The Novelty Song Scale

For a long time me and my bro have been obsessed with the idea of "novelty songs" and what qualities define "novelty". Everyone knows a novelty song when they hear one- from The Firm's seminal 1987 hit "Star Trekkin'" (maybe the most annoying song ever written), to Spitting Image's "The Chicken Song", it's clear when a song is novelty. But there has never been an officail way to measure it... UNTIL NOW.

The novelty song scale is a way of using a simple scoring system to MEASURE novelty, and determine that some songs are more novelty than others. We have put the scale to the test a great deal- and it has given interesting results. Either these results mean our scale needs work or songs thought to be VERY novelty may not be as novelty as first thought-you decide.

Without further ado- here is the Scale. On the left, the feature of the song, and on the right, how many points it scores.

The first revision of the scale had just the first 8 qualities, making a total of 10 points max. Later, some other criteria got added that are somewhat dubious- except for the "punchline point", which is absolutely a primary measuring criteria! Making a total of 11 points. An 11-point song would be extremely powerful, cause rioting, cause headaches, etc etc, and none has been found. but this is the original Novelty Scale with 11 points max.

I know you want to see some examples! So we got some classic novelty songs and measured them in the novelty scale. The ones we thought would be high usually came out high! But sometimes there were surprises. Here's some research!:

I've put some of the songs that charted highest first- one of the highest was "Sparky's Magic Piano", a capitol records original, in which a sotry is told about a boy who finds a magic piano that talks to him, and makes lots of sound effects while it sings. It is also grating to listen to. It stands tall as the highest scorer to date with 8 points.

One of the second-highest we found was "Captain Beaky" by Jeremy Lloyd and Jim Parker, which is a delightful song about a rabbit told in prose.

Just under a year later, another "8" showed up in the form of Matt Lucas's dire christmas single "Santa Baked Potato".

It's worth noting: scoring a 1 does not mean it is a "novelty song". It just means there is a bit of novelty in it. Usually 5 is about the cutoff point for when something is clearly a "novelty song"- but it's not a hard and fast rule. Also there's nothing wrong with a bit of novelty, so don't be alarmed if your favourite songs chart!

Alternate Interpretations and Scoring

There are a few other criteria for scoring, which knock the max score up to a WHOPPING 13:

It should go without saying that 1. this will run the possibility of knocking UP some scores in the previous table, which seems unfair in some ways. But also this is the scale that we usually use to this day. The "spoken section" part is dubious, but it does seem to usually add points in the right place.

Once again, don't worry if you score high!

So... With that in mind, what would a "13" look like? What sort of song would fulfill ALL criteria? a sung-through story in cartoon voices that ALSO has dance moves and sound effects, (one of which is a chicken-)- well- the two of us came up with the name of a theoretical song that would fulfill all criteria. It's called; "Do The Harry Potter Christmas Mambo". We have not written any lyrics or music for this song- as we would like it to remain theoretical only. It would be a song that would count as a Def Con One crisis and be banned from all radio stations.

-K.B