The Key To Music part 5: the keys to the 90’s pop era

["The Key To Music" is a research project lead by Robert Fontana on the musical formulas that have made up the industry’s pop trends throughout these past decades.]

Introductory post
Part one on the keys of the 50′s
Part two on the keys of the 60′s
Part three on the keys of the 70′s
Part four on the keys of the 80′s

The Old School Days

Other kids collected baseball cards, I collected songs. I recall one of my prized possessions when I was a child was my radio. I’d spin the dial to a station and sit there, poised, with my two sweaty fingers on the record buttons, impatiently waiting for my favorite songs. One of the first I can remember taping was “Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor. I would play it over and over, mystified as to why it was so great. It moved me and I never understood why. I didn’t care at the time.

After a few years, I became a pro at making my mix tapes from the radio. It would typically start with capturing half a song. This could explain why I can recall more 2nd verses of songs than 1st verses. Eventually, after enough missed attempts, I’d get most of the song. Finally, I’d get the whole thing with a little bit of the DJ blabbing over the intro and outro. I would scream, “Shut up!” The rare gem came when all the planets would align and I would snag the entire song with no talking. It honestly felt like snapping a picture of Bigfoot!

I would then high-speed dub the most complete songs back-to-back onto another cassette and voila: the perfect soundtrack while I thumbed away at Street Fighter II on my Super Nintendo. Many of those songs on my mix tapes were #1’s from the 90’s, including:

Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice Baby,”

C+C Music Factory’s “Gonna Make You Sweat”

EMF’s “Unbelievable,”

Color Me Badd’s “All 4 Love,”

Right Said Fred’s “I’m Too Sexy,”

Kriss Kross with “Jump,”

Snow’s “Informer,”

Ace of Base’s “The Sign,”

and Coolio featuring L.V. with “Gangsta’s Paradise.”

It’s intriguing to think that over a decade ago, I was participating, along with millions of others, as the role of a lab rat in my future research project. Did the key of the cheese have any effect on if I’d eat it? Can cheese even have a key? Hell, for half the 90’s, I didn’t even have a concept of a key. I wrote my first song in 1995, thus embarking on a musical journey that will take me to the grave. I sometimes feel like a musical Robert Langdon, trying to unravel the codes hidden in the songs left by the pop gods. I wonder which song, which key, or even which note will be the last to echo through my ears before I leave this Earth. God, please don’t let it be “Macarena” (in the key of A-flat major).

Results from the 90’s

177 keys were identified from the 143 songs of the 90’s
134 less keys & 88 less songs than the previous decade
Numerous “hits that wouldn’t quit” were freezing at #1 for weeks on end in the 90’s.

112 Sweet Days
Mariah Carey & Boyz II Men – two of the best chart-topping artists at the time – team up to write “One Sweet Day” which remains the current record holder for most consecutive weeks at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 at a total of 16 weeks. (Key of A-flat & B major)
One Sweet Day

Most used keys: (tie) D Major & E Major
C major not only does not take this title as it did in the 70’s & 80’s, it comes in 3^rd behind A-flat major, which was one of the previous decade’s least used major keys.

Number of different minor keys used: 53
Less minor keys than last year (due to less songs), but still a 2.2% increase overall

Has the minor appeal finally peaked?

Number of songs that employ a key change
28 or nearly 20% of all songs
A 10% decrease from last year
Songwriters are finding other ways of maintaining interest in songs without modulating, including new sounds, arrangements, chord changes and form.

The least used major key: G-flat
Also the least used major key in the 50’s & 70’s

The most used minor key: (NOT a minor!) It was g minor
A minor reigned for three decades before giving up the throne
A minor still came in 2^nd, with only 1 less instance of it being used

00’s-present are next! Some big changes are happening in this decade

Robert Fontana
Editor – Music Resource Group
www.musiciansatlas.com
www.independentmusicawards.com

Read Full Post »

The Key To Music Part 4: the keys to the 80′s pop era

["The Key To Music" is a research project lead by Robert Fontana on the musical formulas that have made up the industry’s pop trends throughout these past decades.]

Introductory post
Part one on the keys of the 50’s
Part two on the keys of the 60’s
Part three on the keys of the 70’s

Michael is a big fan of minor keys, not oral hygiene.

