A new study has named Lady Gaga's 'Bad Romance' the catchiest song of all-time.
The 2009 hit is followed by Kylie Minogue's 2001 earworm 'Can't Get You Out of My Head' and Journey's 'Don't Stop Believing', from 1981.
Researchers from the American Psychological Association looked into what makes a song catchy, and identified a few key features.
"Musically sticky songs seem to have quite a fast tempo, along with a common melodic shape and unusual intervals or repetitions," says lead author Kelly Jakubowski of Durham University.
By "common", she means tunes that follow patterns commonly found in Western pop, such as the first phrase going up in pitch, and the second coming back down, like 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star'.
Dr Jakubowski cites the opening riff of Deep Purple's 'Smoke on the Water' and Maroon 5's 'Moves like Jagger' as classic examples of this, as well as 'Bad Romance'.
The other crucial ingredient is an "unusual interval structure" with "unexpected leaps or more repeated notes than you would expect to hear", such as 'My Sharona' by The Knack.
The top nine earworms:
The researchers settled on the list of hits after polling 3000 people on what songs frequently got stuck in their heads, and comparing the most popular to songs that had similar chart success, but weren't named as earworms.
But how do you get rid of a song that's stuck in your head?
Dr Jakubowski says the best way is to give in to what the brain wants and listen to it.
"Many people report that actually listening to the earworm song all the way through can help to eliminate having it stuck on a loop."
Newshub.
