The Science Behind The Obsession With Songs From Another Room

The premise of "songs from another room" videos is simple; pretend that you're in a nightclub bathroom, or the bathroom of a house party, and suddenly you hear your favorite song and even though you want to go out there to dance to it, you stay in and just enjoy the song and sing along. I don't know why I've become obsessed with it! And for awhile I though that I was the only one, but looking at the YouTube views, I am one of a million viewers! According to The Daily Dot there is a reason for the growing trend:

"The first moments after moving to a quiet room away from a loud environment are refreshing, and hearing music filtered through another room is oddly soothing. It’s like hearing rain fall on your rooftop versus being caught in a downpour. Your mind doesn’t need to compete with a storm of noise, and these moments allow you to actually process the setting and sift through your emotions." 

I first encountered a "song from another room" last year in the summer, it was the theme song to an old Nickelodeon show! The article set the scene for me: "Pretend you're in the bathroom of a house party when suddenly you hear this banger!"

Seriously, if you close your eyes you can imagine you're in the bathroom of a house party and hear this song! Well, I immediately did some research and it turns out that it all started with a meme of Childish Gambino's "Redbone" that said: "What Redbone would sound like while you're making out in the bathroom of a house party." The meme grew from there and it branched out to different songs like this:

(RIP Dolores)

I actually had forgotten about these videos, because this all started last summer, until this morning that I got to work and noticed that one of the videos was on our prep service and it just brought me back to those memories! The video that it had was from The Killers and I just went down a YouTube Black Hole!

In my YouTube black hole, I learned that it actually branched out from "being in a bathroom at a party" to "songs playing in an empty mall" and this one has got to be one of my favorites:

These type of videos work better with headphones on. And in reading why we actually enjoy these, it makes sense. How many times have you been at a party or nightclub and suddenly you hear "your song"? It really makes the night when you can enjoy the song in your own setting. Chills!