Tunes Really Got Me

Illawarra Mercury

Tuesday July 4, 2006

Melissa Gaudron

FOR the past week I've been suffering badly from Song-Stuck-In-The-Head syndrome. I simply cannot shake that Tainted Love-inspired hit SOS (Rescue Me) that's currently doing the rounds on the airwaves.

I blame the radio for this (if the crew at WaveFM are "playing anything we feel like", which is their current catchcry, can someone please explain to me why they always feel like playing this one song?), although I know I am extremely susceptible to this condition as bad songs plague my head space constantly.

A few months ago I had a particularly chronic case of "repeatunitis" which I blamed solely on those trapped Beaconsfield miners.

In the aftermath of the "Great Escape" rescue, Todd Russell and Brant Webb revealed to the world how they spent part of their 10 days underground singing songs and shared their own rendition of The Gambler to a captivated national TV audience.

As a result that Kenny Rogers classic - with the all-too memorable lyrics "you got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, know when to run" - was stuck on replay in my head for what seemed like weeks.

Practically everyone has had an experience of getting a song stuck in their head. The syndrome is such a part of pop culture that it even has its own faddish names ("repeatunitis", "stuck tune syndrome", "melodymania") and is considered a modern form of water torture, mainly because in most cases you are plagued by a song you don't even really like.

In fact the affliction is now considered so widespread and annoying that it is the focus of academic research.

A University of Cincinnati professor has recently completed his second serious study on this malaise - that he has dubbed earworms - which he claims affects up to 98 per cent of the adult population.

James Kellaris' study Dissecting Earworms: Further Evidence on the Song-Stuck-In-Your-Head Phenomenon reveals that common episodes last for an average of several hours, and can happen even more frequently in "chronic sufferers".

According to Kellaris' research women are more susceptible to the syndrome than men, and musicians more so than non-musos.

While the trigger points of retrieving a song and getting it stuck in your head are not exactly known (although any parent exposed to Wiggles' videos on a replay loop can tell you repetition and simple tunes play a key part), the fact is we are exposed to more auditory assaults than ever before.

How many times do you hear a mobile phone with an annoying ring tone go off only to find it's still in your head hours later?

The research explains that your brain goes into overdrive to try to retrieve the missing parts of the song from your inner iPod memory bank and before you know it, you're constantly playing the opening riff to Smoke On The Water while waiting at the traffic lights.

Of course this is all music to the ears of record industry bigwigs and jingle writers in advertising agencies who recognise the bang in their buck for a catchy tune with major "stickability".

They will benefit from looking at Kellaris' research and in particular his top 10 list of the worst earworms, which included Queen's We Will Rock You, the theme to Mission: Impossible, Village People's YMCA, The Lion Sleeps Tonight and It's A Small World After All.

Of course the answer that everyone is seeking is how the hell do you get rid of these pesky songs once they lodge themselves deep in your brain cells?

Two-thirds of Kellaris' subjects said they try humming a different song (even though it runs the risk of earworm replacement), 14 per cent said they swore by listening to the song for it's entirety to "unstick" it. Others have suggested externalising the song by singing it out loud and changing the tempo to unhinge its familiarity, or simply share it with someone else and dump your earworm on them (apparently they are extremely contagious).

In my attempt to get rid of Rihanna's SOS song, I logged onto the Maim that Tune website that claims it can "detune your head" by replacing one annoying stuck song with another.

The website asks users: "Are you plagued by Stuck Tune Syndrome? Do you have a tune stuck in your head you just can't get out? Take heart friend, for your suffering is over. The Maimograph Machine will find an even catchier tune to counteract the one you already have."

The machine coughed up a few suggestions - which came complete with an accompanying bad audio track - including Soul Man, Come on Eileen, 99 Luftballoons and Like A Virgin.

The trick worked, but probably a bit too well (it's goodbye Rihanna, hello Madonna.)

In this case, looks like I made it through the wilderness (somehow I made it through) but someone should be pressuring Bill Gates to put his money into finding an earworm vaccine to rid the world of this insidious melody, er, malady.

© 2006 Illawarra Mercury

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