Four Chords Is All You Need: The Limited Nature of Pop Music

http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=2641 ^ | William M. Briggs

[mattstat]

A “comedy rock” group which bills itself as the Axis of Awesome has independently discovered the Musical Badness measure. Recall, the Musical Badness measure says repetitiveness makes for poor music. This may be repetitiveness within a song, or even across a genre.

The Axis of Awesome have researched assiduously and found that the most popular pop music has only ever employed four chords, and no others. Just four, and the same four in each song; perhaps, but not likely, occurring in a different order.

Axis of Awesome (Contains bad language.)

More seriously, we have philosopher Roger Scruton, who said,

"Countless pop songs give us permutations of the same stock phrases, diatonic or pentatonic, but kept together not by any intrinsic power of adhesion but only by a plodding rhythmical backing and banal sequence of chords. This example from Ozzy Osbourne illustrates what I have in mind: no point in copyrighting this tune, though no point in suing for breach of copyright either."

[Salamander]

They’re a chord short of a statistic.

[SoothingDave]

With the dazzling lyric “the heat was hot” how could it not be a monster hit?

[Walmartian]

Ok.. it’s a standard 12 bar in “G” but add a 2 on the bridge ...kick it off from the 5 ... hit the 4 on the way down and then into the 1 ... watch me for the 2

[PSYCHO-FREEP]

Only if you are “Comfortably Numb”.

[Grut]

There's always dreck. Conversely, the "Who Do You Love" side of Quicksilver's "Happy Trails" album (1969) is a marvellous example of the art of the fugue. Granted, one diamond amongst the trash isn't much but there were others... and how much distinguished classical music's been written in the last forty years?

For a long time there, 'serious' music could be classified by whether it began with a ping! or a hiss....

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

Springsteen.....the most overrated ‘musician’ of all time.

AMEN, he shouts from the balcony. Never has their been a more repetitious, boring musician on scene that made millions generating ear worms. Springsteen's music is a direct reflection of his intellect which is right up there with Tom Cruise, Sean Penn, Danny Glover, Richard Dreyfuss, Babs Streisand, et al.....

F'ing A right. Springsteen is desert island music. Ship all his records to a desert island and keep them there!

[reg45]

Night and Day written by Cole Porter; sung by Frank Sinatra

[Psycho_Bunny]

This is exactly why, when Rolling Stone said Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” was the number one song of all time, I just sat and stared at the wall for 20 minutes or so.

[KarlInOhio]

Not just pop music. A folk band I listen to had fake but funny biographies of their members until a recent web site redesign. One member described learning three guitar chords allowing him to be a folk guitarist. When he learned a fourth chord he became a folk visionary.

[snooter55]

Amen to that ! I ( as a musician myself ) have never seen nor heard ANYTHING from “ The Boss “ that warrants that moniker or anything other than mediocre talent, at best.

[Travis T. OJustice]

Referring to Springsteen as a “musician”, aven with quotes, overrates him. Worst suck ever. Well, pretty close to worst ever.

[Walmartian]

Richard Wagner - "The Ride of the Valkyries"; Based on a 4 chord structure - 1,2,4 and 5.

Johannes Brahms - "Hungarian Dance No. 5 in G minor"; Based on a 4 chord structure - 1,2,4 and 5.

[DManA]

There’s a party member in the basement of the Ministry of Love cranking it out.

[valkyry1]

Dont think twice its alright

[Psycho_Bunny]

It's a good song, but it's not a fugue. Traditionally - mostly as perfected by Bach - a fugue requires at least three - often four - lines of modulated polyphony outside of the harmony and bass.

Unless you're R. Strauss....in which case you write a 8 line fugue on a dodecaphonic melody. And pull it off.

[RightOnline]

E, D, A.......rinse and repeat. A true staple.

[DManA]

It’s even made clear that human involvement (in at least some of its output) is nonexistent.

“The tune had been haunting London for weeks past. It was one of countless similar songs published for the benefit of the proles by a sub-section of the Music
Department. The words of these songs were composed without any human intervention whatever on an instrument known as a versificator. But the woman sang so tunefully as to turn the dreadful rubbish into an almost pleasant sound.”

Popular music has been written by committees for generations —
it’s easy to imagine a world of anthems and lyrics so mind numbing and simplistic that it comprises only a set order of motifs and couplets, rearranged in ever-more derivative fashion by mammoth content-randomization machines.

Read More http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2008/02/does-the-techno/#ixzz0u31VN4jD

[weef]

Louie Louie is a great song and it doesn’t even use a 4th chord.

[DManA]

I don’t understand all the mathematical foundations of the fugue but I’ve heard talented musicians say they have tried to write one and failed.

[Psycho_Bunny]

Ya. Ok. Lolol