Popular Music Excerpts Are Rated As More Memorable And Salient If They Involve Vocals, Compound Hooks, and Choruses

Hooks are a widely recognized feature of popular music. Despite this, few empirical studies have investigated what makes musical material likely to be a hook. Definitions of hooks consistently refer to both salience and memorability as a defining characteristic, suggesting that hooks may be understood as an interaction with attentional and memory processes. The current study aims to investigate which musical elements of pop music influence participant perceptions of salience and memorability. Participants were presented with four pop songs and asked to rate twenty excerpts from each song based on their ability to stand out and be memorable. Excerpts were isolated layers of the song, allowing for measurement of specific musical phrases. Excerpts were classified based on song section, whether they were topline or from the backing track, and whether they were rated as hooks by musicologists, as per Burns (1987). Results indicate that excerpts from the topline, from the chorus, and that included compound hooks were associated with an increase in participant ratings. Results provide evidence towards the perception of hooks as a psychological process involving memory and attentional systems. Future research should emphasize alternative methodologies and populations to further contribute to a psychological understanding of hooks.