Billie Eilish presented the question When We All Fall Asleep Where Do We Go? back in 2019. But now, researchers say the pop star's catalog might even be responsible for getting people there!
Songs from Eilish, BTS, and other artists were found to be some of the best to fall asleep to by Aarhus University researchers over in Denmark, after they analyzed over 200,000 songs on over 1,000 Spotify sleeping playlists.
"It was surprising to see how many different types of music people use for sleep," Kira Vibe Jespersen, an assistant professor at the Center for Music in the Brain, told the New York Post. "Not only different genres, but also different audio characteristics … ranging from slow, soothing instrumental tracks to more energetic uptempo pop music."
Outside of the standard slower songs with minimal elements that would typically help listeners fall asleep, the research — shared in journal PLOS One — suggests that fans often turn to familiar songs to help them fall asleep. Researcher Rebecca Jane Scarratt and her colleagues used Spotify's API to compare the features of the songs on the platform to features from a dataset representing music in general.
"In this study, we investigated the characteristics of music used for sleep and found that even though sleep music in general is softer, slower, instrumental and more often played on acoustic instruments than other music, the music people use for sleep displays a large variation including music characterized by high energy and tempo," the study authors shared in a release.
The research team noted "considerable diversity" in songs that helped listeners fall asleep, and laid out six distinct sub-categories outside of such songs, with three of them lining up with typical characteristics (like ambient music).
Songs like "Dynamite" by BTS and "Lovely" by Eilish ft. Khalid fell into the other three categories of sleep music, as both songs are considered higher energy. The Post reported that "Jealous" by Labrinth, "Falling" by Harry Styles and "The Scientist" by Coldplay are also popular inclusions in sleep playlists.
"The study can both inform the clinical use of music and advance our understanding of how music is used to regulate human behavior in everyday life," the team concludes.
More research is needed to determine why listeners chose such songs to help them sleep, as there is no "one-size-fits-all" playlist for sleeping, per the study.
The findings come as Jin, the oldest member of BTS, updated fans on his mandatory military service this week after completing five weeks of basic training in South Korea. In a post on Korean app Weverse, Jin shared one photo of him standing proudly with a mask, and two other selfies.
Under South Korean law, all able-bodied men are required to serve between 18 and 21 months in the military before turning 28 — although a law has extended the age in the past for K-pop stars. As CNN reports, citing the South Korean military, Jin has specifically been selected to serve as an assistant instructor at the Yeoncheon army base in northern Gyeonggi province.
"I'm having fun. I'm posting a photo with permission from the military," Jin wrote.
"Army, always be happy and stay well."
