You Do Not Want Most Worship Music to Repeat

This has lessons for liturgy, good and bad: an Italian researcher working with the University of Southern California reports that Repetitive pop songs [are] ‘more likely to be hits’. The study

found that for each additional repeat, a song’s likelihood of making it to number one increased by 14.5 per cent. . . . More repetitive songs rose more rapidly. The chance of a song going straight into the top 40 increased by 17 per cent for each repetition. Neither the gender of the singer nor the tempo made any difference.

The reason, not surprisingly, is that we like to hear things over and over.

Chorus repetition is a winning formula because repetitive songs are processed by the brain more quickly, according to Professor Andrea Ordanini, of Bocconi University, Milan. . . .

“There appears to be a long history of humans’ affinity for the repetition of words in music, from earliest childhood with for example, Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” say the researchers.

 This helps explain the appeal not only of the great spirituals, like Were You There?, but so much of “renewal” and “praise” music. The repetition that Were You There? uses to such effect becomes in the average new church song simply the effect that keeps it in your head when you’d really like it gone.