Europe UK (Commonwealth Union) – Music plays a role for many in impacting moods and how we feel is often reflected in our music. A recent study conducted by the University of Oxford has indicated that atmospheric factors like weather conditions together seasonal patterns could have a key influence on preferences on options that will have a key role how well the song is affected in the market.
The study analyzed more than 23,000 songs reaching the UK weekly top charts occurring in the past 70 years, discovering that songs that had energy, danceable, and triggered positive feelings like joy and happiness were positively linked with warm and sunny weather as well as negatively linked with rainy and cold months. In a similar manner high energy and positive music varied according to resulting patterns during the seasons in the UK, which is elevated in summer and reduced in winter.
The researchers however also found that these findings rely on how popular the music is. While extremely popular hits in the top 10 of the charts demonstrated the strongest associations with weather variations, less common songs displayed no relationship at all. This demonstrates that a song shapes itself with prevailing weather may be a factor advancing a song ahead in the charts.
Lead researcher Dr Manuel Anglada-Tort of the Faculty of Music, University of Oxford says “These findings challenge the traditional notion that success in the music market is solely based on the quality of the music itself. Instead, our study suggests that favourable environmental conditions, such as warm and sunny weather, induce positive emotional states in listeners, which in turn, leads them to choose to listen to energetic and positive music, potentially to match their current mood.”
The researchers also noted that not all music types had same effect with the weather. It was found in the study that music features with high intensity and positive emotions were linked to the weather.
