4 less common chord progressions in pop and rock songs 

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"Rock musicians play 3 chords to thousands of people, jazz musicians play thousands of chords to 3 people" Is that old joke true or false?

Love how the sequence of Counting Stars, Levels, and Good Feeling could literally be one continuous song lol

I just turned 18 and this year is gonna be the biggest year of my life with music. Manifesting it into reality

Thank you for all you do here David, you've really helped me understand the music I hear and why it makes me feel the way it does, now I can do that I can play better and I can compose better. Most of my teachers weren't able to explain music to me the way I needed it explained so I've waiting most of my life for a resource like this. I just made some buns so having them with tea, will watch this and then play my guitar. Love and Grüßen from Germany.

The transitions between songs are immaculate!!

I’ve listened to I Bet That You Look Good on the Dancefloor and In the End countless times but never realized they share the same progressions as Jolene and Polly so that was cool to know, also love that First of October short. Love those guys, Rob and Andrew always create such killer songs

Loving the First of October t-shirt! Great idea for a video, too. There are tons of videos about the more obvious chord progressions, it's refreshing to see you cover more interesting ones.

THE FIRST OF OCTOBER SHIRT 💪💪💪💪

The "She Loves You" progression also shows up in Til I Hear It From You, co-written by Beatles fan Marshall Crenshaw and recorded by Gin Blossoms. Big song in the 1990s.

Love how the 4th progression is used in bangers.

The 'Polly' progression is also used in Ennio Morricone's famous spaghetti Western piece 'The Ecstacy of Gold' (as I just found out by trying to write a song using it).

Really appreciate your actually giving chord names in C and numerals . Using numerals l understand but my brain races to keep up whilst you're talking. Well done your analysis has really improved my writing

7:42 this one sound soooo sleek (since Good Feeling uses Levels as its core)

I'm so glad you highlighted the "Starlight" progression. Possibly my favorite ever.

Great video as usual! Another great song that uses the I - ii- vi- VI chord progression is “Help I’m Alive” by Metric…

A large bulk of my songs are 1 6 3 5. The 3 gives it a mixed feeling of major and minor. It really reasonates with me.

Not sure whether this is a key change or chord progression, but I really love how in "Gone Hollywood" (Supertramp) it goes from noodling around on Cmin for a while to the suddenly very uplifting Bmaj7, Abmin9, Eb

I'd appreciate more examples from the 60s and 70s, please! Thanks for that enlightening bit at the end regarding 'flattening' chords in the minor key! I was always curious about this style of notation.

I have been waiting and hoping for you to cover the first chord in this video!! It is my ultimate favorite chord progression in a song. Anytime I hear it I instantly fall in love. I even have a spotify playlist dedicated to it. Some of my favorites with it are Primetime by Janelle Monae, Disparate Youth by Santigold, In My Place by Coldplay, and recently Lay Low by YooA.

The "Polly" chord progression brings back so much like 2012 nostalgia

That song you wrote at the end gave me chills, really beautiful.

Thanks for explaining the rationale for the use of flats in the chord naming. It always confused me before, but your exposition cleared things immensely. It makes so much more sense now!

Three popular chord progressions in dance music (especially in the 90s) (and ones that I love) are (in Cm): Cm-Cm-Ab-Bb, which is similar to the Japanese chord progression you highlighted earlier. See "Sweet Dreams" or "Be My Lover", both by La Bouche, and the beginning of Ace of Base's "The Sign", for examples of this. The next one is more complicated because of how many voicings of the chords you can have. At its root in Cm the chords are : Cm-Ab-Eb-Bb. My favourite way is C-Eb-G - C-Eb-Ab - Bb-Eb-G - Bb-D-F, with the bass notes C-Ab-Eb-Bb. Check out Aqua's "Roses Are Red", parts of Fun Factory's "Close To You" and the chorus to Lordi's "Hard Rock Hallelujah" for example. The last progression I'll touch on is one you mentioned in your circle of fifths video (in Am), Am-Dm-G-C. An obvious one for this is Real McCoy's "Another Night", ocasionally changing to Am-Dm-G-C-D in a syncopated way so the last two chords fit in the last bar) and sometimes a vamp of Am-G. One of the people who wrote it told me it was added to avoid sounding too much like the Coca-Cola jingle lol. A less well-known example is Ace Of Base's "Beautiful Life", which, in Cm, is Cm-Fm-Bb-Eb-G7, with Eb & G7 sharing a bar. Sometimes in the verse Eb is skipped, so it just goes Cm-Fm-Bb-G7-G, where G seventh and G major share the last bar of the chord progression. Later on in the song the chord progression switches up and at the end is a choir that has different intertwining parts to tie everything together. Dance music has limited range sometimes but that just makes the producers find new ways to alter the energy level and up the beat of the song and the melodic structure to make it more interesting or catchy, or even to showcase a particular singer. Nana Hedin sang lead or in the chorus for many dance tracks. She also sang background for many pop tracks, including Céline Dion, Aqua, Ace of Base, Dr Alban, E-type, Stakka Bo, Britney Spears, A*Teens, and had some solo hits as well. But she developed stage IV tongue cancer. On the day she was declared cancer-free they also delivered the bad news that her jawbone was literally dissolving from all the radiation treatment for the cancer and she needed money for further treatment. You can check out her web page for more answers and how to donate if you'd like: nanahedin.com/. I hope your day is well! ^_^ I am up way too early currently; I'm supposed to be on concussion protocol bedrest...oops...oh well... I just cannot sleep anymore! And I'm ahead of you here in Finland, too. See you in another video.

