Catchiness is generally thought of as a good thing - for pop songs, at any rate. But there is a more virulent kind of catchy: the sort of tune that insinuates itself, uninvited, into your skull and refuses to leave.
Whether it's the shameless nursery repetitions of The Crazy Frog or something "sensitive" but insistent by Coldplay, active dislike of such tunes only seems to embed them deeper in one's consciousness.
The appropriately unpleasant term for this phenomenon is the earworm (from the German ohrwurm). As Vadim Prokhorov discovers in today's paper, it's been the subject of extensive research by "professor of marketing" James Kellaris, watched no doubt with sinister interest by the companies concocting "grabby" consumer jingles. (Mmmm, Danone.)
Kellaris's research suggests that it is a very idiosyncratic phenomenon, and that the tune which drills into your skull is liable to waft unheeded over mine. That said, there do seem to be certain characteristically earwormish qualities - simplicity, repetition, major chords. For me at any rate, a really conspicuously inane lyric seems to dig the things deeper in.
So which songs do you folks reckon are the most unpleasantly catchy?
And, perhaps more importantly, do you have any useful suggestions for getting rid of an earworm when one strikes? Prokhorev mentions techniques including listening to the whole song whose refrain has snagged in your skull, or deploying a dangerously potent "eraser" tune, which may rid your mind of one song at the risk of infecting it with another. But do you know of any more effective methods?
