97% of pop is in 4/4... let’s look at the 3% that's not
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Most pop music is in 4/4 time, but not all of it. I've listened to each of the 40 best selling songs (on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart) from each year of the 21st century and taken note of which time signature(s) they use. So that's a sample size of 933 songs (it would be 960 but sometimes the same song is in the top 40 best selling two years in a row so I didn't count those twice in the data). Out of those 933 songs, only 32 diverged from pure 4/4 time, so let's take a look at them today and see what other options exist beyond good old reliable 4/4.
The outro music to this video is my track "Clap" which you can hear in full on Spotify: open.spotify.com/artist/0wKKJ...
And, an extra special thanks goes to Douglas Lind, Vidad Flowers, Ivan Pang, Waylon Fairbanks, Jon Dye, Austin Russell, Christopher Ryan, Toot & Paul Peijzel, the channel’s Patreon saints! 😇
0:00 Introduction
0:40 2000
0:49 2001
1:28 2002
1:53 2003
2:09 2004
3:45 2005
4:09 2006
4:59 2007
5:10 2008
5:28 2009
5:48 2010
6:14 12/8 vs. Swung 4/4
7:50 HDpiano
8:22 2011
8:55 2012
9:14 2013
9:19 2014
9:45 2015
10:26 2016
10:36 2017
10:57 2018
11:19 12/8 vs. 6/8
11:47 2019
11:53 2020
12:03 2021
12:15 2022
13:00 2023
13:38 Review
15:05 Patreon
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Now it's time to do Progressive Metal songs that ARE in 4/4
Thats a good idea ngl
Was thinking about this just today. There's always two or three prog songs that are basicilly pop songs in 4/4 and those are usually the hit the band is known for. Then there's the rest of the album that are all 17 minute soundscapes that go through every key and a dozen time signatures and 200bpm parts and the casual fans will have no idea that's what the band is actually like. Yes comes to mind.
Pull me under - Dream theater
Sober - Tool
yes please, I'd watch that video
Would just be a list of Djent
Once again Nickelback fearlessly pushing musical boundaries.
Chad did what no other man dared to do... date Avril... wait, what? Oh, yeah, the 00s were weird...
@@Testgeraeusch not at that time 😂😂😂 2000s Avril Lavigne was married to the singer from Sum 41, moving on from that to Nickelback was quite a shift in the zeitgeist between the 2000s and the 2010s
Maybe it was Avril. Both "I'm With You" and "Breakaway" are Avril songs. Although they were married LONG after these songs.
Want to see a show that only costs 45 cents? 50 Cent featuring Nickelback.
Who?
I basically have no idea what you guys are talking about but I’m happy to be here!
Same
Fr just vibing here
Same lol. I can’t really hear what he’s talking about but man is it interesting to listen to regardless!
I would look up a video on how to read time signatures. It’s very simple but I can’t imagine what this video sounds like without knowing what they mean😭
You a little confused, but you’ve got the spirit!
Even if time signature isn’t the easiest to understand, the differences in beat/rhythm are still perceivable to non-musicians so I’m glad you got to vibe here ✨
The "shuffle era" makes you realize how much producers follow the trend.
That's just how people are, they eat up a trend until they get bored and move on. It makes sense to jump on trends early it usually will work
The music always have a "trend", take look to the rockandroll/rockabilly style of the 50s and then the move to the beatlemania in the 60s
All art has trends, it's not a bad thing, it's just how art works.
Yes, even the niche genres. The prog metal that sells well today doesn't sound like the prog metal that sold well 10 years ago.
To exist in a genre is to be in conversation with the genre, and if you're not incorporating the work of your contemporaries and trying new things, then you're not in conversation, you're just following a formula.
Ngl all those shuffle songs are bangers
I bet you think you're so smart for recognizing an obvious musical trend lmao, that's how art works buddy
me watching the entire video not understanding what is 4/4
You can count most songs with a 1, 2, 3, 4. That is basically what 4/4 time is (very rough definition).
Usually: If the bottom number is 4, the top number is how many beats there are in a "bar", also called "measure" in some parts of the world. You can count from 1 up to the top number repeatedly, and is will sound right.
