How
to Construct the Perfect Pop Song:
What's
the formula? Who's writing these songs?
I
was aimlessly scrolling the internet one day when I came upon an interesting
article; "20 Hit Songs Meant for Other Singers". As a musician, this
type of article grabbed my attention because musicians are always trying to
gain extra trivia knowledge to stump their friends. I clicked on the article
and quickly learned that the ever-so-catchy, "Umbrella", by the pop
star Rihanna, was actually meant to be sung by Britney Spears. This perplexed
me, not because I didn't understand that pop music's filled with ghostwriters,
record label demands, and producers, but because I thought a singer like
Rihanna would have had at least a little creative input on her wildly famous
song. The article basically showcased the "behind the scenes" trading
of prepared songs ready for someone to make them famous, without writing one
note or one lyric. So intrigued by the article, I decided to look into just whom was actually writing the songs that
play every car ride. On top of that, I decided to take a look into the music
theory behind these songs. I'd always been aware of the "4 chord" pop
song with the Verse-Chorus-Bridge structure, but I wanted to test just how many
of the most popular songs were structured the exact same way. From this
inspiration, I devised the question; "What's the formula to a perfect pop
song? and Who is actually writing these songs?".
The
Billboard Hot 100 is the most commonly used list when it comes to indentifying
America's top songs. I went here to find the current #1 song in the nation,
which turned out to be "The Monster" by rapper Eminem, featuring the
previously mentioned Rihanna. To start, I gathered the songs chord progression
from Ultimate Guitar.com, B Minor-A Major-G Major (Bm-A-G). The other
information gathered for the track included the Beats Per Minute (BPM) of 110,
the length of the song (4:10) and finally the genre, Hip Hop. Next, it was time
to find out who wrote this track. Was it another "Umbrella" case? In
the end, "The Monster" was written by Eminem...but alongside 6
others. Rihanna, the featured star, was not among the other writers. It's
surprising to see so many co-writers on a track that uses a basic structure and
3 chords. In order to follow up my research, I then went back to the Billboard
Hot 100 and studied the same details in each of the #1 songs, dating all the
way back to the beginning of 2011. In total, there have been 35 #1 songs in
America since 2011, and each one was not too much different than the next.
The
chord progression of Bm-A-G was not rare, as it showed up in 3 more #1 songs
since 2011. In fact, Rihanna's song "Diamonds" simply switched those
chords around and had a progression of G-Bm-A. Once again, Rihanna was not part
of the writing process of this song, which had 4 other people writing it.
Another song with these chords was "Wrecking Ball" by Miley Cyrus,
which has a progression of Bm-D-A-G, the same as "The Monster", only
adding a D Major Chord. "Wrecking Ball" also ended up on the list of
songs that had no input from the artist in the writing process. It was written
by 5 people, and not at all by Cyrus. Other songs that were written 100% by others
and not the artist include, "Stronger" by Kelly Clarkson who had 4
others write her song, "We Found Love" by Rihanna who had 1 person
hand her the song, "S&M" by Rihanna featuring Britney Spears was
written by 4 others, and finally "Hold It Against Me" by Britney
Spears was written by 4 others and not Spears. In conclusion, both Rihanna and
Britney Spears have not contributed to writing any of their top hits within the
past 3 years.
Only
6 of the 35 top songs were written solely by other ghostwriters, but only 4 of
the 35 were written solely by the artist with no help from other sources.
Ironically, one of these songs is "Blurred Lines", the controversial
song by Robin Thicke, T.I, and Pharrell. However, the list is dominated by
songs that have multiple other writers. The biggest case is in the recent song,
"Timber" by Pitbull featuring Ke$ha, which uses 9 other writers
besides themselves totaling 11 writers for one song.
"Timber"
also has the lists most common chord progression of Em-G-D-C. Variations of
these same four chords appear in 7 other songs on the list. Taylor Swift's
"We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" has the progression of C-G-D-Em
and clocks in at 3 minutes and 12 seconds. Similarly, Carly Rae Jepsen's,
"Call Me Maybe" has the chords C-G-Em-D, which is almost identical
and clocks in at just a second more, 3 minutes and 13 seconds. The other songs
that had almost identical chord progressions include, "Just Give Me a
Reason" By Pink. As well as, "Moves Like Jagger" by Maroon 5. Another common progression, Am-C-G-F, was used
in 7 songs as well. Two of these songs, "We Found Love" and
"Somebody that I used to Know" by Gotye, not only had the same
chords, but clocked in only 2 seconds apart and only 1 BPM different from each
other. Although these two songs sound nothing alike, the same four chords have
created a pop song that tops charts.
As
far as the timing of songs go, the shortest song proved to be
"Royals" by Lorde at 3:10 and the longest was "Someone Like
You" by Adele at 4:47. There is over a minute difference between the two
tracks, but this disparity was not common with the median songs. "Roar"
by Katy Perry is 3:42 and "Wrecking Ball" is 3:41. "Hold It
Against Me" is 3:49 and "Firework" by Katy Perry is 3:48.
"Part of Me" by Perry and "We Found Love" are almost the
same song, both clocking in at 3:35. Both tracks have the same chords of Am-F-C-G
and BPM's of 130 and 128 respectively. Both songs are also described as
"Dance Pop".
So
what does this all mean? Well, to most it doesn't mean much, "I don't
really pay attention to the structure or details like that" says 19 year
old radio listener Nick Almieda. Most audience members share the same view,
including critics and music reviewers. Despite Miley Cyrus being absent in
writing her song "Wrecking Ball", Jon Dolan of Rolling Stone commented on the song calling it, "great coming
of age pop". The same goes for
every other song that has topped the charts over the years.
In
conclusion, I found my answers to my two questions. I originally asked, "Who's
Writing these songs?" and although there's not one common name that pops
up more often than others, the conclusion is that #1 songs are not solo
efforts. They are written by at least 2 or three others and at most there's a
double digit number of writers. As far as the formula to a perfect pop song
goes, I'd say either grab the chords, G-D-Em-C or Am-F-C-G to begin with. Next,
have a BPM of around 130 and have your song be about 3 minutes 40 seconds long.
For the genre, the most occurring sound of "Dance Pop" is the best
bet. There are many ways to make 4 chords, basic beats and structures work
differently. Pop singers and the ghostwriters know all the tricks to making
them successful.