The context of the 80′s: an altering industry

More than half of MJ’s nine #1’s of the 80’s were in a minor key.

The 80’s were fun. They brought such #1 artists like Blondie, Hall & Oates, Cyndi Lauper, Wham!, Falco, Bon Jovi, and Bobby McFerrin. I even got to intentionally Rick Roll myself with “Never Gonna Give You Up” which interestingly was in the key of D-flat major – a least popular major key of the decade. Hmmm.
Another notable hit was the Stars on 45 medley which changed keys 10 times!

It seemed like a time in music when anything was possible. The music industry was also evolving. CD’s were born in 1982. Record contracts were inflating. MTV propelled artists into megastars. Fashion, culture, art and philosophies were all changing as well.

I could go on and tell you about the trends of the 80’s and relate it to my project, but I’d rather let the results speak for themselves. For the sake of filler, how about I share some of the most annoying musical mistakes from an 80’s movie? It’s from The Goonies, when Andy is at the bone piano, trying to read the notes from the map in order to avoid the trap. At one point, she frantically says she can’t tell if the note is an A-sharp or B-flat. Umm, it’s the same note. Additionally, the map clearly shows a melody of notes with maybe a few chords. Every time she plays, it’s a chord. So, yeah…that’s wrong. And finally, she says one of the chords is “A, C-sharp and D.” Any music geek knew that’s NOT what she played. Geez! Strike three. I’m surprised they made it out of there alive!

Results from the 80’s

311 keys were identified from the 231 songs of the 80’s
27 less songs were used compared to the previous decade
Songs are starting to stay longer in the #1 spot…foreshadowing for the 90’s?

Most used key: C Major
The winning key for the 70’s as well
(came in 2nd for the 50’s & 60’s)
Could the key of C have some sort of resonance with humans or is it the nature of ease with songwriting that makes it popular?

Number of different minor keys used: 86
A 10% increase from the last decade – a trend that is gathering up steam
Are we becoming bored with songs in a major key? What is the growing appeal of minor key hits? Will minor keys soon be more common than major keys? (See chart above)

Number of songs that employ a key change: 68 or nearly 30% of all songs
A slight increase from the last decade
After 25 years of #1’s, is a key change becoming more necessary in maintaining interest and appeal?

The least used major keys: (3-way tie) D-flat, E-flat, A-flat
Each were used 11 times

The most used minor key: A minor
Marks the third decade in a row as reigning minor key champ

90’s are next!

Robert Fontana
Editor – Music Resource Group
www.musiciansatlas.com
www.independentmusicawards.com

Read Full Post »

The Key To Music part 3: the keys to the 70′s pop era

["The Key To Music" is a research project lead by Robert Fontana on the musical formulas that have made up the industry’s pop trends throughout these past decades.]

Introductory post
Part one on the keys of the 50′s
Part two on the keys of the 60′s

I’ve decided to take a photo to demonstrate exactly how I determine the keys of songs in my project. This particular one is in C.

Children as young as 3 years old could tell you that a major chord sounds happy and a minor chord sounds sad. I’ve always hated explaining it like that to my music students since it really depends on context. For instance, take a song like LaBelle’s “Lady Marmalade” or Stevie Wonder’s “I Wish” (both in a minor key) and tell me those songs sound sad. Even the theme from Rocky – one of the most motivational songs ever – was a major “minor” hit. It all depends on arrangement or what you do with the notes you have – a good lesson for life!

Listen to “I Wish” by Stevie Wonder in the key of E-flat minor

The Battle of the Keys: Minor VS. Major

One of the most apparent trends I’ve noticed after I finished analyzing the keys of the first 25 years of Billboard Hot 100 #1’s is that these chart-toppers are increasingly being composed with minor keys (see chart below). In fact, the 70’s were the first decade any minor key was used more than any major key (A minor was used more than G-flat major). If we continue at this pace, by the 2020’s, songs with minor keys will outnumber the major keys.

