As Noah Kahan's tour captivates audiences across Europe, with three shows remaining in the UK, fans are reeling in his soulful performances.
A fresh study by Mattress Online has uncovered that fans are not only enjoying Kahan's performances on stage, but also before bed too, with Noah Kahan's track ‘fear of water' noted the best track to fall asleep to when compared against hundreds of songs.
However, what makes a song good to sleep to, and which other artists can offer the soundtrack to a better night's sleep?
Rank Artist BPM Loudness Happiness Sleep score/ 10 1 Taylor Swift 100 -11 30 8.23 2 Cigarettes After Sex 97 -11 26 8.00 3 The Lumineers 105 -11 28 7.72 4 XXTENTACION 95 -14 24 7.67 5 Ed Sheeran 96 -10 35 7.52 6 Noah Kahan 112 -11 31 7.51 7 Sam Smith 102 -10 29 7.40 8 Billie Eilish 98 -14 24 7.27 9 Mac Miller 97 -10 29 7.26 10 Tate McRae 94 -9 29 7.20 11 Fleetwood Mac 111 -14 48 7.02 12 Frank Ocean 107 -13 34 6.97 13 Joji 109 -10 25 6.38 14 Harry Styles 114 -8 35 6.21 15 Olivia Rodrigo 120 -8 30 5.76
The Top Three Artists to Sleep to:
Taylor Swift
With the sounds of pop and country folk, Taylor Swift takes the crown with an impressive sleep score of 8.23/10. Her track Marjorie features third in the top 10 songs for sleeping, with a score of 9.42. Her top three tracks – ‘Marjorie,' ‘I can fix him,' and ‘the lakes' average a sleep score of 9.11.
Cigarettes After Sex
In second place, with ambient, Indie rock music is Cigarettes After Sex, with a sleepscore of 8.00. Their tape ‘Truly' appears seventh in the top 10 at 9.12, and their top three songs ‘Truly,' ‘Crush' and ‘K' are rated 8.86 on average.
The Lumineers
Best known for their alternative folk beats is The Lumineers, scoring 8.72 overall and taking third place. ‘Boots of Spanish Leather' is second out of the best songs to sleep to, with a score of 9.43. Combined with the two runners up ‘In the night' and ‘This must be the place' the top three average to 8.83/10.
James “The Sleep Geek” Wilson from Mattress Online, provides additional insight on the types of sounds we should be surrounding ourselves with before going to bed:
“There is the long term suggestion that to help drop our heart rates before bed, we should listen to music of less than 60 bpm, that may feature binaural beats, pink or brown noise.
However, having seen research suggesting music we feel emotionally connected to, that has good memories, and makes us feel safe is perfect for before bed, it may not matter if your favourite track is from NWA or AC/DC, it can still help you sleep better.”
Mattress Online commissioned the study and this is the methodology that they used:
- Popular sleep playlists on Spotify were compiled using Sort Your Music to extract the relevant figures of BMP, loudness, and happiness.
- The 15 artists appearing most frequently in the playlists had further music examined.
- A formula for sleep score/10 was derived as an average of percentranks of BPM deviation from 98, loudness (quieter giving a higher score) and valence deviation from 30.
- This score was applied to all songs from each of 15 artists separately, and then the top 20 scoring songs from each artist were combined and a score was re-applied to the combined set of songs, giving an overall ranking.
- The average scores for each artist's top 20 songs were then calculated, giving a final sleep score and ranking for artists