If the bottom number is 8, divide the top number by 3 (this will nearly always be possible), That's how many beats there are. For example, for 6/8, because the bottom number is 8, the number of beats is the top number (6) divided by 3 (6÷3=2). You can count 1,2,1,2,1,2,1,2… and it will feel correct.
There is a whole world of time signatures, counting, and rhythm beyind these simple rules, but for pop songs, this will get you most of the way.
@@mrewan6221how does 9/8 make sense then
@@sweetwhitechocolate483 It's 3 beats, each subdivided into 3 pulses.
Its music theory name for it is Compound Triple time. Compound because each beat is divided into three pulses (rather than Simple, where each beat is divided into two pulses), and Triple, because there are three beats (rather than Duple - two beats, or Quadruple - four beats).
The most famous song of all time in 9/8 is "Juse, Joy of Man's Desiring" by Bach. One of the songs in this video (the one in 3/4 with triplets) could have been written in 9/8.
@@sweetwhitechocolate483 It's three beats, with each beat divided into three pulses. The music theory name for this is Compound Triple time.
Compound means the beat is divided into 3 (rather than Simple, where the beat is divided into 2).
Triple means there are 3 beats, rather than Duple (which means 2 beats), or Quadruple (which means 4 beats).
Here are some examples:
Simple Duple: 2/4 "Mon-day Tues-day"
Simple Triple: 3/4 "Or-ange Sil-ver Pur-ple"
Simple Quadruple: 4/4 "Thir-ty For-ty Fif-ty Six-ty"
Compound Duple: 6/8 "Se-ven-teen Se-ven-ty"
Compound Triple: 9/8 "Ger-man-y I-tal-y Port-u-gal"
Compound Quadruple: 12/8 "Hy-dro-gen He-li-um Lith-i-um Ni-tro-gen"
Most pop songs are in 4/4. Four beats. The rest seem to be mostly 6/8, but if you merged each pair of bars, they'd be 12/8. Also four beats.
That’s dedication, listening to 960 songs for a 15 minute video
Many of which are probably not that enjoyable to listen to...
you can look up the music notes and check it it seems. Still taking a long time.
It's a piece of work, but you only need too find the transcriptions, ,and that's probably relatively fast. Might be a database of song time signatures too.
Not taking anything away fromm the time involved regardless.
@@acefaceuk They're Top 40 songs, they're probably fine. I'd imagine listening to all of them back-to-back would be really boring, though. Like only eating MacDonalds for a week.
So I took a public speaking course in college and one class I did a speech about music (including cello demonstrations) and there was one person in the class who ABSOLUTELY REFUSED to believe that time signatures other than 4/4 existed.
i hate music non-believers
MAGA by any chance ? 🙂
everything can be in 4/4 if you count wrong enough
@@kloudi9618Or use extremely convoluted notes 😂
What gets me is when these non-believer types are adamant that nothing exists BUT 4/4. But why 4/4? Surely by their logic it may as well be 1/4 time signatures all around.
You say SOS, I say Tainted Love.
Thank you. I knew it was familiar, but I was drawing a blank. But it still has the problem of: is it really 12/8 or 4/4 with swing?
and if you say right round, I say you spin me round (like a record). how even became that lazy cover a hit?
Yes, Soft Cell. And would be good to get a similar analysis to those 80s hits (or 90s or even 70s like PF's Money) just to get an idea if this 4/4 thing is as standard as it seems to have become.
But it's also as reworked by Rihanna's people as "Tainted Love" was reworked by Marc Almond for Soft Cell from Gloria Jones's original version.
@@sweetpeachnectar You can say Right Round is bad or in poor taste, but some effort went into changing the chorus from 4/4 to 12/8 (and adding new verses)
There should be an award for "Second Song in 7/4 that hit the Top 40" cuz the first one was probably _Solsbury Hill_ and that was decades ago
Money by Pink Floyd was 4 years before Peter Gabriel. Spoonman (Soundgarden) from 1994 was also in 7/4.
@@Lorenzo_der_RitterDavid literally talked about Money at the end of the video. It didn't reach the top 40 best selling singles of that year.
All you need is love is partly in 7/4. So the award for "Second Song in 7/4 that hit the Top 40" could go to Solsbury Hill.
@@Alfonso162008 don't know who Lorenzo is but I wrote it before I knew it was top 40 "of the year". I believe same goes for Spooman which isn't a pop song and only was on the top 40 for a few weeks.