Results from the 70’s

298 total keys were identified out of the 258 songs
(32 more keys & 56 more songs than the previous decade)
This means less songs with long-running stays at #1

Most used key: C Major
(50’s: E-flat Major; 60’s: G Major)
As with the previous two decades, the most predominant key was found nearly 14% of the time

Number of different minor keys used: 57
(27 more than the previous decade)
A rising trend, probably due to exhaustion of major key progressions and a desire for deeper exploration of tonalities

Number of songs that employ a key change: 61 or nearly 24% of all songs
(About the same percentage as the previous decade)
A steady trend that states about 1 in 4 hit songs from 1955-1979 utilize a key change

The least used major key: G-flat Major (used 9 times)
(60’s: B Major, used only 9 times; 50’s: G-flat Major, used once
G-flat is not a popular key on the major side

The most used minor key: A minor (used 11 times)
(60’s: A minor, used in 7 songs)
Similar to C Major, this key uses no sharps or flats, which may have contributed to its popularity for songs originally written on the piano

Conclusions

I decided graphs were more explicit than words, so here goes:

Robert Fontana
Editor – Music Resource Group
www.musiciansatlas.com
www.independentmusicawards.com

Read Full Post »

The Key to Music Part 2: the key to 60’s pop era

["The Key To Music" is a research project lead by Robert Fontana on the musical formulas that have made up the industry’s pop trends throughout these past decades.

Introductory post: gigdoggy.wordpress.com/2009/03/03/the-key-to-music-a-study-on-industry-pop-trends-and-their-musical-formulas-by-robert-fontana

Part one on the 50's: gigdoggy.wordpress.com/2009/04/06/the-key-to-music-part-1-the-key-to-50s-pop-rock-era]

Could they tell the difference…

Let’s say I secretly snuck into your home in the middle of the night, hijacked your iPod and used pitch-altering software to bump all your songs up a semitone while retaining the tempo and quality. You snap in your earbuds and hit play. Would you notice?

Perhaps the more interesting hypothetical would be what I’d say to the police if I got caught! But seriously, do you think you could tell the difference? This was a question I asked myself as I was ear-deep in my project of analyzing all the Billboard Hot 100 #1 songs of the Rock Era in a nerdy conquest to conclude if and why certain keys were more popular than others.

At first, I hypothesized that only the few people with perfect pitch would be able to consistently notice if a track was not in its original key. If most people couldn’t perceive this nuance, then I would have to rule out the possibility that humans prefer certain keys over others. After a bit of research, I came across some interesting articles that helped me shed some light on the innate musical abilities of our brains. For one such article, see www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080826080600.htm

Last week, I released some conclusions about the keys of the 50’s. This week, I bring you the 60’s. I had the pleasure of dancing under a “blue moon” with The Marcels, listening to the Dave Clark Five “over and over” again, getting schooled in the “game of love” by Wayne Fontana (no relation) & the Mindbenders, and allowing Ringo to pound out some paradiddles on my eardrums as the Beatles held my hand. Which keys would prevail? Which keys just didn’t have the pitch propellant to soar to the top?

Results from the 60’s (some compared with the 1955-59 “decade”):

264 total keys were identified out of the 202 songs

Most used key: G Major
38 songs or nearly 14% of all keys from the decade
(50’s – most used key: E-flat Major – nearly 14%)

Number of songs that use a minor key
30 or nearly 11% of all keys
(50’s – number of songs that use a minor key: nearly 4%)

Number of songs that employ a key change
51 or nearly 25% of all songs
(50’s – number of songs that employ a key change: nearly 21%)

The least used major key
B Major, which was used only 9 times
(50’s – least used major key was G-flat Major, used only once)

The most used minor key
A minor, used in 7 songs
(50’s – only 3 songs even used any minor key)

Keys that have never been used
(in 15 years od #1) D-flat minor & G minor

Interesting trivia:

Little Stevie Wonder’s “Fingertips Pt. 2” is in C minor, but included in this live #1 hit is the exit music after the song is thought to be complete, which is in A-flat Major – it counts! To top it off, Stevie interrupts the exit music for his encore via a harmonica solo back in C minor. Bassist Larry Moses is clearly heard on the recording frantically yelling “What key? What key?” If he only had my handy little spreadsheet!

Take a listen to Larry at around 2:23:

Conclusions

Last week, I anticipated C Major as being a contender for the most used key of the 60’s. It came in 2nd, with 33 songs or just under 12.5% of all keys (almost the same percentage as in the 50’s). Compared with the previous decade, the use of minor keys jumped 7% and there was a small increase in the percentage of songs that had a key change.

