Entertainment For Lively Minds
Catchiness: the greatest gift that hits possess
According to Popjustice, the best pop record of the last two years is probably Lady Gaga's "Poker Face". And he's not wrong. But it's not the nu-electrostomp arrangement, or the lyric (pretty banal stuff, purportedly about fancying some fish while eating the meat course or something), or even the Bacofoil-camp staging - complete with strategic Cumberland sausage - that makes it a good record. What makes it a good record is that it sends the none-more-catchy needle careering right off the dial.
But what does "catchy" mean?* Yes, we use it to refer to "earworms" (snippets of music that you can't get out of your head), but what does it actually consist of? Is it some ethereal quality that defies definition - like "soulful", "plaintive" or "raunchy" - or can "catchy" be pinned down?
I think it can. It's all about hooks. And "Poker Face" has five of them. Is that a lot or not many? To give you an idea, Madonna's "Hung Up" - one of the biggest hits of 2005 - managed a paltry two: a two-note tick-tock chant about time going by so slowly so slowly, and a keyboard-ocarina part that was lifted wholesale from an old Abba record, suggesting that coming up with new hooks is anything but easy.
The hooks in "Poker Face" (Spotify link) are these:
1. (0:07) Ma-ma-ma-mah
Filched from Boney M's "Ma Baker", and pre-echoing No. 5.
2. (0:40) Oh, whoa-oh, oh, oh
Eurovisiontabulous la-la-la-ing is easier to remember than actual words, and you don't even need to be listening attentively to find yourself joining in.
3. (0:57) Can't read my, can't read my...
Seemingly pointless repetition isn't pointless at all; it helps hooks get stuck in - especially in a chorus.
4. (1:03) She has got me like no-bo-dy
A call-and-response trick in the form of a three-note arpeggio, again with a repeated phrase.
5. (1:13) Puh-puh-puh po-ker face puh-puh po-ker face
Stammering on a single note works just f-f-f-fine too, especially if it involves repeating the t-t-t-title of the record.
See what she did there? We're only a minute and a quarter in and all five hooks have been embedded in our heads already. Now, for the remaining two thirds of the song, all she has to do is repeat them, intertwine them and overlay them. So that's exactly what she does, the little tinker. The end of the record assaults us with 3, 4, 5, 4, 5, 1, 5, 1, 5, 1, 5, 1... all in 30 seconds.
Catchy? It's a contagion in G# minor.
(Continues in Comments)
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* For anyone who hasn't read it already, David Hepworth's piece on the Beatles over at The Rocking Vicar is what set me off exploring the idea of catchiness in the first place.
- More from Archie Valparaiso.
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The Catchiness Hall of Fame
1. The Beatles
2. Abba
3. Lady Gaga (Yes, already. "Paparazzi" is almost as much of a hookfest as "Poker Face". The woman clearly knows what she's doing like no-bo-dy. Damn, there it goes again.)
4. Chinn & Chapman (especially for The Sweet)
5. Frank Farian (especially for Boney M)
Please add to or reshuffle all you like. (Should Phil Spector be in there, for example? I'm not sure he should - isn't he remembered for his whole sound, rather than his hooks?) Just don't touch No. 1, eh? There can’t really be any argument about that, can there?
Biology by Girls Aloud - a lesson by Xenomania
Hook 1. There's the 'Fool Me Feed Me' bit
Hook 2. 'I got one Alabama Return' bit
Hook 3. The 'closer....closer...closer' bit
Hook 4. 'They Give it up and then they take it away'
Hook 5. 'You can't mistake my biology...the way that we talk'
And then there's the video - in which they helpfully change costumes for each different hook.
how many lessons left tho?
Realistically what have xenomania got left in the tank? I think Biology and the Promise are two of my fave ever pop songs. Painful innit.
Plenty. Let's not forget the album tracks
AND
so who's going to write
"Brian & Miranda's Book of Hooks".................?
I don't know
Bill Drummond?
You'll know you've died and gone to heaven
when you wake up in a music lesson studying Great Pop Hooks with holograms of the vids and interviews with all those involved. "So then, Chezza, after 3 hours in the vocal booth, where did you find that extra "oooh" from? I need to know for my dissertation, honest........"