@@reineh3477 I wasn't responding to you (in fact, I didn't even see your comment, we must've written ours more or less at the same time, because yours wasn't there when I wrote mine). My reply was to a guy who said that Money should also be in that list that the OP was talking about, and I was correcting him. It appears he now deleted his comment? 🤷♂️ either way, sorry if it caused you confusion.
I'm obsessed with weird time signatures and this channel is a treasure to me
Thank you 😊
Did you love Symptom of Life by Willow Smith?
@@cinnamon9390 It's amazing and I'm so glad David put me onto it!
ω-3 has a lot of interesting time signatures. Maybe you can check them out
Most unusual I know of is Money by Pink Floyd -> a 7/4.
What are your favorite ?
I wish that Paramore's "That's What You Get" would have made the video. I love how the song switches around between 3/4 & 4/4, including having various instruments switch at different points, such as when the drums (& Hayley) are in 4/4 while the bass is still playing in 3/4. The intro is also a fun 2-count triplet followed by a 1-count drum break, making it sound like it's in an uneven 4 even though it's actually in 3. In my estimation Hayley always sings the verses in 4, even when at the start of the first verse the entire band is playing in 3.
I’m with you 100% I was expecting to see it here. I even ended up googling how it charted (25!!)
He’s using year end lists for this, not top position on the charts. Otherwise, the video would be endless
3/4 is almost as common as 4/4 so it's not as weird or interesting as the ones listed here. There are also quite a lot of instances in pop where a song switches from 4/4 to 3/4 for one bar or a small sequence, then back to 4/4.
@@nectarinedreams7208 "3/4 is almost as common as 4/4"
Did you watch the video?
Yes that’s the one that immediately came to my mind
This filled in so many blanks in my head about why certain musical eras ‘felt’ a certain way, without realising what I was noticing were the time time signatures. But the first time I remember noticing a non 4/4 beat in pop music was Artful Dodger’s ‘Do you think about me’ back in 2000, I guess it wasn’t big enough to make the top 40 for the year. Congrats on 1 million!
So TIL that i like songs in 12/8 haha. Didnt even realise that they were in a different time signature
I haven't watched the whole video yet, but so far most of the songs he listed as 12/8 are actually 4/4 with shuffle/swing feel like he said. Meaning they're not really in a different time signature, just a different feel (sos, i kissed a girl, the flo rida one). The most classic example of a proper 12/8 song is "somebody to love" by queen, so you can try to think of that as an example of the classic 12/8 sound. The main difference is that in the actual 4/4 songs, the 4 quarter beats are very punctuated and you can really feel the 4/4 pulse, whereas in more "proper" 12/8 songs the feeling is more flowing and might even sound closer to 6/8 than 4/4
@@eeph4eva If each note is divided into 3 divisions instead of 2, then it's in 12/8. Somebody To Love is 6/8.
@@eeph4evaOk so this is interesting. I also haven’t watched the whole video, but the first four songs David mentions (around 5:00 in), imo, all occupy varying positions on the spectrum of swung to shuffle. The Katy Perry one sounds the most swung and the Gwen Stefani one sounds the most shuffled; this is all getting me to think that the difference comes down to how much the middle triplet is or is not emphasized. If you can hear that middle triplet a lot in both the beat and the melody, it’s shuffled; if you mostly only detect notes on the first and third triplet, it’s swung.
Ok yeah, he immediately goes over this, lol
This is funny cause this video helped me realise that my least favourite songs through life have been in 12/8 timing lmao
I'm a 3/4 / 6/8 / 9/8 truther. Triplets for life.
Saame
You're not a truther yet. You still believe in the lies they tell you if you see 3/4 as a triplet. Join me in the in the sacred knowledge of the true 3/4, and the 3/8 everyone refers to as 3/4, together you and i could achieve great things
2+2+2+3 gang rise up
love it when a 9/8 song goes 12 12 12 123
Same. The way 6/8 swings back and forth like a pendulum calms me down lol
03:53 'Breakaway' by Kelly Clarkson was co-written by Avril Lavigne, so not too surprised that it and I'm With You are both on the list!
