Round 1 Wrap Up

What about pop music is so appealing?  Why is pop music popular?

This is the question I have set out to explore by analyzing no.1 hit songs on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.  Rather than focusing on these songs in order, or even picking and choosing to suit my own tastes (or distastes), I wanted to explore songs in 10 year intervals, hence "The Decade Hit."  (refer to my first post which gives an overview of the project.

I started this leg of the journey with the first no.1 hit, just after the Hot 100 chart, as we know it, was established in 1958.  This happened to be Ricky Nelson's "Poor Little Fool," August 4th, 1958.  After that, I skipped to the first week in August 1968, and proceeded to move through the decades until August 2018.  

After analyzing the first two songs, I made a list musical elements both songs shared.  As I analyzed more songs, I revised the list, rewording or subtracting items to account for musical trends.  Below is a chart summarizing the most commonly found elements and how each song "scored."

No.1 Hits 1958 - 2018, on the decade

Unifying Factors 

These findings are interesting to someone like me: a composer, music educator, performer and avid listener.  Every song checked the box in two elements:

Vocal melodies repeat rhythmic and melodic themes and arrangement evolves throughout. 

At first glance, these are fairly predicable sentiments.  But let's go a little deeper.  The idea that popular songs have repeated themes is itself the very essence of being "catchy."  One of the reasons these songs resonate is partially due to their singability by the casual fan, as well as inherent familiarity.  Those factors enable a melody to get stuck in your head in the first place and will be more readily enjoyed if it plays off information you have already stored in your musical memory.

Familiar melodic content is also an interesting notion.  Scroll through each song on the list and notice the intervalic structure of each hook.  You will notice lots of 2nds and 3rds.  Anything larger than that is generally followed by a smaller interval ("I Kissed A Girl") or a repeated large interval ("The Boy Is Mine").  Perhaps these smaller, diatonic intervals can be traced back to songs you heard when you were a baby.  Think of some standard lullabies: "Hush Little Baby," "Rock-a-bye Baby" or even "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star."  The majority of these compositions include stretches of stepwise motion (2nds) after a larger leap.  I'm not likening no.1 songs to lullabies, but pointing out the roots of our collective fondness to such melodic construction.

The other common thread involves the evolution of arrangement.  This makes a lot of sense to me.  People like the familiar, as I just mentioned, but also like to be surprised and crave change, but not too much change where we lose sight of the familiar.  Each song analyzed contains some element that evolves throughout the song.  This is done in a variety of ways but garners the same result: when the song is finished, it has gone through a journey.  A story has been told, often both lyrically and musically.  We hear the same thing multiple times without hearing the same thing.  

Think of songs you enjoy listening to, no.1 status aside.  I am willing to bet your favorite songs contains some variation that happens in one place and not another.  Think of songs you deem as "boring."  Chances are, those songs repeat verse, chorus, verse, chorus without variance between the sections.  I'm going out on a limb, but I highly doubt we will see any Ramones songs at no.1 (spoiler, The Ramones peaked at no.66 in 1978 with "Rockaway Beach").  

Honorable Mentions

There are a few categories that were shared by all songs, except one.  

Melodies Utilize and/or Resolve to Chord Tones

Background/Harmony Vocals featured throughout

Memorable Hook using the Song Title

Lyrics about Love    

4/4 time* (technically "Poor Little Fool" is in cut time, but this is a slight variation on 4/4, so we'll give this category the nod)

These elements are all what I would expect to hear in a popular song.  It's almost more interesting to look at the songs that did not contain these elements.  You can probably chalk that up to the point about song evolution.  These songs have managed to evolve and thrive well past normal pop music conventions.   

Where To Now?

I like to write songs.  I have no unrealistic expectations to write my own no.1 hit song, but the general aim of any creator is to find acceptance and resonance with other in their creative output.  I started writing a song the other day and I was getting stuck trying to remember all of the lessons I have learned in analyzing just these 7 songs.  And that's what they are, lessons in song writing.  I would imagine I will obsessively try to follow some of these paradigms for a few songs and then loosen up and remember my own voice, hopefully finding a healthy balance of personal voice and best practice.  That's a blog for another day though!

What do you think of the commonalities between songs?  Is there an element present that I missed?  I would love to hear in the comments!

The analyses must continue!  This round started in August of 1958 and worked its way to the present, jumping by decades.  For round 2, I will start with whatever the no.1 song is in the first week of August 2019 and work my way down the decades, all the way to 1959.  I will also start fresh with the list of similarities, trying to forget everything I just discussed the best I can.  It will be interesting to see if the new list contains the same musical elements.

So up next: I did not expect this song to come up in my journey so quickly.  With an epic 19 week run at no.1, this song holds the record for longest reigning no.1 hit EVER.  April 13, 2019 - August 17, 2019 "Old Town Road" by Lil Nas X, featuring Billy Ray Cyrus, smashes the charts.  Get ready for round 2!