Mozart has shown me the way to include all 6 degrees of the major scale in one progression. As I was thinking of the "axis", this passage near the end of Mozart's Symphony No.33 pops up in my head: just before the last 5 bars entirely built on I, the previous 3 bars go I V vi iii IV ii V. Now I can use that progression in a song to make it fancier than anything I've ever written until now!

Man, I have to honest, You have completely changed the way I make music, Thank you.

A big hit with the She Loves You - progression would be Save Your Tears by The Weeknd! Edit: Also, I was so surprised that Hello by Adele wasn't mentioned in the Polly-progression, it has Em - G - D - C

Jolene, Polly, and First of October. Awesome.

For a song in a minor key, I generally notate it with reference to the relative major, so Jolene in Am would be vi, I, V, vi.

I-vi-iii-V sounds great! I have also tried with I-vi-iii-vii°, which is i-VI-III-VII but with the mode changed to major.

1:30 Save Your Tears by The Weeknd also uses this progression.

It's interesting that all of these progressions feel sentimental

Thanks for all of the content! Keep up the good work! 👍

Excellent! Love your chord progression videos, I have learned so much

Yessss love the First of October shirt!!

I definitely think of scales based on the major. When I see the flats with roman numerals, I already know the scale(s) for that progression. Keep an eye on the root of the chords, and know the scale, and you're gold.

Such a explanation in the end! Always very didatic and attentive to details :)

These chord progression are amazing. Many thanks for sharing.

I feel so proud that I understood every word of your music theory intermezzo at te end. I even wondered it myself a minute earlier. I've been into music for only 2 or 3 years now but I feel like I've come so far with teaching myself all the theory. Everything clicks bit by bit!

Thank you for all your videos! You rock!

Thanks for taking the time to explain the numerals and the ways of communicating them.

Yesss! Just the right video at the right time!

Killer video David!!

Really great selection of chord progressions. This is some of your finest work!

You are definitely one of the people to teach me the most in music theory. Plus you inspired me to create own music. I write the because I am really thankful for it. Two days ago I finally uploaded my first musicals video.

another excellent video, thank you,David.

I would add another less common minor key chord progression. i - bVII - bIII - bVI This chord progression has such a very energetic bright sound to it. And that is probably because of the tonicization of the bIII chord, making it feel like you switched to a relative major key then crashing down to a minor tonality.

And by the way - it‘s incredible how you come up with all the examples! And an eye-opener, eg that the Halo - progression is the same as the one in Be with you from the Cranberries!

“Save your tears” from The Weekend uses the first example (I - vi - iii - V) in the verse. Love your chord progressions videos!

In the Poly progression you used an example of Levels by Avicii, and Good Feeling by Flo Rida. I legitimately thought these were the same song. I've only ever heard them playing in the background at the shops or something, so I had no idea who it was by.

great video as always

Brilliant! Thank you!

Hi David, I'm a guitar player since 20years..and you just made me understand plenty of theory things ( I never took music lessons btw ). Your content and the way you explain it is flawless. I will definitly dig every video. Thanks for sharing your talent 👍👍🤘🤘

Man I enjoy your videos. I am amused every time plus I learn.

The beatles used the first chord progression in the most exciting way.

Thanks for the nostalgic reminder of 1234, completely forgot about that song

That vi - iii movement is nice. Only one shared tone, and it happens to be the root of the next chord. Opens up some serious inversion possibility. Same with the ii - vi and bIII - bVII. Pretty sure Halo is I - ii7 with the A being held at the bottom of the treble chord during the arpeggio.

Thanks again David for another insightful video!!

Love your vids and smart breakdowns

I get so happy when any portion of any video is focused on "She Loves You."

If you swap the first and last chords from the She Loves You progression, you get the Starlight progression in another key, it's the next key on the circle of fifths

It's funny David said that the second progression kinda sounds like the Axis Progression because Benny (the Axis pianist) made a Six Chords video which changes one thing every so few songs to go through even way more pop songs and it's the song I use as a warm up and the progression did immediately feel familiar to me because of it.