Not sure how cowritten it was, from what I know Avril Lavigne wrote it fully and gave it to Kelly Clarkson who changed the word snow to rain haha
@@als_palsKelly doesn’t have a writing credit on breakaway FYI
Just shows how few can make hits away from 4/4. Barely one hit a year this century and 5 of those came from 2 families: Chad/Avril 3 together husband and wife, Alicia Keys had 2
She also wrote I Do Not Hook Up
As a Mexican, I'm glad to see "Ella Baila Sola" in this list! Since it's a "corrido tumbado" and is therefore a Mexican regional song, it's worth mentioning that a lot of traditional Mexican music has this "huapango" style rhythm that can be read as either 3/4 or 6/8 (kind of like how "America" from West Side Story switches accented notes after each bar).
13:18 That might be the most English pronunciation of it I've ever heard, though! 🤣
@@kane2742ele Beile sole
@@kane2742 That fucked me up I'm ngl. Would I have been drinking something, I'd have spat it out.
@@kane2742it honestly caught me off guard 😭😭
Ela Bayluh Soluh was insane 😂
So, you can go from 4/4 to swung 4/4 to 12/8. Slowing 12/8 down you go to 6/8. By not distinguishing the 1 and 4 in 6/8 you arrive at 3/4. By introducing Swing again to 3/4 you go to 9/8. Now make a song like that and get it in the Top 40. :)
Progressive Pop
not to mention you could keep the eighth note tempo and switch directly from any -/4 tempo to any -/8 tempo, so make a song that switches from 5/4 to 5/8, and make that a constant switch every measure.
Would be cool with two more videos, "90's and 80's" and "70's and 60's". Then we could see if the % 4/4 time is changing over the decades.
I honestly don't think it would change *that* much compared to now, at least not in the Top 40. It's still a neat idea, tho, it would be interesting to see a series of videos on this subject.
There was also a ton of 12/8 in the 50s. I think that needs to be mentioned as well.
@@chrisrj9871blame doowop and other ballads
@@Alfonso162008no it definitely would, 6/8 and 12/8 were huge in the 50’s and 60’s especially in soul. Through the 70’s you get bands like Yes who were huge, so they gotta have some time signature changes here and there.
grunge would have some
I’m so glad From Eden got an honourable mention, I adore that song.
Another song in Olivia Rodrigo's "Sour" that dabbles in Mixed Meter is "One Step Forward, Two Steps Back", where the verses are in 12/8, but the chorus immediately switches to 4/4. It wasn't released as a single, thus not showing up on this list.
Wow, can you tell me if there are others as well in GUTS?
Not only that, but All I Want is mixed too, although it is mostly in 4/4. It intersperses 3/4 measures occasionally between verses
@@allanmelvincomia2766 Happier is very 6/8, you can hear it easily by counting the piano arpeggios as they go up and down. GUTS was all 4/4 to start with, though Lacy has an unusual rhythm, but I think Scared of My Guitar is either 6/8 or just swung.
Just for giggles, can you do this for the 20 years *before* 2000?
Hell, just do 66 to 76. Best decade in music
Oh yes please, it would be interesting to see how diverse the percentages are
are you sure they would be so diverse? @@xxPenjoxx
@@xxPenjoxxI suspect it will not be significantly different
I think we can safetly add: You Spin Me Round Like A Record (Dead Or Alive) and Tainted Love (Soft Cell), both sampled here. At least if using UK charts instead of US.
I'd somehow not realised until now that Hero is riffing on Kiss From A Rose...
I only realized when reading your comment, damn
Holy crap. I was a huge fan of both those songs and never made that connection.
I had a similar revelation with Stacy's Mom which last year I learned interpolates "My Best Friends Girlfriend" & "Just What I Needed" from the Cars with a dash of "Mrs. Robinson" and "Jessie's Girl".
Adam Schlesinger is a genius.
And now I can't unhear it
2:57 THANK YOU
I'm so tired of people saying that Hey Ya is in 11/2, when it's much more intuitive to think of it in mixed meter
The group of eleven half notes is important to its sound, and the subgroups of 4 are important too, so, really I just think time signatures are a pretty sloppy notation for how music is actually organized
I came to the comments to note this…I’m not musically knowledgeable to know which is “correct” - but I’d only heard 11/2…
I am a drummer in a band and we love playing HeyYa… a real break from most of the beats we play… We also play Here Comes the Sun… another “palette cleanser”
@@terdragontra8900 you're mistaken. The removed half note is what gives it its sound, not an 11 half note monstrosity stream
Funny that you mention "I'm With You" and "Breakaway". Avril Lavigne was the main writer of them both. So it makes a lot of sense that they both have that 6/8 verse style. Great video.