That would be a bit special
I really hope you're referring to 'Call The Shots' there
I'm thinking of forming my own girl band so I can write the songs for them and get to hang out with hot girls going 'oooh' all day. That's pretty much my ideal job
there's a queue
for jobs like that.............
and waht's more
i can't speak a word of belgian
I would also suggest it's not just the song, but the production
As Chimney rightly suggests, Xenomania are the producers of the moment and a good chunk of the catchiness in the Girls Aloud hits are down to the Xenomania arrangements. Similarly, Pete Waterman has always been a bit of a hero of mine (a fellow Cov kid) and hits like 'Love In The First Degree', 'Respectable' and 'Never Going To Give You Up' wouldn't be half the songs they are without the SAW production.
I was going to go there
But the blog was already over-long as it was. For instance, the ABBA-esque layering of harmony vocals on "Paparazzi" has a lot to do with that record's success, I think. But when we have a catchy song running through our heads, do we hear the production? Actually, I think I do, rather than stripping it down to just the melody. In my head I sing along with the record, not a capella.
As for SAW, yes, I know what you mean, but wasn't it the two-notes of "never gonna" repeated ad earwormium that made the Rickrolling record a hit originally?
I believe that Waterman...
... aside from being the business brain in SAW, came up with the song titles and the "gimmicks", such as the "Take-take-take-take ta-ta ta-ta-ta take-take" from the peerless "Respectable," so fair play. Variety wasn't their strong suit, but SAW deserve more respect.
In a similar vein (and related to Xenomania's many mentions already in this thread), Spotify has a Pet Shop Boys commentary track for their latest album "Yes" (http://open.spotify.com/track/2uwBdizVyzO6hvTjLlbInd) where Neil & Chris talk through the making of the whole album. Worth a listen to hear some snippets about Xenomania's working methods (they tend to start from song titles too.)
The Donna Summer
SAW song was perfect pop, not so much the Michael Ball one. Agree with the need to respect SAW, in the wasteland that was the late eighties at least they kept your toes tapping and he loves trains!
The Donna Summer
SAW song was perfect pop, not so much the Michael Ball one. Agree with the need to respect SAW, in the wasteland that was the late eighties at least they kept your toes tapping and he loves trains!
Can I suggest that certain words are catchy as well?
It seems that the word Jump has a certain effect when employed in pop tunes. Evidence lurks below...
Ar.. House Of Pain...
I defy anyone to play that and not do the bobby-up-and-down head thing. It's another one of those small band of songs which is prenaturally catchy BUT ONLY TO MEN. As we blokes leap around displaying lots of primeval dance technique, our more sophisticated distaff department looks on tutting and shaking heads.
Known at the time
As "Head Nod Business"
Bloody MMMBOP!!!!
I agree completely about Pokerface. It's a talent all of it's own to come up with catchy tunes. Many a band have fallen down whilst trying, despite being filled with great musicians.
A lot of hooks are in the arrangement (which kind of goes against the widely held idea that if a song is good on an acoustic it will be good in any shape or form). Burt Bacharach is a master at the hooks in the arrangement, think of the trumpet part in Walk On By, it's what you remember and try singing the song without hearing that in your head, or even singing it as part of the melody.
Meanwhile, Hanson's MmmBop is a song I absolutely detest, but if I hear it once it stays in my head for ever. It's the nonsense language the chorus seems to be written in, I can hear it now, simply by typing it's title....grrrr....
Hawkwind: a case study
They made hundreds of records which all essentially sound the same but only one, "Silver Machine", is catchy.
How does that work?
They can't/don't want to
They can't/don't want to write pop songs?
So they don't want to write songs that people like and buy?
Oh.
maybe they just want to write
the songs they want to write and don't care whether anyone buys them or not. That's art innit. And it's Hawkwind you're talking about, they're not a pop act.....bless 'em.
If they weren't bothered about singles success....
....why did they release another nineteen singles after "Silver Machine", after which they released "Silver Machine" again? And you're not allowed to say 'that was just the record company'.
If I could squash just one misconception about the music business it would be the idea that some acts don't want to have successful singles. They *all* want to have successful singles. They *all* want to reach beyond their little constituency. In fact the greater their pretensions the more deeply scarred they are by the feeling that the public is somehow too stupid to buy their records.
so they can't/couldn't write pop songs
that people want to buy. It's a given everyone in a band wants "to get their music out there". How successful they are depends on loads of things beyond their control surely? The capricious public and venal record companies being just two of them.
