Guardian Unlimited: Culture Vulture

Very different formulas for feeling good ... records by the Boo Radleys and the Pixies

Startling news from the world of science: a psychologist has apparently found the formula for the perfect pop song. The aptly-named Dr Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, who lectures at Goldsmiths, says the holy grail perennially sought by the likes of Simon Cowell can be expressed as P + Pos + T + BPM + I = S (where P = Pitch, Pos = the % of positive lyrics, T=Tonality, BPM = Beats per Minute, I = Images/Memories associated with the music, S = Serotonin level).

Quite apart from the fact that such stories generally prove to be bad science, as documented by Ben Goldacre, this impressive bit of algebra immediately loses most of its credibility when you learn that such maths declares Wake Up Boo! by the Boo Radleys to be the very pinnacle of pop perfection.

The scientists did not measure my serotonin levels when listening to this record, which I've always found to be a complete abomination, I fear - precisely because it strains so obviously after a rather queasy idea of perfect pop. Dr Chamorro-Premuzic refers to film music's capacity to intensify mood, and this song always reminds me of those coercively "life-affirming" moments at the end of Hollywood movies where the starchy old patriarch finally recognises his son's great talent for breakdancing, or somesuch, the strings swell and your feelings are bullied into a kitschy crescendo. If you don't blow your groceries first.

We all have different ears, of course, and Wake Up Boo! (described by Chamorro-Premuzic as "three minutes of feelgood therapy") may sound great to some people. But the other important thing to point out is that even if feeling good is the point of pop music, there are many different ways it can deliver such uplift - sometimes by consoling your melancholy, sometimes by affirming your right to be in a really foul mood.

A case in point, none of whose releases make the Chamorro-Premuzic list, is the output of independent label 4AD - poised to celebrate a quarter-century of successful leftfield releases.

Despite a strong visual identity across its artwork, 4AD's output is very various - from the swirling, florid guitarscapes of the Cocteau Twins to the jazz-grunge of Nick Cave's Birthday Party - but the good feelings on offer from its roster have never been of the "hullo birds, hullo sky" variety exemplified by Wake Up Boo! (This, remember, is the label which once briefly succeeded in making the Bulgarian female voice choirs highly fashionable, with La Mystere des Voix Bulgares.) And 4AD is not all about fringe or "cult" music - the Pixies were a 4AD band, and M/A/R/R/S's number one Pump up the Volume was also on the label.

The dismaying thing about Chamorro-Premuzic's research is the idea that pop music should work like soma in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World - a zombiefying source of serotonin working to keep us all in place as quiet drones. Thankfully, as the ongoing success of mavericks like 4AD shows, the research is as empty of meaning as the lyrics to most "feelgood" pop songs.