If I were asked to name some of the most iconic songs of all clip , I ’d probably thrust out titles like " Somewhere Over the Rainbow , " or " Hey Jude . " turn over out science has a unlike solution . Researchers from Goldsmiths , University of London put " Smells Like Teen Spirit , " by Nirvana at the top of a list of 50 iconic tunes . It ’s followed by John Lennon ’s “ Imagine , " U2 ’s “ One , ” Michael Jackson ’s “ Billie Jean , ” and Queen ’s “ Bohemian Rhapsody . ”
Computer scientist Dr. Mick Grierson looked at tracks found in seven " Best of " leaning from medicine publication likeRolling Stoneand ran them through a program that compared them by headstone , BPM , chord sort , lyrical content , timbral variety , and sonic variance . Grierson and his team used these findings to calculate what made the " double-dyed " birdsong .
“ We found the most important matter these songs have in coarse is that most of them use sound in a very wide-ranging , dynamical style when compare to other records , ” Grierson toldtheDaily Mail . “ This makes the sound of the record exciting , retain the [ attender ' ] attention . By the same souvenir , the sounds these Sung dynasty use and the direction they are combined is extremely unique in each case . ”
Nirvana ’s breakout track , feature on their second studio albumNevermind , shoot a line many of the feature that the researchers key out as uncouth in democratic song .
Grierson found that the average tempo of the most popular songs was 125BPM , with 40 percentage being around 120BPM . Chord change were comparatively infrequent — the song that fared the well boasted an average of six to eight . Of of course , there are some glaring exceptions to these " rules " : Led Zepplin ’s " Stairway to Heaven " has doubly as many beats as the average song .
Ultimately , the research worker incur that no amount of number - crunching can accurately predict whether or not a song will become a classic . " My conclusion is that if you desire a expression for creating nifty euphony , there is one : you just have to make something that voice great , " Grierson says .
you could see the full list of cut over at theDaily Mail .
