome. I want my results wiped from the study. Email me proof of this. Your system is clearly flawed. B*tch. [Censorship my own].

Lox assured me that such hostile responses were few and far between. She also laughed at the suggestion that the system could be in any way defunct. “We used state-of-the-art wearable technology and telemetric signalling devices,” she explained. “People just refuse to believe that a bunch of wires and processors can know them better than they know themselves.” Evidently, Anglia Ruskin spared no expense in the pursuit of accurate results, even if these did prove hard for some volunteers to stomach.

So, without further ado, you’ll find below the top five songs as calculated by Lox and her team, starting with the most popular. Each song was awarded a final Approval Rating (AR) out of 100. The AR represents a collation of various biometrics, including subject heart rate, brain activity, hormonal secretion and perspiration. I’ve included the AR underneath each song title.

 

1. Swing Ya Rag (feat. Swizz Beatz) by T.I. (2008) (AR = 99.82)

It will come as a surprise to no one to see the third single from T.I.’s 2008 classic Paper Trail heading this list. Swing Ya Rag tested positively with almost every volunteer it was played to, and it’s easy to see why. The track is an anthem for anyone who’s ever shuffled awkwardly at a school disco, praying that they won’t be called upon next to bust a move in the centre of the dance floor. Don’t worry, Swing Ya Rag tells us. There’s no need to dance. No need at all. Simply pull out your designer durag (preferably Gucci or Louis Vuitton) and twirl it over your head. Or, while the clubs are closed, you might also consider contorting it into a makeshift mask.

 

 

2. In The End by Linkin Park (2001) (AR = 97.36)

In The End epitomises Linkin Park’s signature hybridisation of white-boy raps and screeched choruses, though it’s the opening piano riff that really elevates the track. Dr. Isla Vü, an associate researcher who worked on the project, had a mischievous glint in her eye as she discussed this entry. “In The End really was a standout case,” she observed. “The body’s internal response, especially in men aged 20-30, was far stronger than anybody in the team had anticipated. Over the first minute of audio, we detected a surge of nitric oxide in the urological capillaries, followed by a steady drip of nitric acid as Chester’s iconic chorus kicked in.”

 

 

3. You Oughta Know by Alanis Morissette (1995) (AR = 95.11)

It was on my third visit to the Anglia Ruskin Psychology Faculty in east Cambridge that I was presented with the complete set of finalised ARs. Arnold Yu, an undergraduate assistant, drew my attention to You Oughta Know as a song of particular scientific interest. According to Yu, the team’s findings might help answer the age-old question of why some humans possess lobed ears, while others are consigned to a lifetime of lobelessness. He revealed that Morissette’s strained, artificial diphthongs throughout the track appeared to cause tiny vibrations in subjects’ ear lobes, which in turn galvanised the pituitary gland, flooding the brain with endorphins. Were this hypothesis to be proven true in subsequent testing, the implications would be, in Yu’s words, “devastating”.

 

 

4. Galway Girl by Ed Sheeran (2017) (AR = 91.87)

I’ll admit, I was shocked to observe Ed Sheeran’s electronic-folk-pop mutant lurking in the top five. Since its release three years ago, the tune has been caricatured as a supremely flavourless chart-topper, with its ubiquitous radio-presence, jarring transitions and overcooked lyrics (the squeezing of “while her brother played the guitar” into the first verse is particularly egregious). Fortunately, Lox was on hand to dispel my confusion. She told me that the song’s extremely high AR is in fact a consequence of its widespread vilification. When individuals hear Sheeran’s declaration that “she played the fiddle in an Irish band”, they instinctively brace themselves to experience a “delicious sense of loathing”. It is this “expectation of hatred”, the anticipation of indulging in petty anger, that boosts serotonin, improving the subject’s overall chemical happiness. Touché Mr. Sheeran, touché.

 

 

5. Everybody (Backstreet’s Back) by Backstreet Boys (1997) (AR = 90.04)

“Of all the songs in the to top five,” Dr Vü confessed to me, “I was most chuffed about Backstreet’s Back.” I’m inclined to feel the same. The song oozes rhythm, whilst also fixing a spotlight on some of our deepest insecurities. The repeated question, “Am I sexual?”, for instance, strikes me as especially pertinent in our quarantined age, where omnipresent housemates and a one-in-one-out policy at Sainsbury’s Local has made life distinctly un-sexual. The irony, though, is that biometrics fed back an immediate spike in oestrogen secretions among female subjects, a hormonal response usually reserved in anticipation of a fertilised ovum.

 

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And there we have it, our five greatest songs of the decade, as determined by data science. However you feel about the results is, quite frankly, irrelevant: this is the truth as told by our bodies, ourselves as concealed from the conscious mind. And once this pandemic has settled, you can be sure that Prof. Lox and her team will continue to push the limits of biometric research, unlocking ever deeper mysteries within the human psyche.

* 07/06/2020 An earlier edition of this article misspelt Vü as Vew.

