The first 1000 people to use the link will get a free trial of Skillshare Premium Membership: skl.sh/12tone12201 Some additional thoughts/corrections: 1) So… funny story. While I was making this video, Taylor Swift announced and then released another album. Out of nowhere. I haven't listened to it yet because it literally came out last night and I've been working, but I'm excited to check it out. This was a complete coincidence: If I'd intended this to be a tie-in from the beginning I probably would've focused more on her work in the intro, but still. Pretty cool. 2) On the prechorus in Style, I decided while filming to add chords 'cause there wasn't really a melody to hang my notation on, but I didn't have time to transcribe it myself so I just googled a transcription and used those chords and boy were they wrong. They should be Emi-A, not Dmi-Emi. Should've done a bit more due diligence on that to actually make sure they were, like, accurate, or at least to check a couple other transcriptions to see if they were consistent, but I was in a hurry, skipped that step, and got burned for it. I'll try not to let that happen again. 3) Oh, and while we're on that, the second note in the Bad Blood verse should be E, not G. That one was just a typographical error. 4) I should note that, while the set-up and climax are structurally pretty straightforward, it can still be useful to look at the absolute energy levels they mark out, and especially the differences between the two. If the climax is just a little bigger than the set-up, that's gonna sound fairly smooth, whereas if it's a huge leap you'll have a more dramatic arc. So when I say the build-up is the most interesting function, I don't mean it's the *only* interesting function. 5) To maximize the chances that this video doesn't get caught by automatic copyright bots that don't understand fair use, all clips are limited to 6 seconds or less. I made sure to include enough musical context to identify the points I was making, but that did force me to do some awkward cuts sometimes. Sorry, blame overzealous record labels. 6) I purposefully chose pretty clear-cut examples to make sure the concepts were easily recognizable, but if you check out Dr. Peres's work, you'll see that these tools can lead to some pretty powerful insights: www.top40theory.com/ 7) Technically, Harding's definition of a pop-drop is a little more nuanced than what I presented here. You can check out his article on the subject for more detail: www.billboard.com/articles/columns/pop/7625628/pop-drop-sound-of-2016-chainsmokers-justin-bieber-switched-on-pop
Y'know, I'd argue the so-called "pop-drop" that billboard article is talking about, has its origin in 00s vocal trance, where the "chorus" is sung during the buildup to what's arguable the main section: the drop where a synth plays the main riff. A very obvoious example of this is Oceanlab's "Satellite", a song that predates the supposed rise of the pop-drop by a whopping twelve years (heard here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-8MZmPoPvJYE.html )
As someone who really isn’t a modern pop listener but also isn’t the edgy “modern pop music sucks” teenager they once were, it’s fascinating to me how this one album- 1989- contains both absolutely brilliant songs and auditory abominations.
Veeeeery great videoooo!!! It would be cool to see more videos focused on music from the last 10 years! Like Tame Impala, Kanye West, Drake, Kendrick Lamar, Lorde, Frank Ocean...
The pop producers are perfectionists. The fractal analogy is pretty spot on. They seem to start with a global stucture, then progressively zoom into smaller and smaller sections until the session is a maze of automation and articulation. Making a simple chord progression evolve is a skill. If pop was easy to make, everyone would do it.
Awesome video man!! I'm a huge fan of Taylor Swift and I say that as a die hard indie/alternative rock/ classic rock/ and hip hop fan. Her songs are amazing. I"m for sure a swifty.
So refreshing AND fascinating/educational to see a video like this. During my university studies of classical music and one year studying music production people would laugh everytime I tried to bring up Taylor Swift's music in any serious context. She deserves a lot more credit than she gets for sure.
@@michaelvalverdenavarro7690 I think it's partly a general snobbism towards pop music, due to a lack of understanding that it's a totally different aesthetic. That and somehow in mainstream media there seems to be a culture that it's ok to bully and laugh at certain celebrities, Swift being one of them. That's my theory anyways.
One that I've thought a bit on song order is Avenged Sevenfold 's Nightmare. In the midst of eealing with the loss of their best friend and drummer, the album feels very much like the stages of grief (albeit in a weird order), with many many songs dealing with death, grief, anger, etc.
