Do Four Chords Make Up Every Hit Song?
Jay Frank takes the scholarly approach to dissecting hit songs in his Future DNA. Australian comedy group Axis Of Awesome prefer to go for belly laughs but along the way they make a rather convincing argument that that most of what's needed to write a hit is the same four chords. A couple of the songs were bigger hits downunder than elsewhere, but with the help of titles provided on screen, you'll catch on to the the band's premise quickly.
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So true! …and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. It’s always irked me that pop musicians seem to be creating the same song over and over again.
I-V-vi-IV, the reason I’ve never been a fan of “Let it Be.” The Beatles avoided that progression up until then.
I think the reason the progression is so popular is that it’s mostly the primary major chords (I, IV, and V), but includes just the tiniest bit of emotional tension with the one minor chord, and the vi is much more consonant than the ii or iii.
This reminds me of an interview I remember seeing of Kurt Cobain circa 1992. He was discussing how a lot of Nirvana’s records were written on an acoustic guitar and inspired by nursery rhymes. He said he kept the chords simple (like the four chord progressions featured above) so that fans would feel as if they had heard the song before and thus adding a sense of familiarity. It might explain why so many of the songs in the video were hits.
@davidjlowe
decibel.net