Harmonic Structure

Could It Be the Harmonic Structure?

We’ve all heard about certain songs that follow a I-IV-V chord progression that are easy to play on piano or guitar and are easy to sing along to. Most of these songs can be played as a mashup or medley together and are popular in their own right. Do the pop songs on Billboards top 100 follow this I-IV-V chord progression and is that what makes the song popular, or is it something else entirely? Let’s find out!

While it is common for today's pop artists to write extremely similar I-IV-V chord progressions, the five pop songs we are going to be checking out today tend to do their own thing. The common denominator in all of these songs is the use of a IV chord or a minor iv chord. As shown on the chart above, Stitches by Shawn Mendes uses a minor chord progression of vi, V, I, IV. This progression is extremely similar to Justin Bieber’s Sorry in Eb. Bieber follows the chord progression of IV, iv, I, ii. The ii chord is similar to Mendes’s vi chord, it works as a leading chord that pushes the progression along.

Adele's Hello and Meghan Trainor's Like I'm Gonna Lose You follow an extremely similar chord progression. Both songs use the 1, 3, 2 and 4 chord of their key. However, the divider between the two songs is that Hello uses a minor 1 chord with the 3, 2, & 4 chord major. Like I'm Gonna Lose You uses a major 1 and 4 chord with a minor 3 and 2 chord. These slight changes make the songs sound entirely different.

Justin Timberlake's Drink You Away is the only one of the five songs we are analyzing that only uses three chords. The majority of the songs we are looking at have a four chord progression. Another interesting aspect of Timberlake's song is the use of the major VII chord. This chord caused a lot of confusion when I first tried to analyze it and it could be something else entirely, however, the VII chord sounded the most correct for our purposes.

Overall, the only few things that remain common throughout a majority of these songs are the use of the IV chord and how many chords are used in the song. The differneces between the songs, however, outweigh the similairities leaving me to believe, the popularity of the song is not dependent on the harmonic structure.

-Sarra