I'm a big fan of Garbage, and they definitely put some thought into the structure into their albums. Open with a few fast songs, followed by a slower song as a breather, a couple more fast, another slow, more fast and then a slow finisher to release the tension, usually with a long melodic outro. Their albums really are a thing of beauty.
Some people are incredibly creative and talented but don't enjoy performing live or being under public scrutiny. Others are talented performers and social butterflies but lack the writing and producing skills. Put the two together and you've got a pop act where both parties are happy.
@@DJCosmicLatte Right? Producers in general don't really care much about the fame and performance. They're usually all about what interesting things they can do with sounds.
I mean Taylor co-produces all her albums and writes or co-writes all her lyrics and melody. But yeah for other artists who aren't involved in production or even songwriting really.
yeah its really interesting i think it allows the artist to put more work into the live shows and lyrics etc. or at least thats kinda how i feel abt it (i suck at producing lol but i still do it)
I'm surprised that you didn't mention Welcome To New York as a song whose verses and chorus are pretty much on the same sonic level, and the climax is really just the outro.
This was really interesting to me. Before this video I'd never really heard of "sonic function" as a theoretical approach to analyzing pop music. Thanks for this!
@@nuberiffic I'm also a university music student and I will say, when we studied baroque music, there was much more of a focus on voice leading, counterpoint and variation technique. We never really discussed "build-ups" and "climaxes" and the other things 12tone mentioned in the video because unlike pop music, baroque (and all art music) is heavily reliant on production. They're two different kinds of music and shouldn't be analyzed the same way.
I'm loving this thing that you and Adam neely are doing a lot lately, showing how well done are pop songs (or rap, for that matter). I'm tired of music snobs saying that "only classical and jazz are really art" or any sh** like that, and having strong, well-grounded arguments like these is really nice!
i just want to let you know that taylor and her team does not send copyright strike especially to small content creators unless the content is malicious. It would be her old record label/ scooter braun
Too funny, I am working on a project and I literally asked my friend last night why she liked pop music so much and lo and behold 12tone to the rescue to shed some more light. You are awesome!
YES thank you for giving I Know Places the props it deserves. Best song on the album (or IMHO tied with Clean, but that's partially just because I'm a huge Imogen Heap fan)
You're probably gonna do really well on this video. One, your videos are all super amazing. and two, she just released an album today so I think a lot of people will have taylor swift related things in their youtube recommendations
12tone, This is by far the best breakdown in song structure and production techniques I have seen. I haven't found anyone doing it in this manner. Your thorough explanations and understanding of what's going on in these songs is impressive. Even in songs such as That's how you get the girl etc. It demonstrates the work and ingenuity that goes into making pop songs. Educational and entertaining. ✔ 👍 👏 👏 👏
Love this album and i always felt like production is a bit overlooked in terms of music theory. I've always had a thing for musical elements that can't really be described into standard music notation, whether it's subtle production elements like on 1989 or something from, say, Nine Inch Nails
im not done with the video but i love how u had to interject that i know places is hands-down the best song on the album😭😭 it has always been one of if not actually my favorite on the album, but i feel like i never saw anyone talking about it so i could never tell if if was just me.
One of my favourite things about Taylor's song structure is her talent for finding great ad libs to add to her final choruses that just make them so fun to listen to. I feel like some pop artists don't really make sure the chorus is interesting every single time.