Well TIL! 🎶
Wow i actually didnt realise there would even be 3 percent of not 4/4 music in the 21st century charts lol
i was also a bit confused until i realized "oh, yeah, techno-shuffle and slow 6/8 ballads..."
It helps that most of the ones that aren't are basically just 4/4 with triplets
@@Tedris4 for real
Kid named country ballads
It will be little different in other decades. There's a reason 4 4 is great
I had completely forgotten the techno-shuffle era; there was also this so-called big-room house trend around 2014 or so where the "drop" would often feature tripplets just like in the Peas song. Tsunami for example, and pretty much ever other big-room remix of a pop song would use two drops: the first being in 4/4 and then the second in 12/8 to change it a bit. Dubstep also often used triplets.
As for specific songs: Awolnation - Sail. I guess it wasn't charting high enough? I felt somewhat big back then.
Also, i find it funny that in the 10s it became fashionable to switch from 4/4 to 12/8 to "up the tempo". I know a few synthpop songs from the 80s and 90s that do the opposite; start in 12/8 and the got to 4/4 to gain momentum (Victory of Love by Alphaville and On the Other Side by Silke Bischoff) but it could be a coincidence that these two got stuck in my head; they are probably too far removed from pop.
It is my solemn obligation to go listen to Sail on repeat for the rest of the day anytime I see if brought up. Thank you, stranger!
Personal Jesus is in 12/8, and that was a hit song. Not top 40 of the year, though.
@@CricketStyleJ Master and Servat also goes to 12/8 in the extended mix after some time
Oh yeah, Sail is definitely 12/8! It was sort of a "hidden hit." I think it holds, or at least used to hold, some kind of record for longest time spent on the Billboard Hot 100? It just kind of hovered around #90 for like two years or something.
@@silver6380 This feels like one of the questions asked on a quizshow about the decade hosted in 2050 or something. "Which hit song stayed on hot100 for almost two years but never got bigger than 80?"
Bro I’m a songwriter who’s taken multiple music theory courses and this video alone made me understand the usefulness of 12/8 lol
Seal had probably the biggest hit 3/4 song since the Baroque era when he released Kiss From A Rose. That song is incredible. The meter and the modal interchange in the chords, and some of the most fantastic melody writing and arranging in a pop song of the last 30 years.
Biggest hit 3/4 song in the UK since Mull of Kintyre, which it certainly surpasses (sorry Paul).
I understand that time signatures are subjective and I'm on board with almost all of your choices here. But I just can't think of Perfect by Ed Sheeran as a 12/8 song. To me it is in 6/8 and I'd even call it a really quick 3/4 or something similar rather than 12/8.
The main reason is that it's definitely made to be danced to. It's probably one of the most danced to Viennese Waltz's in the world since it came out. And you just can't notate a Viennese Waltz in 12/8.
Also I feel the "triplets" way more than I feel the overarching 4/4 beat, just as you pointed out.
My thoughts exactly! A whole turn in Viennese Waltz is 6 steps i.e. 2 sets of triplets i.e. one bar of 6/8. It would feel really weird to need two rotations per bar, especially when you can't always guarantee an even number of rotations in any one section of your routine.
I would say a lot of these are completely wrong. Just playing triplets over 4/4 beat still makes it a 4/4 beat.
@@simonmalmo7008My thoughts exactly lol
Always amazes me how I think all those as 3/4 but they are 6/8. I'm not surprised by the quantity of 12/8. I hear it everywhere and it's so catchy to my ears.
Wouldn't a 3/4 and 6/8 just be identical? This video confuses me as someone who knows nothing about music
@@snerttt 3/4 has 3 main pulses and 6/8 has 2 main pulses
@@snertttThere are lots of cases where you could be justified in transcribing something either way. Different people can feel the strength of beats in a groove differently.
@@SirBenjiful ah I just read the Wikipedia, I originally interpreted it as some sort of fraction (indicating the divisions of a bar), but in reality, the top number is the length of the beats and the bottom is the amount per bar. Makes sense now
@@snerttt Yeah, because there's no easy way to type out time signatures people often write them "fraction-style" even though they're not actually fractions and thinking of them that way can lead to confusion. Glad you sorted it out!
