The first time you hear it, you scroll past. The second time, you wonder why everyone is using that chorus. By the fifth encounter, you are complaining about it. A week later, you are singing it while making coffee.
Eventually, you search for the full song. For research purposes, obviously.
Then comes the awkward possibility: you might actually like it.
Did the song win you over? Did repetition do the work? Both can be true. Hearing something repeatedly can change your response to it, and the pleasure you eventually feel can still be real. Your first reaction does not have permanent ownership of your taste.
Your taste has a listening history.
Psychologists use the term “mere exposure effect” for the tendency to like something more after encountering it repeatedly. Music offers a particularly interesting case because repeating a recording can also give you time to notice what it contains: a harmony, a rhythmic detail, the way a singer approaches a line.
In a 2017 study published in Frontiers in Neuroscience, 15 participants heard 40 unfamiliar musical excerpts repeatedly over approximately four weeks. Average liking increased across the experiment at all four levels of musical complexity the researchers had selected. The small sample and selected music limit how widely we can generalise, but the result illustrates something familiar to listeners: appreciation can grow with repeated listening.
The experience can change even though the recording stays exactly the same. A melody that initially seemed difficult to follow becomes something you can anticipate. A strange vocal delivery starts to feel distinctive. You begin waiting for a moment that barely registered the first time.
Of course, anyone who has worked somewhere with the same playlist all day knows another possible destination: wanting the speakers unplugged.
A 2004 paper by Karl Szpunar, E. Glenn Schellenberg and Patricia Pliner helps explain why repetition cannot be reduced to a guaranteed formula. Their experiments found that the relationship between exposure and liking varied with the musical material and listening conditions. For some music heard under focused listening conditions, liking initially increased and then declined. Under incidental listening conditions, more exposure was associated with higher liking.
There is no universal play count at which a song becomes irresistible. Repetition can give music a chance to open up. It can also wear out its welcome.
And there is another complication: having a song stuck in your head.
Researchers call this involuntary musical imagery, often shortened to “earworms”. A 2014 study in PLOS ONE analysed 1,046 reports of people's reactions to these experiences. Many were described as pleasant or neutral, while others were unwanted. The tune repeating in your mind therefore tells you something about what your memory is doing; it does not, by itself, settle whether you enjoy the experience.
You can know a chorus perfectly and wish you did not. You can also enjoy hearing a song without wanting it as your internal soundtrack for the next six hours. Remembering, liking and wanting another listen are different questions.
That distinction matters when a song seems to follow you everywhere. Recognising a fragment can make a video feel immediately familiar, while your opinion of the full recording remains undecided. You might know the chorus, the dance and the joke attached to it before you have heard the second verse.
Try playing the whole thing. Perhaps the section you recognise is its best moment. Perhaps the verses give that chorus a meaning you had missed. Either outcome tells you more about your response to the song than another encounter with the same excerpt.
The exposure research also raises a question about opportunity. Imagine two tracks you could potentially love. One appears repeatedly in your day: a friend's playlist, a video, a shop, another video. You encounter the other once, distracted, while answering a message.
The first track has had several opportunities to become familiar. The second has had a brief audition. Given that repeated listening can change appreciation, it seems reasonable to question how much that difference contributes to the verdict. It would be difficult to call those equivalent introductions.
This is one reason promotion can matter beyond simply announcing that a song exists. It can create further encounters. But the research does not let us assign a percentage of any particular hit's success to repetition, or conclude that listeners have been tricked into enjoying it. A memorable performance and repeated exposure can work together.
Nor does an obscure artist automatically deserve a better verdict. An unfamiliar song might leave you cold after several listens. A huge hit might move you immediately and keep doing so for years. The useful question is whether you have left room for music that has not already been introduced to you repeatedly.
You can explore that without turning listening into homework. Revisit a song that intrigued you but did not quite click. Pay attention to what changes: do you notice something new, anticipate a favourite moment or simply recognise the tune more easily? Recognition alone is an interesting outcome; you do not have to force affection.
With the song you hear everywhere, ask whether you ever choose it when nobody else is playing it. Do you want the full recording? Does it mean something to you beyond the moment it soundtracks? These questions offer ways to reflect on your taste, rather than a scientific test of whether your enjoyment is authentic.
That curiosity belongs in independent music discovery too. Kallitone offers another place to encounter unfamiliar artists and begin deciding which ones you want to hear again. A first impression can start that relationship, with further listening giving it room to develop.
You can love the hit. Leave a little room for the song that has not had a hundred chances to reach you.
Which song did you find annoying at first, then catch yourself playing voluntarily?