for what it's worth, i'm a metal musician turned pop-composer, and although i instinctively knew a few of those things, binge-watching 12tone's videos on arranging really helps me out to hammer in theory into my practice and understand what the hell i'm supposed to be doing. as a composer, i obey by the k.i.s.s. mantra (keep it simple, stupid), but when i hand it off to the producer, that's where my ideas will meet with his to make the pop song shine
I’m very glad to witness a video finally analyzing pop music from a structural or ‘energy’ lens (the word I tend to use is momentum or development). I appreciate the detail and examples. For me, however, this lens helps to reveal my perspective that most pop music (and by this I suppose I mean contemporary radio pop and the albums which go along with the singles) fails miserably to have a satisfying set up and payoff and, regardless of these meta sections, there is nowhere near enough structural variety to justify the hoped for climax of the chorus. Insufficient differences between the first and second verse betray a narrative or energetic hole, reminding us that the purpose is to have an ear worm chorus stuck in our brains. 5 second bridges (which are often times merely the ducking chorus without its driving beat, effectively rendering the whole second half of a song as one long chorus) betray the same. Often times rather than a bridge or a third section for a song there is merely a key change for a third chorus. On top of all of this, while it is certainly true that pop music is exploring sonic diversity perhaps more than ever, i feel it primarily functions to change a song ever so subtly so that if you’re not really paying attention it will feel as though there is development occurring. However, beyond these slight sonic shifts there is a relatively static, highly compressed, uniform level of sonic variety which will not dare venture into bold new territory. Having said alllllll of that, I feel I have to mention hyper pop, which, in my view, is the only salvation for the type of pop music I’m describing. I feel hyper pop is often highly highly highly aware that for all of pops innovation with production (and even then it’s innovations tend to be years later than less popular genres of mainstream musics iterations of those innovations) it fails to feel fresh due to a lowest common denominator approach to songwriting. With this awareness in mind, I think hyper pop sets out to prove me wrong (well that sounds narcissistic!), trying it’s best to be as weird and unexpected with production. I tend to feel it still fails to distract me away from the overall structure which we have all at this point assumed is some golden fucking ratio for our consumeristic attention spans, but sometimes I’m pleasantly surprised (Charli xcx for example, as well as more tangential groups like Kero Kero bonito). And these people have front runners like St Vincent and Radiohead to thank for doing the same over a decade earlier. Anyway, on the very small chance you read this months late comment, I’d be interested in further discussion on mainstream music through this lens of analysis. The last point I’ll make is that one could say that of course I’m wrong, because people enjoy pop music. They feel a sense of momentum, the need to sing their hearts out, to dance, etc. so I must be completely off. To this claim I’d simply say they’re using a different lens of analysis, and that their listening experience would be threatened if they dared to deconstruct from this perspective.
i'd LOVE a video diving into the energy levels of album structures, and how one paces an album! especially relating to concept albums and telling a wider story
I totally agree with Dr. Peres as you've described him here. I've always found pop music endlessly fascinating and it's sometimes eluded me as to why. I think the production may explain a lot of it. You do a great job here, as usual, of explaining why.
My theory teacher in college was a jazz/pop trumpet player, so everything came through that lens. He taught the idea that every piece of music has a dynamic and compositional narrative and that our job as performers is to determine what that's going to be. I teach it to my own students as a line that goes up and down to roughly describe the "energy" of that section. One moment in the song has to be the highest, most exciting, most important point. Then you can break down each section to have its own narrative - there should be one moment in each section that is the biggest (without exceeding what you established this section should be doing in the big picture). Then break down each phrase and do the same. This gives us a lot of nuanced motion in any music (though I will admit this got me in a bit of trouble when playing Bach and this level of dynamic contrast isn't really stylistically appropriate). The other thing that I teach to my more advanced students is the idea that every moment of a pop song should have something different from everything that came before. The second chorus needs to have something to differentiate from the first chorus, and the third chorus after the bridge should be different yet. It could be as simple as adding or taking away a tambourine, but just SOMETHING so you're always giving the listener something different to hear. Usually, this takes the form of having all the ideas recorded for the final chorus and just stripping things away as you go backward through the song, saving the best for last.
That also explains why the verse seems like a vestigial organ in so many modern pop sounds. It only exists to have a low energy contrast to the hook/chorus, so you make it brief and forgettable and get to what the audience really wants.
What a great video! I just finished up a music theory course at my university. I opted to take it as an elective credit because your videos have always intrigued me in the way you analyze music. This video is definitely one I'm going to remember and share with others and keep a look out for when I listen to pop music now! Thank you so much, 12tone!
Other than Shake It Off and Bad Blood 1989 is a masterpiece! Lover is mostly great too, and while I’m not a huge fan of Reputation, the good songs on the album are some of the best Taylor song. I hope when Taylor is done with the re-recordeding she’ll try a new genre, or make another album like folklore, but I won’t mind if she wants to make another pop album!
