Our musical preferences are not innate; they depend on many factors, such as our personality, our cultural origins – or even the weather, according to a recent British study.

Researchers at Oxford University analysed over 23,000 songs that appeared in the British charts over the past 70 years, to see if their popularity was in any way linked to the weather. They found that danceable, upbeat tunes like Sean Paul’s “Temperature” and Evelyn King’s “Get Loose” were “positively associated with a warm and sunny climate”.

In other words, music lovers tend to gravitate towards tracks with a tempo and lyrics that make them feel just as joyous as the weather does.

The research team, led by Dr Manuel Anglada-Tort, also noted that the popularity of these songs varied according to seasonal weather patterns. Thus, they were listened to more in summer than in winter.

However, this correlation was only significant when the weather changed drastically from one month to the next. “Weather conditions only reflect changes in listener mood in those months when weather changes were notably different. For example, the impact of a sunny month in autumn may be larger than the impact of a sunny month in summer,” they wrote.

Fair weather findings

Surprisingly, less popular upbeat songs – that is, those that didn’t chart as highly – didn’t follow this rule. They didn’t reach as wide an audience as the others, whatever the weather, which led the experts to conclude that the success of a potential summer hit depends greatly on the weather.

“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,” Anglada-Tort added.

But what about more melancholy, slow-tempo songs? Are they associated with more stormy, rainy weather? It seems not.

The researchers pointed out in their study, the results of which are published in the Royal Society Open Source journal, that the success of these songs is in no way linked to meteorological conditions – instead, listening to sad or slow songs has more to do with one’s current state of mind.