Axis of Awesome - 4 Four Chord Song (with song titles)

I think nobody linked to Axis of Awsome's 4 Chords Song yet. A good example of chords vs. songs: ▶ this video

I suspect the "appealing" melodies amongst this are likely a small subset of the the total set. The whole story reminded me of this axis of awesome (OZ comedy group) song (well worth watching): ▶ this video

There's a great video essay series known as "Everything is a Remix" by Kirby Ferguson [1] if you have an hour to spare. Ferguson uses the trends of music sampling as a base for how artists draw inspiration from others. The controversy of sampling has been used across genres, include around minute 9 Ferguson points out that Led Zepplin were considered ripoffs for their appropriation of Jake Holmes. Axis of Awesome also has a "chord progression song" [2] that makes fun of how similar many pop songs are. The video draws a nice parallel to how so much in our world serves as "inspiration" for our own works, but acknowledges the controversy around using a single source as "too much inspiration". Especially as we move into whatever copyright arguments are getting made toward AI right now, I think it serves as a nice outline on why this is such a complicated matter. [1] link [2] ▶ this video

There is a nice standup sketch from an Australian comedy group, the Axis of Evil, that most of the pop songs are using only four chords, ▶ this video

Novelty itself is easy, the hard part is the kind of novelty that is familiar enough to be engaging while also unusual enough to attract all the people bored by the mainstream. Worse, as people attempt to automate novelty, they will be (and have been) repeatedly thwarted by the fact that the implicit patterns of the automation system themselves become patterns to be learned and recognised… which is why all modern popular music sounds so similar that this video got made 14 years ago: ▶ this video (This is already a thing with GenAI images made by people who just prompt-and-go, though artists using it as a tool can easily do much better). But go too soon, be too novel, and you're in something like uncanny valley: When Saint-Saëns' Danse macabre was first performed, it was poorly received by violating then-current expectations, now it's considered a masterpiece.

I like the live version of that better[1], and while the Axis of Awesome wins in the shear number of songs, I like Rob P's presentation[2] of the same idea more. 1: ▶ this video 2: link

Gift link: link My favorite part from it: > “We have spent the last eight years talking about two songs with dramatically different lyrics, melodies and four chords which are also different and used by songwriters every day, all over the world,” Mr. Sheeran continued. “These chords are common building blocks which were used to create music long before ‘Let’s Get It On’ was written and will be used to make music long after we are all gone.” From a different article about the trial: link > Before Sheeran’s Thursday testimony, his defense played a video of Australian comedy band Axis of Awesome performing a medley of dozens of songs with the same four chords. The video: ▶ this video

They have a similar (but not actually the same) chord progression. They're in a different key and the melody is different. If you could copyright similar chord progressions then that would be the end of new pop music. > similar enough that even Sheeran played them as a live medley That doesn't really mean much, any good sounding diatonic (chords all from the same key) song is going to share the progression with lots of other songs ▶ this video

The songs in the playlist are the first 4 chords of link essentially looped for 47 seconds. I V vi iii appears very frequently in pop music ▶ this video . If one were trying to exploit the algorithm...

The obligatory video is of course "Four Chords" by Axis of Awesome: ▶ this video Rick Beato has kind of the opposite video about "the most complex song ever": link The song in question is Never Gonna Let You Go by Sergio Mendes; plenty of videos exist of it; here's one live: link

When I think four chord song I think of Axis Of Awesome :) Medley of a bunch of pop songs on the premise they all use the same 4 chords. ▶ this video

Jazz guitarist here, and yes. One of the nice things about the instrument is that a relatively small number of forms for chords and scales are transposable up and down the fretboard, so once you burn the usual patterns into your head (iim7-V7-IM7, etc.) reading a new sheet usually doesn't take too much work. Most pop music is even simpler, as illustrated by Axis of Awesome. ▶ this video