Sean Ross is Executive Editor of Music and Programming for Radio-Info.com. He is also a consultant to the radio and music industries, and VP of music and programming for Edison Research. He can be reached at 973.763.1306. Stations he has recently worked with in his Edison capacity are asterisked.
HOW PREVALENT (AND EFFECTIVE) IS THE USE
of repetition in today’s songwriting?
of repetition in today’s songwriting?
The No. 1 pop song in the country begins with an internal repetition—Lady Gaga’s “hello/hello, baby” in “Telephone.”
The No. 2 pop song starts by repeating the title phrase twice, then goes for the internal repetition, “I’mma be/I’mma be/I’mma, I’mma, I’mma be.”
In Thursday’s Ross On Radio, we observed that“Repetition in Songwriting Is Everywhere, Everywhere.” We were flagging, in particular, the use of internal repetition—the consecutive use of a word or sentence fragment in the middle of a line. We hadn’t even gotten to those songs that repeat the title phrase four or more times in a given chorus.
Internal repetition goes back to the very beginnings of what Casey Kasem branded “the rock era,” starting with Bill Haley & the Comets’ promise to “rock, rock, rock ‘till broad daylight/we’re gonna rock, gonna rock, around the clock tonight.” It’s thought of as a bubblegum songwriter’s construct, but the critically acclaimed have availed themselves of it, too, from Peter Gabriel (who used “my heart going boom/boom/boom” on “Solsbury Hill” before going for the lyrical “sledge, sledge, sledgehammer” a few years later) to Tegan & Sara (the should-have-been-a-hit “Walking With A Ghost” isn’t quite Rihanna's “Rude Boy,” but it has multiple repetitions as well).
Internal repetition has been a common thread in my favorite records through the years. But it did feel like it was everywhere lately. So I listened again to the top 30 songs this week:
On the Mainstream Top 40 chart, at least 25 out of the top 30 songs have some sort of internal repetition in the first two minutes. A few are fleeting (Train’s “hey, hey, hey” on “Hey Soul Sister” or Daughtry’s “love ever after/after the life we once knew” on “Life After You”). Others, like Taio Cruz’s “Break Your Heart,” Iyaz’s “Replay” or David Guetta & Akon’s “Sexy Chick” are more obvious.
Of the other five songs in the top 30, meanwhile, two have obvious repetition of another sort – the consecutively repeated hook. There’s no internal repetition on Adam Lambert’s “Whatya Want From Me” but with the title phrase happening so many times at the end of the chorus, there doesn’t really need to be.
Then I went to the R&B chart, where 24 out of the top 30 use internal repetition and another four repeat the full hook. Jay-Z’s “On To The Next One” has two different chants of the title phrase going on at one time, so the lack of repetition within a sentence hardly matters. Ludacris’ “How Low” reinforces its repetition with a Smurf voice. But I put that one in the internal repetition camp anyway because of the secondary “go low/go low” hook.
Is this a problem for anybody? Not for record buyers—of the top 10 songs on the iTunes Music Store, only Lady Antebellum’s “Need You Now” doesn’t prominently employ repetition. Is the combined repetition and melodic starkness in Urban contributing to any of its PPM issues—especially with adults? Well, Top 40 is as repetitious and enjoying its best adult acceptance in more than a decade.
That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t seek out songs like “Need You Now” that stand out amidst the repetition. “Need You Now” has plenty of songwriters tricks of its own; (the almost-internal-rhyme of “quarter after one/and I’m all alone/and I need you now,” for one), but they’re different tricks.
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YOUTUBE Kurt Kelly
A few of the latest the you will find from Kurt Kelly on http://www.youtube.com/KURTKELLY1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlR4T52Kjyw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBml5b9JiEU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zTN4CcMApc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjj7IDtqCns
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efcg5AMaVg0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sGJEWDqz9k
Check out the New Sony Playstation Games: MAG and God Of War III
Voice Overs on the New Sony PlayStation games by Kurt Kelly
Voice Overs on the New Sony PlayStation games by Kurt Kelly
[NEW] God Of War III - It Only Does Epic Trilogies "Dear Playstation TV Spot [HD]
GOD OF WAR 3 Kurt Kelly Voice Over
Ad starring Kevin Butler, who will also play his part to promote God of War III with a new TV commercial that begins airing the end of this week.
GOD OF WAR 3 Kurt Kelly Voice Over
Ad starring Kevin Butler, who will also play his part to promote God of War III with a new TV commercial that begins airing the end of this week.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sKgX6Z9dSA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFiSu33jwwE
MAG was recently released by Sony. MAG Sony PlayStation features Kevin Butler and Voice Overs from Kurt Kelly in Commercial[s] for the game designed for PSN PS3 PlayStation Network
In the near future, governments are supposedly at peace. But force is still used to keep the status quo. A shadow war, fought by private military corporations, emerges. You are dropped into this unprecedented war the first to have battles of 256 real players on a global battlefield. Prove yourself alongside your 8-man squad and become an elite fighter or earn the right to lead a squad, platoon or ultimately an entire army of players.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Pos6-thyaI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9pjr0WMQ7c
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