How scientists say a hit song is like an infectious disease

Researchers at McMaster University have found several similarities between the outbreak of an infectious disease and the release of a new hit song. 

The researchers found epidemic modelling can be used to determine what drives the popularity of hit songs, often described as contagious, infectious, or viral.

"When a disease breaks into a population you tend to see a sharp increase in infection cases and eventually it will peak at some point when it sort of makes its way through the susceptible population and starts to decline," Dora Rosati, lead author of the study, told CBC Hamilton.

"We see that same pattern with song downloads in our data. There'd be the sharp increase as more and more people heard about the song and wanted to listen to it, then it would peak and decline."

Rosati said if you think about a song as being "infectious," the analogy continues from there. 

According to the researchers, when an infectious disease first enters a population, it is transmitted from person to person through social interactions. The pathogen eventually reaches a peak and then declines as fewer people are susceptible or infectious individuals recover.

After a new hit song is released, it also "spreads" rapidly through a population, from person to person through various media, eventually reaching peak popularity before it loses appeal, the researchers said.