(Credits: Far Out / Israel Palacio / Alexandr Sadkov)
There’s nothing that most of us love to discuss more than when a song gives us chills, but what’s harder to navigate is why. Much like how Pedro Pascal discusses his love for Prince’s ‘Purple Rain’ – sometimes there just aren’t words. It just is.
Well, sort of. There are actually extensive scientific studies on the emotional response we experience when listening to music, and it’s just about what you’d expect – songs in major key with a more upbeat rhythm and positive message are more likely to boost our mood, and ones in minor key that sound dreary with a slower pacing are more likely to make our moods dip.
However, there’s more to the entire experience than happy and sad, and one research project conducted by data scientist Rémi de Fleurian previously looked into the response called “frisson”. This, put simply, means “chills”, the good kind that you sometimes feel when listening to a piece of music that hits you right where it counts.
The project focused on analysing 700 songs collected from elsewhere, including, of course, Pascal’s beloved ‘Purple Rain’, as well as The Smiths’ ‘How Soon Is Now?’, Eric Clapton’s ‘Tears In Heaven’, and others. Rather than mood boosting, these songs had “sadder, slower, less intense, and more instrumental than matched tracks.” They were also more “relaxing, quiet, non-danceable, slow, and non-electric”.
By data science logic, however, what about those that exist outside of that description, but still evoke chills? The ones that appear to be the complete opposite, but which still give you that spine-tingling feeling that keeps you coming back? Or, put simply, the ones that science thinks you won’t enjoy in the same way, but that you actually do?
Five songs that give you chills:
Related Topics