Thanks for clarifying why you put the flat symbols, at the end of the video. Personally I feel like the minor i looks obvious enough to know that we’re talking about me instead of mi, but it makes sense to put the flat to discern in case we’re flipping between minor and major, for example. I once watched one of your videos and was so confused 😭 so thanks

Thanks for the great explanation in the end...

Wow this was great. Thanks.

You’re explanations of theory are so good. You’ve helped me so much. Mahalo Nui Loa.

07:46-07:47 Well made transition, if you don't pay attention you don't even recognize the chance of song!

Maybe it’s technically not correct but I tend to think of those minor progressions in terms of the relative major. Which makes them simply vi I V IV or vi I V vi. I guess that’s not precise because the song is in the minor key and resolving to that minor vi chord, but in terms of thinking and knowing the chords quickly on the fly, it’s a lot easier!

As usual, your work is over my head... but it means a great deal to me that the patterns of music CAN be analyzed and that someone would DO SO, for me. Thank You.

So many great opportunities for mashups with some of these. I did a remix of Halo by Beyoncé and couldn’t resist putting the Muse Starlight piano riff in the last chorus 😁

OMG THANK YOU for mentioning the Stone Roses! One of those hidden gems for sure, deserve way more love!

Great!!!Thanx!

First two are super smooth, they have relative major-minor pairs. First one does the change between relative chords whenever it crosses the major/minor borders, you just can't get any smoother.

Great video as always. But main thing I wanted to point out - LOVE the first of october merch!

9:25 At that point, every Roman numeral sould be in capital letters as well, given that we assume every chord is diatonic to the minor scale, so there's no need to specify major and minor with uppercase or lowercase letters.

Merci for that explanation, and teaching moment.

Absolutely love the last progression

I liked that bit of music you played at the end. Very nice....👍❤️

David, It's obvious there is a prodigious amount of work you put into your videos (and your other projects). I hope that it translates into a good income for you. It IS a job!!! Hat's off to you...mine is.

Great video as always! You should do a common RnB and jazz progressions video for those of us that crave a little more progressive info

I think the Jolene progression was used also in "Rose Tattoo" by the Dropkick Murphy's

The "polly" chord progression - less common except for a brief period sometime in the early 10's when every radio hit song used it.

Closest thing I ever got to composing a 4 chord loop song used the chords I - V - bVII - IV, so a variation of the I - V - vi - IV. One thing that I noticed about the two major scale ones you mentioned was that they went through the circle of fifths in the "opposite" direction (Am > Em and not E(m) > Am). Maybe that's why they're less common but IDK. But I'll see those loops and raise you |I | iii vi | ii | V | :) Even |I |VII iii | vi ii | V | but that'd be borrowing a chord from another key as would | I | (bVII) bIII | ii | V | Oh, and since 15 comes after 13 in uncommon time signatures, I believe that Karn Evil 9 by Emerson, Lake & Palmer uses 15/16 in certain parts.

I think Lana Del Rey also uses I - vi - iii - V on her song Thunder and David Bowie on the chorus of Starman. Also, sounds like the same chords as Save Your Tears by The Weeknd.

I love your work! A lot of the musicians I’ve worked with in Nashville will do the numerals of a minor key based on the relative major scale. So the last progression could be vi, I, V, vi

Great video as always! I was wondering if you'd tackle more movie scores? Maybe horror?!

Jolene/I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor/Time being in the same chord progression has slightly broken my brain.

@davidbennettpiano I really appreciate your re-explanation at the end of the video. I remember you touched on that matter previously. It's now clearer for me and perhaps for others. 🙏

This video deserves more attention

Wow unreal! Would love to recommend another chord progression video: The Happier Than Ever progression

I LOVE your First of October shirt! :D

Terrific video as usual ☺☺ will you do a video about chord progressions that use modal interchange in the future?

I know the first Chord progression as The Metalcore chord progression. Example - Bring me the horizon - Sleepwalking and Can you feel my heart Veil of Maya - Mikasa, Bad Omens - The Worst of me.

2:50 Cranberries' Ode to My Family actually has a very similar chord progression, except the V chord at the end is replaced with the IV chord, so it goes I-vi-iii-IV

My favorite "She Loves You" progression song is "Faster Than The Setting Sun" by Fyfe Dangerfield. I think you're gonna like it, David!

Love the first of oktober shirt

I immediately noticed the First of October shirt, great taste

The song, Until I Hear It From You, by Gin Blossoms, uses the first progression you mentioned, 1, 6, 3, 5.

Hearing/seeing Dolores still hits hard ...

I've been enjoying your videos on chord progressions. Have you done one on the I-iii-IV-V progression yet?