Axis of Awesome - 4 Four Chord Song (with song titles)

I suspect the "appealing" melodies amongst this are likely a small subset of the the total set. The whole story reminded me of this axis of awesome (OZ comedy group) song (well worth watching): [VIDEO]

I think nobody linked to Axis of Awsome's 4 Chords Song yet. A good example of chords vs. songs: [VIDEO]

When I was young and learning music theory in piano lessons, one day I realized that literally half the songs on the radio used the chord progression "I V vi IV". This was a huge revelation to me! To my dismay, I couldn't find any evidence on the internet that anyone else had noticed this, until very recently I saw the "Four Chord Song" by Axis of Awesome ( [VIDEO] ). I was hoping to see some mention of that in this article, but was disappointed.

Interesting to see similarities in musical preferences & identifying common threads that lead to popularity. This video / song [1] was viral a few years ago because it demonstrated the similarities between major popular songs spanning multiple decades through the use of just four chords.. [1] [VIDEO]

Pop has actually ossified over the last ten years or so. Dubstep is more than fifteen years old now, and the Paul Van Dyk album I've just listened to sounds a lot like the last Paul Van Dyk album a few years ago. Then you get this: [LINK] and this: [LINK] and the now famous this: [VIDEO] and you start to wonder how much entropy there is to analyse. Modern classical has gone the way of modern art. It's now basically a marketing exercise. The musical experience is secondary. But then I expect creative AIs to be better at marketing too...

It is kind of absurd. Music is intrinsically about reuse, recycling, and reinvention [1]. Sampling is really just a continuation of that. [1] Axis of Awesome, The Four Chord Song, [VIDEO]

> a lot of pop is made by knowingly and deliberately copying elements from various source songs One of the defining characteristics of "pop" music is the reuse of major structural elements like the primary harmonic progression (e.g. the infamous "4 chords"[1]). Listeners that do not have a lot of music theory knowledge and experience can still follow along with the "plot" of the song because it reuses simple structures they already know. Appreciation of more complex harmonic structure and other unique features requires a lot more experience with complex types of music theory. As with all art/writing, knowing your intended audience is important. If the audience includes people without music experience/training, limiting the "vocabulary" top what they know is absolutely necessary. For a very good explanation of this that includes examples, see this[2] video essay. [1] [VIDEO] [2] [LINK]

I didn't learn music through Youtube. So unfortunately, I'm not familiar with any videos that I would consider comprehensive or canonical. At best, I can share videos that highlight a particular pattern, or share examples of popular songs that I recognize as having a commonality. Which might give you a better feel for what music theory is. Another thing to keep in mind is that musical patterns accrete into genres. And there's a wide variety of genres. So it's difficult for any single video to cover everything in detail. I think it's more common for videos to cover the patterns of a particular genre. E.g. if you're interested in Blues, consider searching for videos about Blues. ----- [LINK] I remember the above Vox video highlights a unique chord which sounds "melty" and is often used in holiday music. The chord is known as a "minor_7th, diminished_5th" aka "m7d5". [VIDEO] This video is about the infamous "4-chord pop progression". It's ubiquitous on the radio. Elitists and connoisseurs tend to look down on it for appealing to casuals. The progression is "I V vi IV" (capital denotes major chords, lowercase denotes minor chords). [LINK] When I think of the "12-Bar Blues (Chord Progression)", I think of Stevie Ray Vaughn's "Pride and Joy". But there's tons of educational videos on this. It's very popular in not only Blues, but Rock & Roll. It's "I I I I; IV IV I I; V IV I I". But things get interesting here because musicians often substitue "jazzy" chords like Dominant_7th's (ak