By Sarah Rodman
Globe Staff / July 13, 2008

It only takes a single exposure, and in an instant, your whole day can change. The infection is rapid and feels potentially unending. One minute you're minding your own business and the next you find that you can't stop thinking, humming, or singing "Dancing Queen."

"Friday night and the lights are low. . ."

No matter what you try, you can't shake it. In fact, once you start thinking about ABBA, you're a goner. Next thing you know, you've moved to this: "If you change your mind/ I'm the first in line. . ."

And like the lyrics to "Waterloo" remind us, you couldn't escape if you wanted to.

What triggers this phenomenon isn't always obvious, but it's no doubt about to happen on a widespread scale.

"Mamma Mia!" the film based on the Broadway musical built around ABBA songs, opens in theaters Friday. As people leave the cineplex belting out the tunes sung by stars Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, and Colin Firth, the ABBA invasion will begin anew.

"Mamma Mia, here I go again/ My, my, how can I resist you?"

ABBA's songs continue to endure as what scientists have dubbed "earworms" 35 years after the band's first album was released. Like those little bugs, the tunes burrow into our brains and keep hitting the repeat button.

With all this renewed interest, we wondered if it was possible to break down scientifically why the music is so irresistible. Because even those who profess to dislike the cheery pop of the Swedish masterminds can't block its infiltration into their inner jukebox.

Of course, what makes ABBA songs catchy is to an extent what makes most music memorable, from Bach to the Beatles to the Bernie & Phyl's jingle. But, says Daniel Levitin, author of "This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession" and associate professor at McGill University, there are some individual factors.

"For one thing, the way their songs are performed and produced, quite apart from the underlying composition, gives them an overall catchy sound," says Levitin, a musician and former producer whose forthcoming book, "The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature," further explores the music-mind connection.

The multitracked harmonies of singers Agnetha Faltskog and Frida Lyngstad awaken the part of our brains in which our inner caveman is still enjoying a Paleolithic hootenanny with the rest of his clan.

"If you look at the evolutionary biology of the species and the chemical reactions we have to events in the world, for tens of thousands of years when we as a species heard music we heard groups singing it, not an individual and not an individual standing on a stage," says Levitin. "So the ABBA model of the multiple voices or the Edwin Hawkins Singers singing 'Oh Happy Day' is much closer to stimulating these evolutionary echoes of what music really is, fundamentally - closer than, say, Frank Sinatra or Miley Cyrus."

Continued at this link...

I always thought it was Agnetha Faltskog and Frida Lyngstad's asses...

People get disco tunes stuck in their heads?

That's sad.

I adore ABBA, their songs have been an inspiration for me, i know, i know, i better stop here,
i stop now ...

science cant explain it but i would say the vocals, how they con vine their voices! thats what makes the big difference between them and any other like disco era bands and they did record all their songs in different languages, thats another plus, i heard ABBA albums when i was very very young in Spanish first very cool band, sorry guys please don't hate me too much

I agree with ebarbie! I love ABBA, always have. You cannot beat the vocal harmonies and 'ol Benny and Bjorn learned a thing or two from Phil Spector. It was brillinatly orchestrated pop music! Nothing wrong with that!

I might be stretching out on a limb here, and you can jostle me off and make me go plop if you're so inclined, but here's my opinion:
ABBA were the Mamas & Papas of the 70's. . . both were phonomenally successful groups whose best songs seemingly transcend the decades.

("transcend decades" beyond the 60's and 70's, I meant to say)

Must admit liking some ABBA tunes myself too.

But the article was just using ABBA as the example. It was really supposed to be about "earworms".

I think the professor is full of poo.

Of the top twelve best selling albums of all time listed on wikipedia, only three could be considered vocal groups. Most are single voices -- like Robert Plant in Led Zep or Michael Jackson or Shania Twain or (gulp) Meat Loaf.

I don't care for ABBA, but I don't knock it. It has a beat, it's melodic, smooth. That's why people like it. You don't have to analyse it any more than that.

I think if a caveman heard an ABBA record he would probably be mesmerized like the apes in 2001 A Space Odyssey. But what does that have to do with the price of tea?

Well, the title of the article "Can science explain why ABBA is so catchy?" kind of sets the tone for the topic.

In keeping with what technically made ABBA's songs so catchy (other than saying they have a good smooth melody with a nice beat -- per autodidact -- which is a fine conversational summary) . . .

Why were ABBA's songs so successful?

If resorting to some analyzing, we would not be content with just admitting they had great tunes and superb vocals. (Well, the girls were sharp and had some sex appeal, too, as Leflaw brought up, so that didn't hurt, either.)
But, really, I wanted to dig deeper. So, here's what comes up about their music:

a) infectious melodies
b) emotional appeal and repetition, both of which provide cerebral gratification (I mean, it strokes two important areas of the brain)
c) a satisfying verse-chorus format
d) balance and resolution, even in songs with fade-out "endings"
e) glossy production and compositional patterns of accomplished vocalists
g) multi-tracked harmonies
h) deceptively complex and intricate orchestration, including a very ornate use of vocal harmony and words used partly as orchestration

To put part of the foregoing in proper perspective, Spanky and the Gang did a great job on five- and six-part harmonies in the very early 70's, a few years prior to the onset of ABBA. Perhaps ABBA recognized this as something unique and promising to develop into a trend, at least for themselves.

ABBA wins the trophy for the best pop vocal group of their decade. The fact that the latter part of the 70's is associated with disco doesn't have to detract from their musical accomplishments or their careers.


Hats off for our website providing an article (including music vids) that allowed for a bit of retro/nostalgia to see the light of day again.
And I hope that eventually we could do a kind of review of the best group of the 80's as well.
(Admittedly, this is all RIAA-affiliated stuff, but, on balance, it's still fun if not worthy to consider occasionally.)

Thanks Mike for bringing up Abba. Yes, this is RIAA (Universal) related, but it's still enjoyable music. One thing of note for Abba is they were among a handful of artists that pioneered music videos before the term or MTV ever existed. I don't know if I would consider Abba disco in the truest sense of the genre. They were a pop/dance group with a harmonic and happy song. One of my favorites from Abba was from the 80s..."The Winner Takes It All" of course. I hope to see Mamma Mia sometime. Anyway, great songs that never get old.