What's venal about record companies?
And what's capricious about the public?
venal may be
a bit strong - not to say invite the attention of m'learned friends - but record companies in the business of getting hits put stuff out that will sell, or that they can persuade the public to buy in any event. And the pop-buying public - who are the people we're talking about in terms of hits - will buy what sounds catchy that week, and maybe something completely different that's still catchy the next week. And their right to do that is part of the glory of pop music I would have thought. We're all hooked on it for better or for worse.
maybe they just want to write
the songs they want to write and don't care whether anyone buys them or not. That's art innit. And it's Hawkwind you're talking about, they're not a pop act.....bless 'em.
Here goes
1. Take a basic "Johnny B. Goode" boogie (as exemplified by Status Quo's "Paper Plane", among thousands of other records).
2. Lay it over a four-step chord-sequence "ladder" that keeps on rising.
3. Accentuate the chord changes by ending each vocal line on the first beat of the first bar of the new chord ("in a silver ma- / Chine...")
4. Add lots of whooshy stuff.
But you're right; there are no real hooks as such. It's a bit like Tommy Roe's "Dizzy", where the single megahook is the actual song structure itself.
It is infernally catchy
Even nearly forty years later I still turn it up when it comes on. I think it might be something to do with the delicious gap between anticipation and satisfaction. You know the ladder will keep rising but you can't remember precisely *how*.
I wouldn't have said it was all that catchy.
Needle Gun is. And Quark, Strangeness and Charm. And Levitation if you're in the mood.
I've said it before and I'll say it again
This is the catchiest pop song of all time, ever. This earworm will never leave your head.
We've not touched
on the Kylester yet; she had her fair share of catchy tunes with SAW ('Lucky', 'Shocked', 'Devil', several others) but really found the catchy motherlode with 'Can't Get You Out Of My Head'. Even typing the title has installed 'Lalala, lalalalala' into my brain for the rest of the day. You've read this; it'll be the same for you :-)
A competitor for pop record of last 2 years
Much as I love Poker Face, this is another hook-full song.
1. The simple keybrd
2. "Woooh-who"
3. Man - "Tonight's the night..."
4. Woman - "I know that we'll have a ball"
5. "Do it and do it"
6. The rush gained from the breakdown before the "here we go"
7. "Monday, Tuesday etc" - the final flourish.
By the way, both also have a foot-tapping / heartbeat faster / drive faster / getonthedancefloorNOW quality that comes from the rhythm rather than the tune.
Another one from Xenomania
The chorus is the only thing that stays the same - every verse has a different melody. It's like a pile up of hooks.
I give you
the King and Queen of Catchyville, from the land of Catchy. No analysis from me once this is in your head there is NO escape.
True, and yet
is pretty much the same record, but better - and much catchier.
Archie
let's agree to disagree on that one. Did Toni Basil follow it up with something equally catchy? She was just a one catch wonder!
i've always thought that
this song owes SUCH a debt to something by Chic, but i can't identify which song.
A Chinnychap job.
Originally "Hey Kitty", I believe.
Been tweaked here too
I know this ripped off The Rubinoos but there's a lot of "Mickey " in it or you could say She took the mickey. Thank You i'm here all week.
Avril Lavigne - Girlfriend
por audreylaplusbelle
"Ripped off the Rubinoos"
Actually it was a Tommy James and the Shondells song. While we're in this particular corner you could add this which Danny Baker sent me last night. "Best pop song I've heard in ages," he says.
Call me uncatchable
He's an odd cove, Danny Baker - he has this schtick about not listening to anything made after 1976 (or whenever it is), then alights on a piece of tat like this. it didn't grab me, but I probably wasn't going to give it a chance once I'd heard the autotuned vocals...
Both great of course
but neither of them come close to this
(ignore the stupid Winona Ryder movie in the video, about as relevant and useful as the "Were they not all gay????" comment on youtube)
Get the Knack indeed....
Saw the Fountains of Wayne do the break from that in the middle of Radiation Vibe - where they always put stuff in from all over - at the Garage about 10 years ago. Powerpoptastic
Monkees
Was there ever a catchier record than 'Daydream Believer'?
I can't understand why....
