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The same melodic sequence appears in a surprising number of recent pop songs
- ieatkittens 10y agoNot nearly as maddening as DJ Mustards "Hey hey hey hey" sample. https://youtu.be/kGVrCIzzoro https://youtu.be/kGVrCIzzoro
- anterak13 10y agoYou do not have to listen to what's on the radio or in the mass media. Plenty of other music exists. It is just a matter of accepting being spoon-fed with soup or going on a hunt for the thrill of discovering a unknwon trio from wherever in the world that has made some truly innovative or different music. It is just a matter of consumer choice, just with like everything else (food, drinks, books, movies, etc.)
- ieatkittens 10y agoAbsolutely. I mostly live in a wonderful bubble, devoid of heys, whoops, and the sound of drowning rappers. But, being as common as it is, I cannot completely escape it. :(
- tunap 10y agoGreat place to start and it doesn't require a subscription: https://archive.org/ https://archive.org/
- rzzzt 10y agoThe netlabels section [1] has plenty of random and interesting songs to listen to. [1] https://archive.org/details/netlabels https://archive.org/details/netlabels
- Broken_Hippo 10y agoAnd for a slightly more modern twist, folks are taking the stuff from that, mixing it, and making new music from it. My spouse is one of those people.
- Broken_Hippo 10y agoOh, I beg to differ. I don't have to listen to the crap at home, in the car, or in my headphones. But I'm assaulted by it during a few commercials, in autoplay videos, in movies, in bars. Luckily it isn't the fashion to play music in stores here like it was in the states: There, I got assaulted by it at work. For hours and hours. It was quite a blessing working nights and being able to turn off the freaking music. But for the most part, you are correct. And all folks have to do is have a couple of listens to different sorts of music to get over the hump. After that, it becomes much easier to enjoy. I still listen to some mainstream or quasi-mainstream stuff at times. Sidenote of interest: There was a small movement of surrealist rap.
- bsaul 10y agoThere are two things that needs to come in western pop music to kind of renew it : oriental tuning ( quarters tones, like you can hear in indian or chineese music), but this one may take a while because ot actually sound like a bad note if you mix it with our scales. And the second is non conventional time signatures, meaning different than 3/4 or 4/4. The only popular song i know which has a different beat is "money" fromp pink floyd, which is a 7/4 and sounds good. So it is possible to use at least this new time signature.
- bluetwo 10y agoFair number songs use other time signatures. http://www.songfacts.com/category-songs_with_unusual_time_signatures.php http://www.songfacts.com/category-songs_with_unusual_time_si... Many more play with the 8-bar structure. But don't hold your breath for oriental tuning. I don't see any reason why that would ever catch on. ick.
- bsaul 10y agoThanks for the link. One remark thoug / I've looked at some song from famoust bands, and i saw things like "3/4" or 6/8 ( which was in fact more like a 4/4 with strong 1 and 3 hits, filled with a ternary drum pattern) , flagged as unusual time signature... The other were indeed made by famous artists ( such as bjork) but the songs themselves weren't popular... Anyway, let's hope people continue to try. You'd probably need to invent a dance for the thing to catch on in pop music. Jazz has been doing much more ambitious things for decades now, it's scary to see how long it can take for "mainstream" to cacth up..
- ZenoArrow 10y ago> "Jazz has been doing much more ambitious things for decades now, it's scary to see how long it can take for "mainstream" to cacth up.." You are really missing the point of music. Music isn't something that only reaches its pinnacle when it's at its most complex. Technical excellence isn't the high watermark of great music. The only thing that matters in music is how it makes you feel. Also, simplicity can be deceptive. Take a listen to this k.d. lang song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXqPjx94YMg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXqPjx94YMg Listen to how natural her vocal sounds, how well it fits the song and the lyrics, how she varies her vocals based on what she's singing. Skill with phrasing is the hardest to teach because it comes with musical awareness, but when you listen to someone with great phrasing it can bring a whole piece of music to life. So instead of talking about what music "should be", share what you enjoy, and not just what you enjoy on an intellectual level, what you enjoy for what it conjures within you. What music do you enjoy?
- anterak13 10y agoyou can easilly kill the The Millenial Hook earworm with a single dose of New Millenium Cyanide Christ :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4A_tSyJBsRQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4A_tSyJBsRQ However it is still plain old 4/4 stuff in meshuggah, despite the impression...
- tossaway9876543 10y agoHa! I never looked up "the official video" for that song before. I think the guitar riff is the part using odd timings in that one. (since the rhythm guitars are almost percussive)
- Roboprog 10y agoThanks, man, that was good for a laugh. Definitely wiped out any memory of "canonical" chord progressions from my recent auditory memory. It's like "bulk erase" for auditory memory :-) (I guess I'm more of a "prog/symphonic metal" guy than a screamo/"cookie monster metal" guy, though)
- e40 10y agoLinked from the article, Axis of Awesome's 4 Chords: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgFrVqUXS8I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgFrVqUXS8I Wow, that's hilarious. One of the ut comments has the list of songs.
