Songs by BTS and Billie Eilish are among the best to fall asleep to, scientists say.
Researchers from Aarhus University in Denmark analysed over 200,000 songs featured on Spotify sleep playlists.
In addition to your standard slow, instrumental melodies with long, calming notes, the researchers also found that the K-pop group BTS and American pop sensation Billie Eilish are apparently being listened to by weary people the world over.
Despite being more up-tempo and energetic, songs such as BTS’s ‘Dynamite’ and Eilish’s Khalid collaboration ‘Lovely’ appear frequently on the playlists.
Billie Eilish
Of course, there might be a few issues with the way this data is being used to support such a conclusion. BTS and Billie Eilish are two of the most famous musical acts on the planet, and chart-toppers like these will invariably see their songs on playlists designed for a variety of situations.
More research is set to be done in order to “identify the various reasons different people choose different music for sleeping,” with researchers finding that although “softer, slower, instrumental and more often played on acoustic instruments than other music,” music used to help people sleep “displays a large variation including music characterised by high energy and tempo”.
The crucial thing missing is that these playlists might not be played to make people fall asleep, or they might be played at very low volume.
The researchers added: “The study can both inform the clinical use of music and advance our understanding of how music is used to regulate human behaviour in everyday life.”
This seems like a great opportunity to plough millions of euros into a real-life experiment in which one group of sleep-deprived people are forced to listen to whale noises and Chopin and the other Billie Eilish and BTS. Perhaps Megadeath or Slipknot can be offered as an alternative if they fail to doze off?
I’m looking forward to Aarhus University’s next sleep-related study: ‘Which coffee is the best to send you to sleep?’
Jin of BTS
Meanwhile, BTS band member Jin also recently completed five weeks of basic military training at a boot camp in Yeon-cheon as part of his mandatory military service duties.
The star took to Weverse to share his first social media update since enlisting in the military on December 2022, where he posted photos of himself in military uniform after attending his training completion ceremony.
“I’m having fun. I’m posting a photo with permission from the military,” Jin wrote on Weverse, as translated by CNN. “Army, always be happy and stay well.”
It’s unclear how Korean soldiers get some shut-eye after their staff sergeant calls ’lights out!’, but if the Korean ministry of defence has any brains, it’ll command that BTS gets played through loudspeakers throughout the barracks, just to make sure their squaddies are well-rested should war break out.