P.S. It's actually the top number that's the number of beats & the bottom number that's the note value of each beat.
Wow. I'm just realizing that I apparently love 12/8 time signatures.
Thank you for enlightening me.
Valid opinion but 12/8 just should not be counted as meaningfully different from 4/4 like it's literally the same
No wonder I like Hozier. He's clearly the guy that's bringing musical complexity back to the mainstream.
By having 2 hits over a decade...😂
@@keithparker1346 Hozier is more an album artist than a singles artist, if you get my gist. 20000 people came to his headline show in Raleigh a few weeks ago, and normally it takes way more Billboard hits to get a crowd of that size to show up in my city. That's usually evidence of a deep discography.
@@TheZenomeProject nice try but you know Hizuer is not really a big enough artist to change things
@@keithparker1346I'm looking for who asked
Happier Than Ever by Billie Eilish starts on 4/4 and later shifts to 6/8.
And Hostage (another song by Eilish) is a 3/4+4/4 meter for the verses
And I hear Bury a Friend as 12/8 shuffle beat
idontwannabeyouanymore is in 6/8
In the 60s there was likely a surge of huge hits not in 4/4 because of the Beatles.
Yeah, I can't think of a single Beatles song in 4/4. They were basically a commercially successful Dream Theater.
@@MyNameIsNeutron Please do not compare them to Dream Theater, they are not bad, however, they can not even be compared to the Beatles. It is the Beatles that we are talking about.
@@MyNameIsNeutron nah, The Beatles were quite experimental but never as technical or complex as Dream Theater.
@@MyNameIsNeutron I want to hold your hand 4/4, Help 4/4, In My Life 4/4, huge Beatle Fan however they did have plenty of songs “hits” in the top 40 that are in 4/4. Only a few were in odd time signature and the only one I can think of that is “Odd” is just the middle “Sun,Sun,Sun” part of “Here comes the sun” which besides that part is 4/4..
@@isaiahneilguitaristofficia549woosh….
I feel like you fill the void that Sideways left, would love to see more from you :)
Bro the pronunciation of Ella Baila Sola has me ROLLING
What a great concept for a video!! Awesome to put actual stats behind this
The famous slow movement from Mozart's 21st piano concerto is in swung 4/4 (or 12/8). Although it's nominally a slow andante, the triplets give a relentless 200 beats per minute rhythm in the background that I find deeply unsettling. I notice the same effect in some pop songs.
Congratulations on 1 million, wow! Thank you for interesting and informative content, you have made music easier for me to understand x
"Fallin" was actually the very first one I thought of, nice!
I love hearing your 7/4 meter song in the end credits of your videos. Keep up the great work!!
Great video! Love the song at the end. Clap!
I know you don't speak Spanish but that would be "ey ya"
The word for she
Ella baila sola= she dances alone
Gave me a good laugh tho, love the video man
Thank you for this; its so tough to find this stuff.
Very well put together video.
Also that ad segment was smooth and effective.
You listened to all that pop music so we don't have to. I commend you for your sacrifice!
There are songs in here that I would be surprised anybody managed to avoid, but there are plenty of songs here that I've honestly never heard before. I didn't expect there to be so many.
not that I was going to in the first place
its so interesting that a lot of pretenious fans of art are so adverse to forming their own opinion and listening to music on their own (if they want of course) theres lots of good pop music, or dont forget we call beatles and all those bands rock but they were defintley pop back then
2009 ass comment quite frankly
@@dasanii2467 Yep, no better than throwing all classic rock aside because 'dad rock bad'. Shows the same level of knowledge and effort.
man, Sting had a 5/4 and a 9/8 song as single in 1993 and 1996 respectively... but I can't find out if they hit top 40
siglo XXI
They didnt
Walk me home by Pink alternates between a few different time signatures. The intro alternates between a couple bars of 7/4 and 6/4. Then the chorus alternates between a bar of 3/4 and 3 bars of 4/4. This isn’t even all the trickery going on, and it’s impressive that a song with over 100 million views on TH-cam is this complex from a rhythmic standpoint
Yeah, I took notice of that one as well. I had heard that structure in some country songs and that Sheryl Crow song from the 90s, but Pink did some more interesting things with it. I guess that it did not get to the Top 40, though.
incredible how I swallowed the whole video not understanding any of what you said but enjoying the video
Btw Avril and Chad are divorced...
