
The same melodic sequence appears in a surprising number of recent pop songs - woodpanel
http://qz.com/767812/millennial-whoop/
======
e40
Linked 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
Also known as the Pachelbel rant:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdxkVQy7QLM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdxkVQy7QLM)

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bsaul
There 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
Fair number songs use other time signatures.

[http://www.songfacts.com/category-
songs_with_unusual_time_si...](http://www.songfacts.com/category-
songs_with_unusual_time_signatures.php)

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.

~~~
ZenoArrow
> "But don't hold your breath for oriental tuning. I don't see any reason why
> that would ever catch on. ick."

I can understand your personal preference. That said, I think the ear is more
adaptable than you might think, I've found myself enjoying music that employs
microtones. To give one example, here's some Turkish music played on
microtonal guitar:

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iRsSjh5TTqI](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iRsSjh5TTqI)

~~~
jdminhbg
Listening to that, the microtones remind me of bends on guitar solos in
popular Western music. So maybe we don't officially use them, but I think they
do appear more than we might realize.

~~~
ZenoArrow
Yeah, quarter note bends are common in blues guitar, and by extension blues-
rock and rock. This video gives a simple introduction to what these sound
like:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihZTuRmmBxA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihZTuRmmBxA)

As another example, honky-tonk piano can be out of tune compared to standard
piano tuning:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tack_piano](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tack_piano)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUP6k5xkdBU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUP6k5xkdBU)

There's also been some Eastern influence on the vocals of Western singers. For
example, Jeff Buckley talked of being inspired by the Sufi singer Nusrat Fateh
Ali Khan. Here's Jeff Buckley covering a Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan song:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58E-9ZEw-
yQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58E-9ZEw-yQ)

------
ieatkittens
Not nearly as maddening as DJ Mustards "Hey hey hey hey" sample.

[https://youtu.be/kGVrCIzzoro](https://youtu.be/kGVrCIzzoro)

~~~
anterak13
You 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.)

~~~
tunap
Great place to start and it doesn't require a subscription:

[https://archive.org/](https://archive.org/)

~~~
rzzzt
The netlabels section [1] has plenty of random and interesting songs to listen
to.

[1]
[https://archive.org/details/netlabels](https://archive.org/details/netlabels)

------
woliveirajr
Pachebel canon in D is also found everywhere:
[https://youtu.be/JdxkVQy7QLM](https://youtu.be/JdxkVQy7QLM)

------
TheOtherHobbes
It's a minor third, which is probably the catchiest interval.

You hear it a lot in school playgrounds. :)

------
anterak13
you 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...

~~~
Roboprog
Thanks, 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)

------
TheGrassyKnoll
Blame it on the Swedes...<br>

[http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/10/why...](http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/10/why-
is-sweden-so-good-at-pop-music/280945/)

------
josquindesprez
This 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))

~~~
jomamaxx
No - the songs a very close.

Similar beats, genre, production values, upbeat, bubblegum themes, and then
you have the 3-5 whooping by a 'chorus of teens' or whatever.

It's very, very similar. It's a thing. And it's sad.

~~~
josquindesprez
Yes, it's a thing. But similarity is no reason for sadness. One could make a
similar argument about design patterns.

The important question to ask is, "what ways are there of making music sound
appealing to as many people as possible on the first listening?"

Convergent solutions will arise, just as in the case of design patterns.

~~~
jomamaxx
It's not the similarity that bothers me, it's the general craziness of it all.

------
ris
Hooray! 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.

------
joneholland
This is not a millennial thing. V-III-V arrangements have been in pop music
forever.

~~~
jomamaxx
Yes, but not as a meme.

And not generally howling like that.

It's definitely a thing.

------
rurban
This 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.

------
relaxitup
How does Milky Chance fit into this conversation?

------
hulkaad
Most of these songs are not written by the millenials that perform them

------
tossaway9876543
Oh, so _that 's_ why all these songs fucking suck.

