You’ve heard the one about the third Monday in January being the most depressing day of the year? The benefit of a rest over Christmas has worn off, the buzz of New Years Resolutions is starting to fade, and many people are still waiting to get paid…
Well I’m sorry, but new data published recently in the Economist, based on what songs we listen to – now says that the worst is not over yet – that February is in fact the most depressing month.
It makes sense to me – it’s anecdotal evidence at best, but I have always thought that February is usually the quietest month in Connolly’s for our Monday night gigs – a suggestion backed up by the bar staff and management there.
Anyway back to the article in The Economist – journalists collated data from Spotify, where music experts have given each song a score between 0 and 100 depending on how uplifting the song is. So Aretha’s Respect gets 97, a similar rating to Taylor Swift’s Shake it Off and Outkast’s Hey Ya. On the other hand sad songs such as Radiohead’s Creep gets just 10, joined at the bottom by Adele’s Make You Feel My Love.
They then examined the average ratings for songs played in various months of the year, and found that scores are lowest in February while highest in July with a one-off spike at Christmas.
Moods vary more the further north you go, with swings in Finland being more pronounced than countries further south.
Forewarned is forearmed I guess – I once read that nothing is ever so bad that it won’t seem a lot better after either a glass of water, a walk or a good sleep. Maybe we just need to make sure we do a bit more of this in February.
Or listen to some more uplifting music – here’s a favourite of mine at the moment – thanks to Megan Byrne at a recent teenage theme night for reminding me of it!
Thanks also to Osman Rana and unsplash.com for the pic.
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