Whatever mood you’re in, there are plenty of songs to match it. If you’re feeling good–or you’re down and are looking for a pick me up–chances are you’ll search for something upbeat and joyful to listen to.<\/p>\n
What constitutes a “happy” song could mean different things to different people. But according to science, one 1970s rock anthem, which registered as a mild hit following its release and has grown in popularity since, is the “happiest” song of all time.<\/p>\n
You might be wondering what the song is. If you guessed Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now,” you’d be correct.<\/p>\n
The science behind ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’<\/p>\n
In 2015, Dutch cognitive neuroscientist Dr. Jacob Jolij took on the assignment<\/a> of what makes a feel-good song, well, feel good. While recognizing music choices are largely personal preference, Jolij wanted to dig deeper on the science behind happy tunes.<\/p>\n By studying 126 songs from a 50-year period<\/a> and breaking down their tempo, lyrics, theme and other factors, Jolij was able to determine that happier songs share some similar qualities.<\/p>\n “The pattern was very clear. The average tempo of a \u2018feel good\u2019-song was substantially higher than the average pop song,” GOOD wrote<\/a> in 2017. “Where the average tempo of pop songs is around 118 beats per minute (BPM), the list of feel good songs had an average tempo of around 140 to 150 BPM.<\/p>\n “And it appears the Queen song has all the attributes for happiness.”<\/p>\n Full disclosure: “Don’t Stop Me Now” is a favorite of this author for a running or workout playlist, and it’s great for weddings and other celebrations. There’s obviously people who would disagree with Jolij’s findings, but we’re fine with it.<\/p>\n The top 10 happiest songs, per Jolij’s study<\/p>\n Queen – “Don’t Stop Me Now”<\/p>\n The Beach Boys – “Good Vibrations”<\/p>\n Billy Joel – “Uptown Girl”<\/p>\n Survivor – “Eye of the Tiger”<\/p>\n The Monkees – “I’m a Believer”<\/p>\n Cyndi Lauper – “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”<\/p>\n Bon Jovi – “Livin’ on a Prayer”<\/p>\n Gloria Gaynor – “I Will Survive”<\/p>\n Katrina and the Waves – “Walking on Sunshine”<\/p>\n From an under-the-radar hit to one of Queen’s biggest songs<\/p>\n “Don’t Stop Me Now” was featured on Queen’s 1978 album Jazz, alongside other band staples like “Bicycle Race” and “Fat-Bottomed Girls.” The song was released as a single in January 1979 and peaked at No. 9 on the UK singles charts but only No. 86 in the United States, nowhere near the group’s most successful songs to that point like “Killer Queen,” “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “We Are The Champions” and others.<\/p>\n However, over the last 47 years, “Don’t Stop Me Now” has surged in popularity, to the point where Rolling Stone readers rated it the band’s third-best song <\/a>in a 2014 survey.<\/p>\n Billboard also examined the evolution of “Don’t Stop Me Now” in a 2019 article<\/a>, which came out a few years after the song was determined to be the “happiest” ever, a conclusion backed by science.<\/p>\n This story was originally published by Men’s Journal<\/a> on May 2, 2026, where it first appeared in the Entertainment<\/a> section. Add Men’s Journal as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Whatever mood you’re in, there are plenty of songs to match it. If you’re feeling good–or you’re down…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217910,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[85947,85948,9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-217909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-happiest-songs","tag-jacob-jolij","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}