What is the most instantly recognisable song?

Everyone knows a hook when they hear one, but scientists don’t know why. By playing the Hooked on Music game you are exploring the science of songs and helping us to unlock what makes music catchy.

Last weekend the preliminary outcome of the online game was announced in Manchester, UK at the MOSI [1], answering the question: What is the most instantly recognisable song? Interestingly, numerous media started to report on this. A small media hype? (see UvA News).



#HookedonMusic is a citizen science experiment involving the Manchester Science festival, produced by the MOSI in association with the University of Amsterdam. The project is a spin-off of a larger consortium (including the University of Utrecht, Sound & Vision and Meertens Institute) that collaborates on developping a web-based environment, so-called ITCH environment (Identification, Tagging and Characterisation of Hooks; See CogItch).

In devising an online game for all to enjoy, we try to harness the wisdom of the crowd to understand and quantify the effect of catchiness on musical memory.

Explore the online game here or download the app here.




J.A. Burgoyne, D. Bountouridis, J. van Balen, & H. Honing (2013). Hooked: A Game for Discovering What Makes Music Catchy. Proceedings of the 14th International Society for Music Information Retrieval Conference, 245-250. Curitiba, Brazil.

[1] See MOSI Press release.