For 9 years at this point lol
I obviously don’t keep up to date with my Canadian pop rock romance drama!
@@DavidBennettPiano Which is understandable as that whole debacle is always in wildly odd time signatures.
I wonder if they used odd signatures on the divorce papers.
@@DavidBennettPiano
I see no reason to introduce Avril Lavigne as "wife of Chad ..." Avril was the artist.
It's like saying Linda Eastman's husband wrote "Maybe I'm Amazed."
it's fantastic that every musician can feel time differently, me as a drummer, most of the song you mention here I feel it differently, like most of the 12/8 I feel (and counted) in 4 with triplets just like you said in the video, or like Alicia Keys' If I Ain't Got You, I count it as 6/8 because of drummer hit the snare in the 4th beat, so 6/8 is much more make sense to me as a drummer.
I do completely understand about the transcription part though.
I know nearly nothing about music and this was still very interesting. Thanks for sharing!
My 13 year old cat and dog are named Coheed and Cambria, respectively. They won't live forever, but like this band, they will always be in my heart ♥️
'Chapel Perilous' by Feed Me Jack is a great song that switches from 6/8 to 4/2 to 7/4 you should check it out
What an oddly specific song title to have multiple with the same name. The "Chapel Perilous" I know is by Mild High Club, and is in 12/8.
Wow another feed me jack fan, there are 2 of us! Promiscuity is another unusual one by them
AHHHH A FEED ME JACK FAN. SAME HERE!!
videos like this makes me aware how little of the music that I listen to is from the top 40.😢
You should be proud of that. Every song in this video was awful except Holiday by Green Day.
@@jackfromthe60sso dramatic
@@jackfromthe60sI would not go that far mate. You’re only saying that to be unique, but you really don’t have to, it’s just music! 😊 it’s okay to like popular songs, some are popular for a reason.
What I found interesting was how little pop from the past three years I even recognised, and I’m sure a lot of people would say the same. Something to do with the pandemic, something to do with the fact that a lot of the music we think of as popular became popular only on tiktok or Instagram reels. I wonder what influence tiktok popularity has on the top 40 charts, because I knew almost all the other songs. Anyone else notice that too?
Appreciate your hard work to do the research 👍🏼
learned a lot, W video. very to the point but informational at the same time. amazing work.
Absolutely amazing video! Watching again!!
I love your deep dives, David! You've given me so many ideas for mash ups when you do these! Keep being amazing at what you create!
Thanks!!
@@DavidBennettPiano You actually are credited (and actively so) for giving me the idea of my last short. "A Swift Relationship." Your video where you dove into the most common chords in Taylor Swift's songs had me decide to do a mash up, then I realized the songs I chose created the time line of a relationship. Your videos are amazing, educational, and really inspiring.
Sorry I'm getting wordy now...
Nice vid like always! Great job 🤟
This video taught me about time signatures for the first time, thank u!
So close to 1 million!!!
6/8 is going to dominate. It's a pretty standard time that satisfies people's ability to follow 4 but adds some cool swing.
Interesting
LAST VIDEO BEFORE 1M! CONGRATS!
Congrats on 1 million subs!
You absolutely deserve a thumbs up for the research and effort put into this video. By specifically examining the top 40 pop songs of the last 24 years, It serves very well as a gateway for people who have no background in music theory to the wonderful world of rhythm and how it impacts musical experience. Exposure to what music is made of often lures people into the house of music creation, and that is a good thing. Kudos, David.
7 Rings by Ariana Grande in 2019 was in 6/8, based on My Favorite Things from The Sound of Music
I needed this exact video in my life. Time signatures confound me, but I know there's something to the non-4/4 that sound more interesting.
This is a fantastic practical tutorial on time signature theory. Well done!
P!NK - Walk Me Home is one that also stands out, it uses bars of 7/4, 6/4 and 4/4 and always catches my attention whenever it comes on, i thought would've been worth a mention!
I love that you're on 999k subscribers. Hope you break the 1m barrier!
He got 1 mil now
Ending with ‘Clap’. Perfect. 👏👏👏
Congrats on 1,000,000!!!
