"The Pain, the Pain": Modelling Music Information Behavior and the Songs We Hate

The paper presents a grounded theory analysis of 395 user responses to the survey question, “What is the worst song ever?” Important factors uncovered include: lyric quality, the “earworm” effect, voice quality, the influence of associated music videos, over-exposure, perceptions of pretentiousness, and associations with unpleasant personal experiences.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2005
• Where: ISMIR
• Authors: Sally Jo Cunningham, J. Stephen Downie, David Bainbridge
• Keywords: Associated Music Videos, Grounded Theory, Information Retrieval, ISMIR 2005, Unpleasant Personal Experiences