"Satellite" was the winning song at the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest. If anyone had consulted musicologist Volkmar Kramarz beforehand, he'd likely have predicted that that tune would place in the top three. That's because Kramarz has researched what ingredients go into making a chart-topper.

He analyzed 7 years' worth of pop hits and found that most of them were based on just three or four chord progressions. Volkmar Kramarz calls this the hit formula. Using an MRI scanner he charted test subjects' brain activity and found that listening to a tune with such chord progressions activates areas in the brain's reward center. As a result, people just can't get enough of that song -- and a new hit is born!