G Major possibly took the crown due to the increasing popularity of songs being written on the guitar and it being an easy key to play on the guitar (as well as the piano). Popular chords in a major key include the I, IV & V. In the key of G, these chords are G, C & D: three of the easiest chords to play with none of them being the more troublesome barre chords. Maybe it’s not the sole reason for its reign over the decade, but it’s something to consider.

Tune in next week with your bellbottoms on as I jingle more keys in your face and rollerskate you the results of the 70’s. As suggested, I’ll be including some graphs that’ll span the first 25 years of keys from 1955-1975.

Robert Fontana
Editor – Music Resource Group
www.musiciansatlas.com
www.independentmusicawards.com

Read Full Post »

The Key to Music Part 1: the key to 50′s pop rock era

A month ago I had posted the introduction to Robert Fontana’s “The Key To Music“, a research project on the musical formulas that have made up the industry’s pop trends throughout these past decades. To read the introductory post, please go to: gigdoggy.wordpress.com/2009/03/03/the-key-to-music-a-study-on-industry-pop-trends-and-their-musical-formulas-by-robert-fontana

Now Robert has sent us Part 1 of his study which focuses on the keys that dominated the 50′s rock era.

“How appropriate is it that the first song of the Rock Era opens with an A (440 Hz), the standard for tuning and pitch?”

I’m a music geek

I’m a music geek. When I hear a song, I dissect it as if it were a frog in a high school. I listen for chords and progressions, meter, structure, instruments being played, the arrangement, drum patterns and fills, lyrics and rhyme schemes. Imagine a theoretical bubble over my head with notes, roman numerals, symbols and time signatures all swimming around in sine waves. Sometimes I wish I could just simply listen to a song and enjoy its aesthetics like most people.

I was once sitting in traffic on a sweltering hot day with a friend in the passenger seat. A nearby car honks. The truck in front of it honks back. I mumble to myself “Major third.” My friend says, “What?” I reply, “The two honks are a major third apart.” I mimic the honks. The enjoyment I got from explaining it was quickly crushed by the frazzled eyebrows of my friend. FYI: a Trivial Pursuit card once informed me that the most common note for a car horn is F.

You can see how I’ve come to this project of analyzing the keys of all the #1 songs from the Billboard Hot 100. I can’t help it. I wanted to know the trends of keys during the Rock era. Maybe when I’m finished, I could even predict which key the next #1 song would be!

It all started in the 50′s

The 50’s were the birth of rock. I started with Bill Haley & His Comets and their #1 hit version (they weren’t the first to record it) of “Rock Around the Clock” which reached the top in July of 1955. It’s not the first rock song to be written or recorded, but it’s widely considered an unofficial starting point. If we’re going to be technical, the Billboard Hot 100 and the Top 100 weren’t even invented yet. Listen to the original version of “Rock Around the Clock” by Sonny Dae & The Knights, along with some interesting trivia about the song: 

To make it easy, I have every Billboard #1 as mp3’s on my computer. With a finely tuned guitar in hand, I find and click on the song. Haley opens with his first vocal note: an A, which I quickly hunted down and found on the guitar. How appropriate is it that the first song of the Rock Era opens with concert A (440 Hz), the standard for tuning and pitch? I know this song fairly well, which I won’t be able to say for every song that will follow. It’s a 12-bar blues progression in the key of A. I know there aren’t any key changes, so I quickly skip forward in 5 second intervals just to skim over it and check. In a spreadsheet, I record the result. I continue in this same process for the next 60 songs to complete the decade.

Here are some results from the 50’s:

• 79 total keys were found from the 61 songs.

• Most used key: E-flat – 11 songs or nearly 14% of all keys found

• Number of songs that use a minor key: three; two of these stayed completely in the minor key

• Number of songs that employ a key change: 13 or about 21% of all songs

• The least used major key was G-flat which was used only in “Honey Comb” by Jimmie Rodgers; the song only stays in G-flat for 43 seconds before changing keys

• Bobby Darin’s “Mack the Knife” changes keys the most with a total of five times; it begins in the key of B-flat and chromatically modulates up through E-flat. Have a listen:

Conclusions?

