From Madonna to ABBA... why do these hits make us dance?

• New Year's Eve is fast approaching and we are about to say goodbye to 2022.

• For the evening, our readers already have songs in mind to jiggle with pleasure from

  I like to move it

  to

  Gimme Gimme Gimme.

• “There are connections between the auditory regions and the motor regions of the brain.

  When you hear a rhythmic rhythm, you instinctively start dancing,” explains Solveig Serre, CNRS research director and musicologist.

"They're dragging me to the end of the night" Who?

Who is that ?

The hits that make us dance on party nights.

Each celebration has its killer playlist and New Year's Eve, the iconic evening of the year, is no exception to this rule.

With eight billion human beings on Earth, the melodies to jiggle to are legion.

And we all have favorites to wiggle our hips.

To move his body, Yacine likes to listen

by Real 2 Real and The Mad Stuntman.

“It's a classic of electronic music that everyone knows and a pleasure to let off steam on!

», Explains this reader of

who responded to our call for testimonies.

It's hard to blame it when hundreds of lemurs also dance when they hear it in the animated film

released in 2005. With 123 beats per minute,

is in perfect tempo.

At 120 beats per minute, like the name of Robin Campillo's moving film released in 2017, the human body and brain synchronize more easily.

Because music is above all with our brain that we listen to it.

From the ear to the rhythm of the heart

“There are links between the auditory regions and the motor regions of the brain.

When we hear a rhythmic rhythm, we instinctively start dancing.

Even heartbeats tend to be correlated with the tempo of the music,” explains Solveig Serre, CNRS research director and musicologist.

If plethora of armies in the world use military anthems to encourage soldiers to march, it is not for nothing.

Stephanie, she quotes

by ABBA.

“Any time and anywhere, from the first notes, I jump!

I stir while doing the dishes, I dance on the floor as soon as it sounds, in the car on the way to work on days when I don't want to, ”lists our internet user.

Catchy, rhythmic and repetitive, the song of the Swedish group released in 1979 has many qualities to push us to perform our best choreographies.

But the band's music has another advantage.

“Music drives dance”

"ABBA also belongs to a shared intangible musical heritage", emphasizes Solveig Serre.

“What works for everyone is surely the big hits that everyone knows like Britney Spears or Madonna”, explains the popular music specialist who adds that “the ear is cultural”.

When all the guests know the song and its lyrics, playing it creates a particularly powerful moment of cohesion.

A phenomenon familiar to football fans when they sing

for example.

It is also for this reason that Yacine loves

It's a "pleasure to hear everyone shout 'MOVE IT!'

“, he explains.

At the end of the evening, who has never tasted his pleasure while the entire assembly recited the words of

or the much criticized

?

And on certain tempos, difficult to remain still.

“Music leads to dance, one goes with the other.

It was also a problem during the Covid-19 where you had to be seated because certain music is listened to with the body”, deciphers Solveig Serre.

Jiggle to some opera

However, dancing can be learned.

And all eras and generations have not swayed their hips to the same sounds.

It's hard to imagine an opera spectator getting up and waltzing to the sound of

, an iconic song from the opera Carmen.

And yet, “to this music, in the 18th century, we were standing up and moving.

There was a whole education, carried by the bourgeoisie, which seated people and made them silent, ”underlines Solveig Serre.

Still, opera might not be the best choice to get your guests moving as 2023 dawns.

Try

Mark Ronson's

For our reader Magalie and her 9-year-old daughter, it's a must-have song.

"She automatically gives the banana!"

We listen to it while fidgeting in the car, and if it passes in the evening, there, I no longer answer for anything!

She lends herself to all the excesses in terms of choreography, it's now or never to be lathered on the track, ”she says.

Very rhythmic, this song indeed calls for dancing.

From pogo to entrechat

“It's not so much the melody that makes us dance as the rhythmic structure,” emphasizes the CNRS research director.

And if Magalie insists on the lightness of this song which "gives you the banana", a sad song can quite cause a similar effect if its tempo is fast, it is rhythmic and has bass.

“ 

by Stromae is a song that is quite sad in its lyrics but which nevertheless also makes you want to dance.

A song that makes you want to dance is not necessarily due to a melody that is joyful”, notes Solveig Serre.

But for Magalie's daughter,

will probably forever be tied to those happy memories with her mother.

“Music has a very powerful nostalgic power and is strongly linked to good times,” explains the researcher.

So, each playlist has its audience.

If your friends are metalheads, prefer Slipknot to

.

"The music of

[film released in 1980] if the guests were born in 1960, everyone dances too but it's not the same dance", underlines Solveig Serre.

Pogo, slow, entrechats, etc., all dance steps are authorized for New Year's Eve. And for classical, nothing better than the algorithms of music streaming platforms like Deezer.

With a good speaker.

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