A new scientific study—designed to unlock the secrets of what makes music memorable—has highlighted the importance of getting your intro right in terms of its length and catchy melodic hook.

If you’re aiming to write a song with commercial potential, it’s important to understand how little time you have to attract the listener’s attention at the beginning of the song.

A short dynamic intro that leads quickly into the first verse is often the key to pulling the listener in.

An analysis of today’s hit songs shows that many intros are typically either four bars or eight bars long and, on average, last for about 10 seconds.

However, a recent citizen science experiment—developed by the UK’s Museum of Science and Industry (Mosi)—suggests that songwriters may have even less time than that to catch the listener’s ear

Less than five seconds, in fact.

The study revealed that The Spice Girls’ 1996 hit, ‘Wannabe’, has the catchiest and most memorable intro in UK chart history. Music fans participating in the online experiment were able to recognize the song in just 2.3 seconds, compared with an average of five seconds for other songs.

Lou Bega’s ‘Mambo No. 5’ was in second place (identified within an average of 2.48 seconds), while Survivor’s ‘Eye of the Tiger’ was third (with an average time of 2.62 seconds). Lady Gaga’s ‘Just Dance’ was fourth.

The research was based on an online interactive game, called Hooked on Music. People who played the game were asked if they recognized a song which was randomly selected from more than 1,000 clips of best-selling songs from the 1940s through to the present day. The results were based on data collected from more than 12,000 participants.

The Hooked on Music concept was created by computational musicologist Dr. Ashley Burgoyne and Professor Henkjan Honing from the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

Dr. Burgoyne told BBC News: “I work within a group that studies music cognition in general – any way in which the brain processes music – and we were particularly interested in music and memory and why exactly it is that certain pieces of music stay in your memory for such a long time.”

He added: “You may only hear something a couple of times yet 10 years later you immediately realize that you have heard it before. Yet other songs, even if you have heard them a lot, do not have this effect.

“We wanted to see if it was possible to identify whether the most memorable pieces of music shared particular characteristics.”

This, said Dr. Burgoyne, included scientifically testing different hypotheses about the musical hook, including the musical features that make something catchy and the importance of very strong melodic hooks.

The new study’s results show that, from a commercial point of view, it’s a mistake to believe that the perfect way to set the stage for your first verse is to tease the listener with a long, intricate intro designed to create a feeling of anticipation.

An intro that is too long and self-indulgent will simply make the song harder for people to remember. Such an intro is unlikely to make listeners sit up and take notice. It will also take up valuable time and slow down the listener’s journey to the all-important first chorus.

Not all songs require an instrumental intro, of course. Some songs may open with the chorus, a solo vocal, or go straight into the first verse. But, if you feel your song needs an intro, make sure it is memorable and impactful by approaching it in exactly the same way as writing a catchy, melodic hook for your chorus.

Top 10 Catchiest Intros:

1. Spice Girls – ‘Wannabe’

2. Lou Bega – ‘Mambo No. 5’

3. Survivor – ‘Eye Of The Tiger’

4. Lady Gaga – ‘Just Dance’

5. ABBA – ‘SOS’

6. Roy Orbison – ‘Pretty Woman’

7. Michael Jackson – ‘Beat It’

8. Whitney Houston – ‘I Will Always Love You’

9. The Human League – ‘Don’t You Want Me’

10. Aerosmith – ‘I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing’

(Source: Hooked on Music experiment/Mosi)

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