My initial prediction was that B-flat would be the most used key for this shortened decade. I figured the 50’s would have many horns arranged in those songs and I know that key is easy for them to play. But then I considered that trained musicians wouldn’t be limited to easy keys, so I settled with E Major – the quintessential rock key. E-flat emerged victorious. Could it have been due to the fact that it’s another easy key for horns to play in? I was a little surprised at the lack of minor keys, although I anticipated it being low. Most early rock songs were simple or utilized the 12-bar blues pattern, which typically is played in a major key.

Results for the 60’s will be posted next week. Hope there are other fellow music geeks lurking around interested in this stuff!

Robert Fontana
Editor – Music Resource Group
www.musiciansatlas.com
www.independentmusicawards.com

Read Full Post »

The Key to Music: a study on industry pop-trends and their musical formulas – by Robert Fontana

Hey people! I proudly present the first introductory post to Robert Fontana’s ‘The Key To Music‘, a study and research project on the musical formulas that have made up the industry’s pop trends throughout these past decades.

Robert explains:

My pet project involves the analysis of any possible correlations involved with key signatures of all the Billboard Hot 100 #1′s from 1955-present (since the Rock era started). Basically, I’ve been recording the keys (including any full transpositions – not secondary tonicizations) of this comprehensive list of songs. My analysis will include results of most popular & least popular key signatures of all #1 songs as well as per decade, reasons why certain keys may have been chosen during particular time frames, the possibility that certain keys appeal more to audiences, and other musically-geeky probing.

The Key to Music

Ever wonder why we like the music we like? Why do we listen to the same classic songs over and over? Hipsters would say it’s because the system forces a select group of artists and songs down our throats. Mad scientist songwriters would argue for the plethora of pop music formulas. Sociologists might link it to patterns of what we were all exposed to while we were children. Freud probably would have said, “Sometimes a song is just a song.”

At first, I sided with the songwriters. It’s true. At their disposal are hundreds of proven tricks just waiting for the right moment to be pulled out of the tackle box (because hooks are found in tackle boxes). There are cliche chord progressions, common ways to modulate, arrangements and song structures that have stood the test of time, cookie-cutter drum beats, and certain harmonies that are always crowd-pleasers. Apply a mix of these tricks with a modern twist to some music, get a smashingly beautiful artist to sing it, promote the hell out of it, and voila: a hit song.

Somehow, I still wasn’t convinced. What interests me is if our love affair with songs could be something much simpler. When I first uttered it to myself, I thought the play on words was cute and didn’t think much about it. But then, I started to seriously consider it: what if the key of music was the key to music?

The Oxford Dictionary of Music describes a key as “…adherence…to the note-material of one of the major or minor scales – not necessarily a rigid adherence (since other notes may incidentally appear), but a general adherence, with a recognition of the Tonic (or key-note) of the scale in question as a principal and governing factor in its effect…”

I was intrigued to see if there were any correlations with a song’s key and its success during certain time periods. Are we susceptible to some innate preference for certain fundamental frequencies? What are the most popular keys of the most popular songs? Which keys are the least popular? Why were certain keys chosen and more successful during certain musical eras?

It’s tough because who’s to say which songs are the best? For the record, there is no truly accurate way to gauge a song’s popularity. The best we’ve come up with is Billboard, which calculates airplay and sales to deliver their weekly pole positions. So, I started with that. It has now become the sole focus of a project I’ve spent months working on. I’ve been analyzing every Billboard Hot 100 #1 song from 1955 (the birth of the Rock Era) to the present. For each song, I record its key and any full modulations that occur into a spreadsheet.

When I’m finished, I look forward to sharing my conclusions. Feel free to comment with any predictions. Stay tuned to GigBloggy for the results.

Robert Fontana has a BA in Music Education and is an editor at Music Resource Group (MRG), which publishes an annual publication called The Musician’s Atlas as well as its online counterpart, AtlasOnline. The Musician’s Atlas is the ultimate music industry resource & includes contact information and details for every aspect of the business, including music venues, festivals, record labels, studios, radio stations, producers & much more. MRG also produces the Independent Music Awards (IMA’s) where winners are chosen from each of the 50+ music and design categories, and receive year-long print, online & broadcast promotion plus distribution & performance opportunities including an IMA showcase at the CMJ Music Marathon.
www.musiciansatlas.com
www.independentmusicawards.com

Thanks Rob! Can’t wait to read about your findings.

Mruff

Read Full Post »