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These four popular songs all start the same

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K

Korey

Member
5 months ago, someone on Reddit pointed out that 3 of the top hits at the time had the same intro: https://www.reddit.com/r/Music/comments/4u4hef/has_anyone_noticed_how_3_songs_in_the_current/

Just found another one two more.

Apparently Rihanna did it 6 years ago (thanks BowieZ): Rihanna - Te Amo


Jorok Goldblade said:
There's also the "Six Hit Country Songs layered over each other" mashup - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY8SwIvxj8o
Click to expand...
dvdjamm said:
It made me think of this - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVAVuE0um7s
Click to expand...
Jorok Goldblade said:
Yup. Also this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pidokakU4I
Click to expand...
 
J

jax

Banned
Pop music is horrible and unoriginal. Should surprise no one.

"Somebody that I used to know" and "wrecking ball" are essentially the same song. No one calls them out on it, so it just gets ignored
 
P

Plywood

NeoGAF's smiling token!
Langdon Alger said:
So pop music is creatively bankrupt.
Click to expand...
image.php
 
F

FoxSpirit

Junior Member
No, 3 of them use the same electronic instrument and they all are alike in that they use 2 bars/ 2 repetitions before the vocal starts.
That's called heavily inspired, but not the same. Especially the last sample which actually uses 2 bars and and a fourth (right eng term?) and has a pretty different synth instrument in the intro.

But congrats on finding 3 songs that use the same specific synth instrument for exactly 2 reps in the opening.
 
H

Hero_of_the_Day

Member
Scott Harris co-wrote both Don't Let Me Down and Treat You Better. Cheap Thrills and Shape of You were both originally written for Rihanna, but don't share a writer.

Jme said:
these are popular songs?
Click to expand...

I envy you for not having to listen to pop radio at work. I hear all these songs AT LEAST once a day. Often times twice 'cause the stations around here fucking suck and will start repeating songs in my 5-6 hour shift.
 
M

marrec

Banned
It's a testament to the writers and producers that four songs can be written with extremely similar intros but end up very different.

Oh wait that was glass half full mode sorry one second....

#################

*initiate old person mode*

Ugh pop is so creatively bankrupt what happened to music

kids these days
 
D

dejay

Banned
Songs of the same genre are going to share elements - instruments, phrasing, chord progression, song structure, licks, etc. These are all building blocks - as long as you build something that someone likes with them, who cares.

If I disliked most blues tracks because they were unoriginal and used the same chord progression my choice of music would be greatly reduced.

These things tend to go in trends too - artists copy each other. That's how you get different sounds evolving in the same place and time - like Manchester, Detroit, Seattle, LA, New York, etc.

Brakke said:
Let's all get way into polyrhythms and math rock and double harmonics and shit.
Click to expand...

Generally I can't stand "clever" rhythm for the most part, although I understand the urge to break out.
 
P

| Praxis |

Banned
Cool, I get a chance to tell complete strangers on the internet that pop music is shit.

I don't know any of these songs
 
A

Auctopus

Member
Lol, all the "pop music" is trash/creatively bankrupt reponses. Pop music is responsible for some of the best music ever made and requires a very specific set of skills to make these songs endlessly relistenable and have market appeal.

OP, the answer is because Scott Harris is the writer on two of the songs (Shawn Mendes, Chainsmokers) and his buddy is a writer on the other two.

The reason a lot of pop music sounds the same is because most of the hits are written between 3-4 people.
 
T

TaterTots

Banned
Well yea, its expected. Certain chord progressions are more enjoyable to the human ear. Such as a I-VI-VII progression. It's kind of difficult to sound completely different after all this time. Well I guess you could, but it wouldn't sound that great, especially for pop music.
 
S

SonofdonCD

Member
Wafflecakes said:
Not really.
Click to expand...

Clockwork said:
Okay Vanilla.


https://youtu.be/HW_Rduet230
Click to expand...
No, Wafflecakes is correct. They share the same aesthetics (as in, they all are sparse melodies with maybe a chordal instrument playing underneath), and rhythmic figures (a dotted eighth-note, another dotted eighth-note and an eighth note, then repeat it again from the top). But the melodies, if you could call them such, are different in each case, and the harmonic structure, though vaguely similar, are not the same in any of the four cases. Nor are they in the same keys.

Ed Sheeran - Shape Of You (in the key of C# minor)
C#m-F#m-A-B
i-iv-VI-VII

The Chainsmokers - Don't Let Me Down (in the key of G# minor)

E-B-F#-G#m
VI-III-VII-i

Treat You Better Lyrics - Shawn Mendes (in the key of Bb minor)
Bbm-Ab-Gb-Ab
i-VII-VI-VII

Sia - Cheap Thrills (in the key of F# minor)
F#m-D-A-E
i-VI-III-VII

This is no where near as close as the Vanilla Ice defense.

Note, I don't like defending modern pop music. I don't write it and almost avoid having to perform it at all in my gigs. But they just vaguely have the same vibe. They are all in minor keys and have the same rhythm, but that's it. It's probably just something that's in style right now.
 
C

Chichikov

Member
It's similar, it's not really the same.
Honestly, I think you're only notice it because this athetic is not as ubiquitous as say starting with a basic guitar C chord (just as an example).

Also, music had always been derivative to a certain degree, and that was true since the invention of music, and I don't think it's an inherently a bad thing. Yeah, it can get boring if too many songs sounds the same, but when I think about bands that I like, all of them had strong similarities to acts that came before. And I'm sure that's true for most people, regardless of their taste in music.
 
M

MIMIC

Banned
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