- div 10y agoAlso known as the Pachelbel rant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdxkVQy7QLM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdxkVQy7QLM
- namanyayg 10y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOlDewpCfZQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOlDewpCfZQ This is a better video of the same. The 4 chord 'coincidence' is crazy!
- woliveirajr 10y agoPachebel canon in D is also found everywhere: https://youtu.be/JdxkVQy7QLM https://youtu.be/JdxkVQy7QLM
- relaxitup 10y agoHow does Milky Chance fit into this conversation?
- josquindesprez 10y agoThis is an interesting observation, but it's poorly contextualized, and becomes rather trite in the context of modern trends in melodic construction. His attempts to contextualize this are not lacking: there's a hint at the minor third's use in schoolyard songs, a quintessential reference to the overtone series (the God of the gaps of armchair music theorists!) an appeal to Bernstein's The Unanswered Question (which is, sadly, for all its visionarity, bordering on irrelevance in the light of the intervening four decades of research on music perception), the quintessential appeal to the overtone series). There is no attempt to understand why the 'whoop' sounds good in songs, or how it relates to other trends in music. The mere identification of a pattern provides little insight into its usage and meaning. But who doesn't enjoy a few digs at the formulaic nature of pop? Let's look at an example, from the article "Good Time". There's actually far more information density in pop music than is assumed. Specifically, let's focus on the use of the 'whoop' as a way of delineating chorus activity. The article identifies the 'whoop' at 0:04, but this card-collecting example-finding behavior hides its main usage in the song. A major 6-5 scale degree pattern predominates in the verses of "Good Time," often to start a phrase ("Woke up"; "What's up") or nested inside of other melodic patterns. Many phrases are ended with a descending 3-1-6, outlining a minor triad (or 1-6-5). All of these patterns avoid closure on the tonic, allowing for smooth elision into the next sentence. To end the first half of the verse, Owl City uses a 3-5 pattern (the inverse of the 'whoop') at 'inside my head', followed by Jepsen humming 5-3-1, a foreshadowing of the 'whoop' in the chorus. The 5-3 pattern takes over in the chorus. This fundamentally transforms how the 6-5 patterns at the ends of phrases are perceived. In the chorus, they are no longer a way of avoiding closure during the rapid declamation of the verses. They are fully subsumed as little moments of relaxation in between 'whoops' of freedom, joy, summer...in short, the joys of being a Millennial. Among the myriad trends and styles that have enjoyed their moments of fame in the history of pop, the most notable is likely the tension between melodies and chord progressions based on the minor pentatonic scale (roughly, blues, rock, etc.) and those based on diatonic scales (arguably, the major pentatonic is stylistically aligned with this side). Different stylistic elements have predominated at various points in time. There has been a resurgence in the popularity of certain diatonic patterns (especially those based on the diatonic major scale) in the past ten years. The 5-3 minor third is particularly useful as a bridge between the pentatonic and diatonic worlds. The 'Millennial Whoop' is no doubt an outgrowth of that trend. There has also been a trend for choruses to focus on the fifth scale degree, often in a higher pitch range than the surrounding verses (this is not remotely new, but in the past, was more identifiable by the use of V chords rather than melodic construction around the fifth scale degree). As an example of the 5-3's usage elsewhere, Adele's Someone Like You, with its soulful roots and pentatonic construction, exemplifies many of the trends that are picked up in the 'whoop'. She starts many phrases in the verses with a descending 5-3 minor third, then moves to a higher pitch range for the chorus...with a few anguished (decidedly not feel-good and 'whoopy') minor thirds (e.g. "I beg"). (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CGuafoq3T4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CGuafoq3T4)
- joneholland 10y agoThis is not a millennial thing. V-III-V arrangements have been in pop music forever.
- jomamaxx 10y agoYes, but not as a meme. And not generally howling like that. It's definitely a thing.
- TheOtherHobbes 10y agoIt's a minor third, which is probably the catchiest interval. You hear it a lot in school playgrounds. :)
- jomamaxx 10y agoBecause Millenial music is s*t. There isn't a song written this year that will be remembered in 5 years. Also - the author forgot 'I have to stay high, just to keep you off my mind' by that Swedish chick.
- tossaway9876543 10y agoOh, so that's why all these songs fucking suck.
- ris 10y agoHooray! Someone else has noticed it and given it a (pretty good) name! I can stop banging on about it. I would actually expand it to include a particular style of gratuitous vocalization that doesn't use this specific interval/pattern. Pop music today is full of what I've started calling "tropes", of which this is the most glaring. The action of all of them is to make it unlistenable.
- TheGrassyKnoll 10y agoBlame it on the Swedes...<br> http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/10/why-is-sweden-so-good-at-pop-music/280945/ http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/10/why...
- rurban 10y agoThis happens almost every summer for a few months. Pop musicians are thieves. This year we had even 2 themes being used all over, the second a special reverse guitar riff.
- hulkaad 10y agoMost of these songs are not written by the millenials that perform them