You're almost at 1 million subscribers!
In norway, a pop song called Mazé became pretty popular. It was in 5/4.
I just want you to know that of all the content I've *ever* seen on youtube, yours is probably in my top 3. Something about it is special to me. Thanks for all of the videos over the years!
In 2003 and current day, Avril Lavigne wasn't/isn't Chad Kroeger's wife. They married in 2013, divorced in 2015.
You made a public service here. I wish that odd meters would also make it through every now and then. But what surprised me was the few times that 3/4 appeared (great songs by Alicia Keys and Hozier). I thought that it was more common (e.g. it is the standard meter in Waltz). I also liked how simple you explained 12/8 and 6/8.
You don't find pop songs in odd meters because you can't dance to them. You can dance to 4/4, 6/8, 12/8, and 3/4.
Wrong, people in the Balkans often dance to odd 9/8 meters.
@@FairyCRat I did know that, but no American or British teenager who mainly listens to pop is going to be trying to dance in 5/8 or 7/8 anytime soon, unless they are in marching band or winter drumline and routinely play and march to things that are in weird meters. I don't mention any other countries because their top 40's weren't the ones he was looking at.
People try. I used to go to a Turkish-Canadian band, and we could dance in 9/8, no problem. Some of the more difficult time signatures are difficult... do people dance at King Gizzard or Sungazer shows? Both of those bands like to throw in some little timing surprises, and it's funny to see crowds dancing along to a normal section, and then it gets weird, and it's like watching a slow motion crash on the dance floor🤣
@@actipton80 yeah, I guess we need another song like Take Five in order to launch an odd time signature onto the dance floor.
@@actipton80 15 Step by Radiohead is in 5/4 and you can perfectly dance to it. Even american or british teenagers can do this.
Congrats on hitting the million.
thank you for giving us 7/8 lovers something in the outro!
Oh finally someone made a video about this, cant wait to watch
I've always wanted to learn how to count 12 / 8. Now I know. I & a, 2 & a, 3 & a, 4 & a...thanks David.
Great analysis!
This was honestly so interesting, you've got a new sub
Please make a video like this about the 1960s 70s 80s 90s
It's pointless as there will be little difference in the percentages. Do you really think that the past was some vast haven of non 4 4 songs? As if 4 4 songs are bad and only non 4 4 songs are good
It's all just 1/1 with tempo changes
999k subs!!! well done!!!
I love this video, so very informative...
I now know the difference of 6/8, 4/4, and 12/8.
Thank you for this video
didn’t expect to learn about music theory from mumbo jumbo today
SOMEONE ELSE NOTICED!! THANK YOU
He’s literally just british 😭
This immediately suggests to me “The 10 (or 20) highest-charting odd-meter songs of all time.” I have a guess for #1, which would be right in David’s wheelhouse. 🙂
This was very illuminating to me as I struggle to read music despite having played the violin for a million years
Very educational, thank you 🤘
Didn't "A Thousand Years" by Christina Perri hit #31? I've seen it transcribed in 6/8, 4/4, and 3/4, but I think it's best expressed in 6/8.
Not sure how it could be 4/4, but not sure it was one of the top 40 sellers of its year (2011 if I remember correctly)
So glad that you mentioned Hey Ya in the form of mixed meter, instead of something stupid like 11/4!
something like this is why it confuses me that people count everything in its right place in 10/4 instead of two bars of 4/4 and one bar of 2/4
@@eggsbox For Everything In Its Right Place, it can at least be argued that it is in 10/4 rather than a mixed meter, because the feel isn't obviously/immediately 4+4+2.
For Hey Ya, it would be ridiculous to split it as 11 rather than 4+4+4+2+4+4. If you just listen to the drums and the bass, this should be obvious, but I pretty regularly see people talk about "did you hear Hey Ya is in 11/4?" just because you can count two bars of 11 and get a new sentence.
thank you for explaining using the 1st and 3rd note of the triplet vs using all of them and for saying that sometimes "reading" something that's innate can be confusing!!
Love this video
anybody else trying to figure out what time signature the outro is in and having a stroke?
😂
What about "Ulterior Motives" by Chris Saint Booth? ;)
Congrats on hitting 1 Million subscribers!
Wow, you subjected yourseld to a whole lotta pop music for this project.