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Our preferences in music are not innate. They depend on many factors, such as our personality, our cultural origins… or the weather. In any case, this is what a recent British study confirms.
Researchers at Oxford University analyzed more than 23,000 songs from the UK charts over the past 70 years to see if their popularity was in any way related to weather conditions. They found that danceable, high-energy tracks like Sean Paul’s “Temperature” and Evelyn King’s “Get Loose” were “positively associated with warm sunny weather”. In other words, music lovers tend to gravitate toward tracks whose beats and lyrics bring them as much joy as the weather.
The weather fluctuations of our playlist
The research team, led by Dr. Manuel Anglada-Tort, also noticed that the popularity of these songs varied with seasonal weather variations. Thus, they were listened to more in summer than in winter. However, this correlation with the seasons was significant only when the weather changed drastically from month to month. “Weather conditions do not reflect changes in mood [des auditeurs] only during months when the weather changes are significantly different”, note the scientists in their study. “For example, the impact of a sunny month in autumn is likely to be greater than the impact of a sunny month in summer”.
The success of the summer tube depends on the weather
Surprisingly, the less popular tracks (i.e. those not shown in the UK charts) did not meet this rule. They did not reach as wide an audience as the others, regardless of the weather. This observation led scientists to conclude that the success of a potential “summer hit” is highly dependent on good weather. “These findings challenge the traditional principle that success in the music market is based solely on the quality of the music itself. Our study suggests instead that favorable environmental conditions, such as warm sunny weather, induce positive emotional states in listeners, leading them to listen to energetic and positive music, likely to match their mood at the time”emphasizes Dr. Manuel Anglada-Tort in a statement.
But what about more melancholic, slow-tempo songs? Are they associated with more tumultuous and rainy weather? Well no. The researchers point out in their study, the results of which were published in the Royal Society Open Source journal, that the success of these songs is in no way related to the weather. Listening to sad or slow songs is more related to our state of mind at the time than to the weather.