As someone who produces pop music and has studied composition and theory in university, it is my opinion that production is MUCH more difficult due to the paralyzing amount of options available. In classical, you have 12 notes and
I like to think of the effect of dropping some parts immediately before the climax as "airtime," like the feeling you get right in the middle of a big jump off a ramp or a big hill on a roller coaster or a big fall from a ledge. If you're not enough of a thrill-seeker to appreciate that comparison, imagine Wile E. Coyote hanging in mid-air after running off a cliff. At that very moment, not much is happening, but you know because of prior events that that pause is only momentary, and what comes up must come down. Similarly, we as listeners know to expect a climax after a build-up, so when we're instead greeted by a sudden decrease in energy, that context implies that that pause, too, is only momentary. It should be noted, though, that this technique produces a different and, at least in my experience, more forceful result than the other two mentioned in this video. That brief moment of freefal makes the subsequent "landing" hit harder than with a simple build-up. On a lerger scale, this same function is achieved in songs that use a breakdown-style bridge, where the final set-up is actually the lowest-energy, increasing contrast with the high-energy final climax.
Awesome content. I’ve listened to a dozen or so of your videos and they are all great. So far this was the best in that I learned something new and very relevant. Gives me more appreciation of what’s going on in music today.
When this album came out, I was in college and it was cool to hate on Taylor Swift, mostly because she was someone the high school bullies liked. ...I think I care now. That fractal structure really gets me.
@@MaraK_dialmformara ok I'd say if you like slow songs, songs with almost an indie sound you would have to listen to folklore, if you like trap or hip hop mixed with pop you would have to go with reputation, if you like pure bombastic pop 1989 is right there, if you like country/pop then you'd have to listen to RED
Can you make or recommend a video about what pop is as a genre? A person I know insists that pop is just popular music but I heavily reject that idea. I always thought pop was about the way it sounded not how popular it is, because if Sia, Katy Perry, and Lady Gaga were not popular, then what the hell is their genre?
Watching this immediately before 8-bit's video on Lonely Rolling Star was such perfect timing because while he was describing a lot of the interesting melodic complexity going on, I couldn't help but notice how perfectly the song uses this sonic vocabulary of pop. Mind. Blown.
Is there a video where you explain how you edit these videos?? I'm just so curious because I'm imagining the editing takes HOURS upon HOURS, which I'm sure you've got it all down so it's not as time consuming anymore. And the planning?! Like, you have to plan drawing all of this, the dialogue, where the music is placed. AND you have to research the topics. Just wanted to recognize your work, and I applaud you for making such incredible work that's accessible, informative, and entertaining.
This is a great take and one may even seem obvious when we look at how people talk about pop music outside of music academia. When I read about music in magazines or have conversations with my friends, we talk about production things like drums dropping out, cool things that happen in build ups, etc. way more than we talk about harmony or even melody.
When you discussed chorus progression in "Bad Blood" it made me think of Ariana Grande's "One Last Time" which has one of the most spectacular chorus progressions I've ever heard, each one really dramatically adds on to the previous one. The first is just drum and synth and mellow vocals, the second changes the vocal melody on the second half to add more strong high notes, the third adds an overdubbed track made all of high notes that adds even more energy and harmonizes with the main vocals, then the overdubbed track takes over completely as it exits the third chorus.
I thought I was just imagining the increase in Postchoruses. It's cool to be academically validated on that. Thinking about it, I realized that songs with Postchoruses include MOST of Charlie Puth's songs since he started leading his own production. I wonder to what extent he helped kick off the trend. Not really Pop in any discerning sense, but the most interesting recent use of Postchorus to me was Beabadoobee's "Sorry". The song starts out with a simple verse-chorus-verse-chorus, after which it delivers a guitar solo. The guitar solo leads into a truncated, modified "drop-out" verse, which then drops back in to a brand new section with higher energy than anything before. This moves back into the chorus, which is now the lower-energy half of the dichotomy, and then back into this highest energy section once again, which is why I call it the postchorus. In terms of songs that can be primarily mapped by energy level, I think it's a REALLY cool form, mainly because it hits a point where it never deigns to bring us all the way back down to a verse, and consequently gets to retain all that energy.
A fun listening exercise is to listen to Taylor Swift’s 1989 back to back with Ryan Adams’ 1989 and hear how different musical ideas can come out of the same song structure. This is the only reason I own both albums on vinyl. Another thing I want to do at some point is to listen to Led Zepplin II back to back with Train Does Led Zepplin II.
