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All pop songs sound the same

Ed Driscoll

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Apr 24, 2002
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This popped up on my YouTube app a month or so ago while I was on the treadmill at the gym. I love the references to one note melodies -- and root note one note melodies at that, listeners have moved past the more emotional sounds of the '70s and '80s, etc. Why am I fretting (sorry) over writing good melodies when no melody at all is the key to today's music -- even outside of rap? :##

 

Ed Driscoll

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Apr 24, 2002
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And don't forget the "Sensitive Female Chord Progression:" :hee

Even though Beyoncé's "If I Were a Boy" hit radio too late to be the song of the summer, there's still a case to be made that it's the perfect song to cap off the year. It's not because of the empathetic lyrics, or B's heartrending, disappointed vocals. No, it has everything to do with the four chords that underpin the song's verse, circling from yearning to triumph and back again, four chords that were inescapable in 2008.

Let's call this the Sensitive Female Chord Progression, so named because . . . well, because when I first noticed it in 1998 (when I became keenly aware that Sarah McLachlan's "Building a Mystery" sounded an awful lot like Joan Osborne's "One of Us"), it seemed to be the exclusive province of Lilith Fair types baring their souls for all to see. Think Jewel's "Hands." Melissa Etheridge's "Angels Would Fall." Nina Gordon's "Tonight and the Rest of My Life."

So what is the Sensitive Female Chord Progression, exactly? It's simple enough for the music theory-inclined: vi-IV-I-V. No good? Well, for a song in the key of A minor, it would be Am-F-C-G. Still confused? Here's an easy way to see if a song uses the chord progression: Just sing Osborne's lyrics, "What if God was one of us? Just a slob like one of us?" over the suspect four chords. If it fits, you've just spotted one in the wild. Once you're attuned to it, you'll hear it everywhere.

And the Sensitive Female Chord Progression was indeed everywhere in 2008, which started off with OneRepublic's "Apologize" enjoying its chart afterglow. Since then, it's popped up in songs by Aimee Mann ("Borrowing Time"), Secondhand Serenade ("Fall for You"), Katy Perry ("Fingerprints"), Moby ("Every Day It's 1989"), Sugarland ("Take Me As I Am"), Carolina Liar ("I'm Not Over"), T.I. ("Whatever You Like"), Natasha Bedingfield ("Angel"), and, in a last-minute shocker, Guns N' Roses (the chorus of "Shackler's Revenge").

To be fair, rock and pop music has always had formula chord progressions, often by era -- the pre-Beatles early '60s was absolutely dominated by the I-VI-IV-V progression, which in the key of C is C, Am, F, and G. And if you're looking for those sorts of formulas, Rikky Rooksby's How To Write Songs On Guitar is a great place to start. It's also a great book to get out of a songwriting rut by discovering chord sequences you may not have thought of yourself.
 

Foggy72

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Jun 7, 2010
Messages
442
So this guy, Max Martin is a "low-risk" pop song writer with 21 number one songs on BillBoard as of March 2016. And 54 songs in the top 10. Add to that Pro Tools, auto-tune and lots of compression to everything, you will get a ubiquitous bland form of muzak for today's young minds. Amazing that the pop music industry has sunk to such mediocrity.
 

Ed Driscoll

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Apr 24, 2002
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Of course, the kids listening to this stuff can hear all of the subtle nuances, and no doubt, think it's all cool. And/or "it's all good," as they say these days.

 

J T

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Oct 20, 2005
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10,501
Melodyne for polyphonic works very well for a lot of stuff.


Lots of strings and drums are digital...

You would be surprised how much Autotune, etc. is used everywhere and in every style of music AND Post production video/cinema. If done skillfully, you'll not notice.
 

Ed Driscoll

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Apr 24, 2002
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Melodyne is awesome. I only wish the new EQ and harmonic shaping tools in Melodyne Studio 4 responded to DAW automation. But between being able to tune vocals, tune polyphonic material and mangle sound with fun science experiments, it's a great tool.

And compression has been the sound of just about all styles of pop music since the 1960s. Geoff Emerick loved his Fairchild compressor on Ringo's drums, and on loads of other parts of the Beatles' recordings.
 

Big Al

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Apr 24, 2002
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14,537
When the vast majority of commercial radio stations are owned by such a tiny group of corporate conglomerates, is it any wonder?
 

deytookerjaabs

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Nov 6, 2016
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1,592
I'm not sure of the exact treaty on pop but I do know I tend to find those "subtle nuances" in stuff quite a bit. IMO, the singer/songwriter types & indie rock bands etc of today bore me to tears. But, I ****ing love me some solid rap. I hear a great rap tune and the syncopation, meter, motifs of the rappers "flow," when good, will be akin to Tony Williams riding the ride cymbal while stabbing the snare. Meanwhile you can get wonderful melodies and contrasting samples to make the whole tune it's own thing. That's where a lot of the emotion/effort is these days. Then there's the brilliant composers of electronic stuff coming out of the UK for the past 20+ years which is just undeniable but it's less approachable than "pop" music without question. My rock'n'roll friends think I'm crazy but my jazz buddies mostly agree when I say I'd rather bump the hip hop station on the radio than the college indie rock or pop stations these days. That said, there's some cool bands out there, just went to a street fest the other night and every act had a great vibe but didn't sound like normal "radio friendly unit shifters" as Cobain once said. Music is everywhere today it's just the commercial end gets more diluted every year, kind of like how the klondike bar gets smaller & smaller & filled with an ever increasing list of ingredients.
 

Elmore

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Jul 10, 2003
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1,853
My 23 year old son recently told me his favorite song is Voodoo Chile. The version off of Electric Ladyland. And he does like a bunch of new music and electronic crap. I have done my part. Waylon never had this problem.

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2OU4ZhZc5Zw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 

Texas Blues

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Apr 13, 2008
Messages
4,641
Autotune.

I've faked it more times than I'll ever admit to a jury.

I was tired, torn down, wore out, and only wanted a sandwich.

I reckon its justifiable payback for all the times I had to sleep in the wet spot and still cuddle.
 
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