What makes a song catchy?

[aMUSEd]

Catchy and likeable aren't always the same, a lot of dumb pop is catchy as the flu but makes me wish I could get it out of my head rather than keep it there, I think some songs are very intrusive that way.

[Sendy]

As catchy as the flu and enjoyable as...

as...

as...







as being destroyed over a period of time by having one layer of cells removed from your outer extremities every minute. Whilst having the flu.

[jancivil]

I have really resented certain music that was terrifically catchy, as I hated the f**king thing.

But the more music I have done, the more likely that the tunes in my head are mine! I sometimes have one of them as an earwig that I haven't dealt with in a while, and I go 'what was that?' later catching that it was one of mine.

[DSmolken]

3- your music has to have a good catchy melody and beat. A good producer or knowledge of what works in other hit songs is clearly required.

Right; and what's a practical way to acquire this knowledge of what works in other hit songs?

[vurt]

3- your music has to have a good catchy melody and beat. A good producer or knowledge of what works in other hit songs is clearly required.

Right; and what's a practical way to acquire this knowledge of what works in other hit songs?

listening to the radio type stuff incessantly and see what they have in common, see "saw"*


*stock aitken and waterman, not the saw horror franchise.

[DSmolken]

I'm sure that helps, I listen to a pretty good amount of new stuff and I've gotten pretty good at telling what sounds like a hit and what doesn't, but I still go by instinct. I'd very much like to understand why and how these things really REALLY work. That might take doing a whole lot of transcription and analysis, maybe even statistics.

Not that I have any plans to write popular hits, my ambitions are pretty much limited to covering songs that people will give a crap about.