I don't know about music theory but i always wondered why is it that 1989 stands the test of time so well? I feel like teenagers this day are discovering it and it's still such a great record
People who programme albums use the same theory you describe here for the songs. This is where the overall feel of an album feels like a large, multi section work. Similarly, serialised media works like this.
I really liked this video. There was lots of useful analysis of pop music here. One thing that I notice that's interesting is how little is mention of the song itself, or the melody since you established the chords aren't as important. Then it really comes down to the arrangement. Then again, for most of "classical" music the arrangement would be more or less considered the same thing as the composition. I do think it'd be cool though to do some more videos that involve talking about the the melody, and how relevant that is to popular music.
Being boring because of a short loop is only a bad take if applied to all music consisting of loops or beyond the individual. It can definitely be a reasonable take
Good video. Music analysis needs to be more than harmonic analysis, even in styles that are more focused on harmony. But especially in pop, where a lot of the time there isn't that much happening in the harmonies, this is an important topic. I don't feel like analyzing the harmonies of a 4-chord pop song explains much about the song. And a lot of modern pop uses a 4-chord loop throughout the whole song. Yes, these chords are different in different songs - not every song uses the same 4 chords in it. But still, there's often only one progression per song. And yes, sometimes these chords may have interesting relationships and all that, but how much does that actually tell about what really happens in the music? Not much really. So, having different tools for analyzing music that isn't really that harmony-driven is very important.
How about that 2-part verse thing all of these songs do? They always have two distinct melodies in the verse, before reaching the pre-chorus, unless, you're calling the second part of every verse the "pre-chorus", but I would argue that each verse on most of Swift's songs (and most modern pop) have an initial melody, often one that's somewhat "busy" and bouncing around, and then a second melody (always over the same chord changes) that is usually simpler, and often with more sustained, longer tones.
But then WHY are so many people getting the impression that all pop sounds the same? If you're sayin, 30 seconds in, that production makes the difference, then why aren't people hearing that difference? I mean I don't turn on music and think, I will analyze this as though it were Classical/Jazz and then count the chords, I just turn on the radio and when pop (or rock) music comes on I get the reaction "I've heard this 10000000 times before".
Some people don't know how to listen to jazz, some people don't know how to listen to classical... some people.. Part of it is that pop music is about masterful simplicity that just works, and if you just let it work, you might not appreciate how masterful it is.
I'd love to see a video about songs like EXID "Night Rather than Day" or BTS "Life Goes On" that have this dissonance between the melody and chords that only seems to happen in Kpop.
I always say Katy Perry is the queen of the pre-chorus. The whole "take out elements", "change the chords", "add some ascending white noise" is my specialty.
my only gripe with this video is that you didnt use carly rae jepsens Emotion which is obviously the best pop album in the history of forever thank you for coming to my ted talk (these vids are amazing tho ive felt weirdly bad abt liking pop so much as a music major but honestly i couldnt give any less fucks abt beethoven and bach lmao)
A lot of modern pop music is boring... but then, we can say the same about most genres. For older music, we just forgot all the boring stuff and remember the good.
Lol... knowing you were a metal fan, when you mentioned "This Love" at first I was like, why are you suddenly talking about Pantera? XD Ironically most of the things you said about the sections of the Swift song could also apply to that one :D
Would you go over Black Dog? What is the time signature,? It seems to switch back and forth. Where are the drum up beats or down beats? I'm so confused. Help! 😆
The studio version always uses the same structure for all verses (I would guess they recorded the instrumental first and added vocals later, which is why they used a fixed length for the verses). The live version is freer. Here is my rough transcription of the main melodies/riffs of the song. imgur.com/mwb0bvG I decided to notate it in cut time, so the main pulse is felt in half notes. It's mostly in 4/4 or cut time, but there are a couple of time signature changes. (If the song was notated in 4/4, so in half tempo in relation to how I notated it, the structure of the verses would be 4/4 + 5/4 + 4/4 + 5/8.) The B section uses a polymeter. The riff is basically in 9/8, but Bonham plays a basic 4/4 groove over it.
@@MaggaraMarine I get an error message from that imgur link. Page not found. Thanks for the message tho it does clear many things up like how Bono plays through and catches up st the end.
