For a study titled Diurnal fluctuations in musical preference, researchers analysed streaming data for nearly four million songs on Spotify to find out if there was a pattern to the types of songs people listen to over a 24-hour period.
Lead researcher Ole Adrian Heggli told Sunday Morning it started out as a lockdown project
"We were unable to come into the offices where we normally scan people's brains, so instead, we had to find something else to look at and this data set from Spotify looked very interesting," he said.
Using the data, they found there were five blocks of time throughout the day where our song choices transitioned.
In the morning, we're more likely to listen to music at a slower pace - think Lovely Day by Bill Withers - but as the day goes on, louder and faster songs dominate our choices.
"When we look at this data, we suggest that a song that's very much in the middle of everything, so to say, would be the best fit for something you could listen to all day," Heggli said.
And that perfect "in the middle" song? It's The Police's 1983 smash hit Every Breath You Take.
"It's a bit creepy, some of the lyrics ... but on the other hand, the music in itself is almost soothing, it just goes along," he said.
"I spent some time searching and looking for something like that and it's not easy to find something as middle of the pack as that song.
"It just has something a little bit magical about it, the straight rhythm and the drums and the rather pleasant melodic lines. So in a way, it might also be a bit unique."
But while it's a tune we can enjoy in the background, it still manages to avoid the curse of being elevator music - because Heggli says if something becomes too pleasant or too boring, it also becomes annoying.
"I think Every Breath You Take somehow manages to avoid that, it doesn't have any big surprises or anything, but it still has a little bit of something that captures a bit of your attention but not too much."
- RNZ