...when you talk about catchiness people instantly refer to the more obviously pop acts. Far as I'm concerned these are every bit as catchy:
1. Brown Sugar by the Rolling Stones
2. Pretty Vacant by the Sex Pistols (but not Anarchy In The UK)
3. Panic by The Smiths (but hardly anything else by them)
4. Boom Boom by John Lee Hooker
5. Kashmir by Led Zeppelin
All these and more have the power to snag our attention the first time round and drag us back in search of something.
May I add
Motorheads "Ace of Spades" in order to provide some balance to my Ting Tings?
People probably refer to 'pop' acts in such a way
because the term 'catchy' is often given a pejorative slant in certain quarters, to imply 'ephemeral or insignificant', which leads people instinctively to consider said pop acts because in said quarters 'pop' is viewed as...etc
Now you mention it...
"Kashmir" has a similar rising chord-sequence thing to "Silver Machine" going on.
"Brown Sugar" is actually a pop song with proper poppy hooks (Keith' riff, obviously, but also the four notes just before Jagger sings "brown sugar", while "Pretty Vacant" has the arpeggio intro - not unlike the intro to "Poker Face" as it happens - that defines the whole song. As for "Boom Boom", the title itself is a hook, referenced by the on-the-beat instrumental "boom boom boom boom" of every line.
(I can't comment on The Smiths, I'm afraid - a no-go area for me after the first couple of singles. My loss, I'm sure.)
Flamin' Groovies
Shake Some Action - brilliantly catchy, but not much else by them.
But shouldn't it also be something you can't quite pin down or recall without hearing the record? An odd element even. If it's just catchy in an obvious way it's just an irritation ultimately.
"If it's just catchy in an obvious way"....
....then it probably isn't really catchy. There's a fine line between catchy and banal. With the latter you've absorbed it all first time around. Catchy pulls you back.
That's why the Beatles are untouchable
I was listening to "Your Mother Should Know" today for the first time in a very long time. But it could have been yesterday. Every sigh of the backing vocals, the so-corny-it's-not-corny "sing it again", the "da-da-da-dah" verse... it's so packed with hooks that it doesn't even need a chorus or a middle-eight. I know it backwards, but every time it sounds new. Weird.
And, most remarkable of all, it was just filler. How many other songs that never bothered the charts (because it wasn't released as a single) does pretty much everybody of our generation know every last note of? Only Beatles songs.
Sorry but
I don't agree - many things are both banal and catchy, they still stick in your head. I think what keeps us coming back is some other perceived quality in the piece.
Yes
there are a large number of catchy songs that get in your head but very few of these are great. I agree with the OP that it's handling a quantity of hooks that's exceptional, and makes the best pop, and the gift for making them work together is very rare. It's bringing in one element after another and having them all fit together with the precision of a swiss watch. Seems so simple and natural but is actually complex and artificial.
She might call herself the Queen Of Pop..
And this might prove it. The synth kicking in after the intro along with the wonderful bass counterpoint and the little keyboard stabs does it for me.
I'm sure I've posted this before but when you watch this vid.. blimey.. you would have, wouldn't you?
With one hand
firmly on my wallet!
Catchyisimo
It's tension and release
Someone once said about writing, "You make 'em laugh, you make 'em cry, but most of all you make 'em wait"
Maybe it's just me
But hooks are not enough. The Gaga song – to these ears – is devoid of warmth. The hairs on the back of my neck are happily snoozing.
'She has got me like nobody' from 'Poker Face'
That's just like 'C'mon Barbie Let's Go Party', so nicked too.
Randomly lifted
from my Ipod, and catchiness personified, I feel, even if they are rather obvious.
1. Hello Goodbye - Beatles
2. Peggy Sue - Buddy Holly
3. C'Mon Everybody - Eddie Cochran
4. The Girl Of My Best Friend - Elvis
5. Get Off My Cloud - Stones
The lack of modern tracks is slightly coincidental bearing in mind that they don't right/produce them like that anymore.
Jeff Lynne-Every Little Thing
from the master of catchy
This Lancashire lass beats Lady Ga Ga hands down
Lady G catchy? I've caught better colds
Wiggy brat says P-P-P-P in deadpan voice. Well lawdy Miss Clawdy! Charlie Drake's My Boomerang Won't Come Back is catchier
Lady Who, gimme a break
sorry to get back to Hawkwind, but tell me this isn't catchy?
btw new member, first time post
Heard the Cribs
New tune this morning now THAT'S catchy
Dee Lite - Groove is in the Heart
Now, this is catchy