Some Thoughts on Rupi Kaur’s Most Recent Poem

I’ll start this piece with a disclaimer: I think Rupi Kaur is an awful poet. Her cutesy, axiomatic style is almost entirely lacking in the mystery, invention, and force of language that, for me at least, make a great poem. That she’s achieved such global fame (mainly through her Instagram presence) pays testament to our sorry habit of revering mediocrity, so long as it is easily digestible.

I’ve yet to meet anyone who will earnestly defend the quality of Kaur’s writing. However, I have heard two arguments in support of her work more generally. The first is that Kaur often acts as an introduction to poetry for young people. This argument characterises Kaur as a gateway poet, in the same way that a Good Christian Mum might characterise weed as the initial step towards a life of crack-fuelled hedonism. And, I’m sure, some people have gone on to read more challenging and creative material since discovering Kaur. Yet I worry that the simplicity of Kaur’s work, its unabashed lack of intrigue, makes people less receptive to such complexity in other poems. For someone on Instagram, it’s far more likely that their following of Kaur will lead them to discover accounts like Atticus, whose on-the-nose sententiousness makes Kaur’s poetry look like an enigma code.

The other argument, which, in my opinion, carries more weight, is that Rupi Kaur is not so much about the medium as the message. That most people who follow her know very well that they aren’t reading innovative verse, but support her central ideas of feminist empowerment. And I can absolutely get behind that. Indeed, I imagine Kaur herself is well aware that it is her message, rather than her art, that does the numbers (I mentioned at the start that I think Kaur is an awful poet; I also think that’s she’s an astute entrepreneur).

However, Kaur’s reliance on a fundamental idea, as opposed to good writing, comes with its own drawbacks. As an example, we need only look at her most recently uploaded poem:

The first thing I noticed about this poem was its form: a single block of text. For Rupi “hit-the-enter-key-at-irregular-intervals” Kaur, this is practically radical experimentalism. But the next glaring aspect of this piece is its rather ugly tone. Kaur predicts that the addressee’s next girlfriend “will be a bootleg version of who i am.” (Side note: Kaur appears to have an inexplicable aversion to capital letters). We might wonder why Kaur, who’s brand is built around supporting women, inspiring women, and articulating women’s issues, has decided to go after a woman who she’s never even met. Worse, she then goes on to discredit this future woman’s poetic and sexual proficiencies: she won’t “lick, caress, or suck” like Kaur, and her poems certainly won’t be delivering any jabs to the gut — she’ll only “try to make love to your body” (spoken to the rhythm of Shape of You by Ed Sheeran).

The main thrust of the poem is clear: Kaur is engaging in a common post-break-up fantasy, imagining her former lover’s dissatisfaction with his new flame. The “bootleg woman”, caught between Kaur and the target of her angst, is ground into inferiority by Kaur’s exultant vision of a pining ex-boyfriend.

Significantly, Kaur might have cleared all of this up with a simple addendum. She might, for instance, have mentioned that this poem is a representation of internalised misogyny. She might have mentioned that the behaviour of men in relationships can create feelings of conflict amongst women (and that often, these feelings are misdirected). Instead, all we get is the caption: the mood for tonight is saucyy, along with a few emojis that, to be fair, neatly illustrate the line “lick, caress, or suck like me”. (Another side note: I shudder every time I write that out). These words make it clear that Kaur doesn’t recognise the troubling suggestion expressed in the poem. Namely, that being a woman on top sometimes involves putting other women down .

Maybe I’m being too harsh. Maybe I need to remember the first rule of poetry analysis, and separate Kaur from the speaker of the poem. Ordinarily, I’d agree. But in this instance, I find it almost impossible. You see, Kaur spends a lot of time making her poems as generic — and therefore as relatable — as possible. She’ll often crank out a variation of the following:

my body is a [natural phenomenon]

you may try to [something to do with curbing nature]

but I will [something to do with escaping confines].

These poems achieve mass-appeal because there is so little of Kaur in them. They can be taken up by readers, and applied to their lives. They’re similar to pop songs, in that their catchiness lies in their lack of specificity. Yet Kaur’s most recent offering is different. In particular, the mention of poems that have been “left memorized” on the ex-boyfriend’s lips make it abundantly clear that Kaur is versifying here as herself.

Moreover, the clichéd mundanity of the poem, the absence of arresting imagery, ambiguous phrasing or novel tone, ensure that there is scant material to hold on to other than the central idea. Kaur’s business model, of maxim-like poetry designed to impart a simple message during a quick scroll, makes it difficult to read these more specific poems as anything other than her own direct thoughts. Consequently, when Kaur diverts from her usual ideas, of obvious feminist-empowerment or twee reflections on the sun/moon/flowers/butterflies/et cetera, people don’t criticise the quality of the poem, but rather the quality of the message (although about 90% just type yaaaas kweeen 💅🏼, probably without reading a word):

I suppose then that Kaur has created her own poetic prison. Having established herself as the voice of feminist poetry on Instagram, and having built an enormous following through deliberately generic verse, her attempts to move towards more personal or specific ideas are likely to meet backlash. She doesn’t have aesthetic creativity to fall back on. All she has is a central idea. And reliance on a single idea encourages stagnation — the death of poetry.