Vocal Hooks and Choruses: The Key Ingredients of a Hit Song

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I’m not sure about you but I love listening to music. My apple music replay shockingly surprised me by telling me that this past year I’ve listened to 92,176 minutes of music. I’m always finding new songs to add to my playlist from TikTok. It always happens like this: I first hear the song, then the little snippet starts to get stuck in my head, and finally I add the song to my playlist. I also go through this weird phase where I only listen to one song on repeat until I get bored of it, then find a new song, and then start the cycle again. However, sometimes I have come across a song where I only really liked the snippet that I had been listening to on TikTok and not the full song. If you’ve faced similar experiences to mine, have you ever wondered why that little snippet was the part you enjoyed the most or why you found it so memorable.

Byron et al., 2024 conducted a study in which they wanted to find out exactly which musical elements of pop songs make them more memorable and salient (noticeable/prominent). They had 76 undergraduate students listen to four pop songs and for each song they had them rate 20 excerpts from 1 to 10 based on how memorable it was & its ability to stand out. In addition, they also had the participants rate their familiarity with the song and their enjoyment of it. The 8 songs that were used were “Adore You” by Harry Styles, “Blinding Lights” by The Weeknd, “Cheerleader” (Felix Jaehn remix) by OMI, “Dance Monkey” by Tones & I, “Shotgun” by George Ezra, “Shut Up And Dance” by Walk The Moon, “The Middle” by Zedd, Maren Morris & Grey, and “Youngblood” by 5 Seconds of Summer. The participants were put into 1 of the 8 random groups where each group had a different set of 4 of the 8 songs.

*Hooks are a short and catchy segment of a song (can be in the lyrics, melody, rhythm, or instrumental parts of a song), which works to grab the listeners attention. An example of a hook in the song “We Will Rock You” by Queen is the stomp-stomp-clap. The researchers found that compound hooks had an effect in increasing the participants salience/memorability ratings compared to non-hooks. In the case of compound hooks, the researchers referred to them as hooks that use more than one categorization of hooks. An example of a compound hook can be seen in the song “Song 2” by Blur. According to the authors, this is an example of a compound hooks due to the “quiet-loud dynamic involving changes in timbre and performance style to emphasize both the chorus and a distinctive riff”. They also found that topline hooks* were associated with an increase in participants’ ratings. Here, the researchers refer to topline hooks as hooks that were found in the melody, lyrics, and performance of the lead vocalist. An example of a topline hook would be the lyric “Shine bright like a diamond” in the song “Diamonds” by Rihanna. Rihanna (the lead vocalist) is the one that sings this catchy and memorable hook that is repeated throughout the song.

Image From: https://doi.org/10.1525/mp.2024.2322897

From the table above, the researchers were looking at all the excerpts based on the song section they were in. They presented the mean ratings of salience and memorability for all the sections. Based on the song sections, we would expect the chorus to have the highest ratings, since it is designed to be the catchiest part of a song. From the mean ratings, we can see that this was partially true due to the pre-chorus having the highest mean ratings of salience and memorability. The chorus still did have a high mean rating but it was the third highest, with the intro being the second highest.

Image From: https://doi.org/10.1525/mp.2024.2322897

From the table above, the researchers were looking at the ten highest rated vocals across all 8 songs. From the top ten rated excerpts, 7 out of the 10 were considered compound hooks, 5 out of the 10 lyrics included the title of the song, 4 out of the 10 were in the chorus, 4 out of the 10 were in the pre-chorus, and only 1 out of the 10 was in the intro.

In the end, the researchers concluded that hooks were the musical element that had the highest ratings of memorability and salience. The researchers acknowledge that even though they concluded this, there is still more research that needs to be done. Some suggestions that they provided were looking at the role that familiarity and enjoyment might play in the salience and memorability ratings, using different ways of assessing salience and memorability, and even using unfamiliar pop songs.

Why do these results matter? Well, maybe if you just happen to decide that you want to start a career in the music industry, then you’ll want to make sure the first thing you get right is your hook. Or say that you want to promote your new song on TikTok, think about using a catchy hook for your little snippet — it could be the key to your next viral hit.

References:

Byron, T. P., Rushworth, C. T., & Stewart, M. J. (2024). Popular Music Excerpts Are Rated As More Memorable And Salient If They Involve Vocals, Compound Hooks, and Choruses. Music Perception an Interdisciplinary Journal, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1525/mp.2024.2322897