Music Festival: 10 songs that make you happy

June 21 is both the first day of summer and the date of the Fête de la Musique. An opportunity for amateur musicians to perform in the streets and public spaces. To celebrate the 40ᵉ anniversary of the event, here is the list of the 10 songs which, supported by a mathematical equation, make the happiest…

The first Fête de la Musique took place on June 21, 1982, the symbolic day of the summer solstice, that is to say the longest day of the year (or the shortest night for those who celebrate until dawn).

The Music Festival is 40 years old

It came into being after a major cultural survey revealed that five million French people, including one in two young people, played a music instrument. The emblematic Minister Jack Lang then imagined a great popular demonstration which would allow all the musicians to express themselves.

Since then, the success of the event has never wavered. The Fête de la Musique flourished and spread widely around the world. In 2017, more than 120 countries in the world participated in the event.

Associating music with a happy event is nothing new: research has shown that listening to music helps to secrete more dopamine, the happiness hormone.

Why does music make you happy?

In a very serious study conducted in 2015, Dr. Jacob Jolij, a neuroscientist at theUniversity of Groningenhas managed to identify the most effective songs to make those who listen to them happy.

Thanks to a mathematical formula based on the tempo, scales and lyrics of Anglo-Saxon songs from the past 50 years, he has compiled a top 10 of the songs that make us the happiest.

Although tastes in music obviously remain subjective, Dr. Jacob Jolij has identified three important criteria for a particular song to be able to generate happiness:

a tempo of 150 beats (or more) per minute for dradiate energy,
using a range of notes in major modewhich offer catchy sounds to the ear,
finally some lyrics positive and optimists.

The equation in question is therefore the sum of all the positive references in the lyrics (ƸLpositive), divided by the difference between the tempo of the song, and that which approximates the ideal tempo of 150 beats per minute, squared. To the figure obtained, Jacob Jolij adds the difference between the scale of the chosen song, and that of the major scale, which is considered ideal (1/3rd, 1/3, 1/3-th).

What better than mathematics to cultivate your happiness in music?

The 10 songs that make you happy

Dr. Jacob Jolij’s team has thus succeeded in establishing the ranking of the 10 songs that make you happy, what we could call the playlist of happiness!

At the top of the ranking are Don’t stop me now, of Queen which, according to the researcher, presents the ideal tempo, the right lyrics and the right scale, to immediately produce a feeling of well-being.

In second position appears the disco tube Dancing Queen of the Abba group. Note that in 8th place, we find I will survive by Gloria Gaynor, the favorite song of the Blues during the 1998 World Cup.