Ep 229: What Makes a Song Popular? Psychology of Music: How We Detect Melody

What makes some songs so popular? Guess what - psychologists actually know a lot of the answers. In this episode we'll listen to excerpts from Leonard Cohen's song Hallelujah, as well as Noisestorm's Ignite, Adele's Someone Like You, the Enterprise Theme from Star Trek, and even two pieces of music from the motion picture Koyaanisqatsi. We'll especially deconstruct "Hallelujah" to figure out why it is such a popular song. Many thanks to musician extraordiaire - Steve Kessler.