Date of Award
Spring 5-10-2012
Degree Type
Honors College Thesis
Department
Mass Communication and Journalism
First Advisor
Paul Linden
Advisor Department
Mass Communication and Journalism
Abstract
This paper presents an analysis of Billboard Music Charts’ top twenty popular songs from the year 2011. These songs are studied to determine whether or not their songwriters adhere to hypothetical rules left by songwriting scholars from the past. The criteria for analysis include: length of introduction, length of the entire song, the presence of a memorable ‘hook’, the connection between tempo and key tonality, and the form of each song. The research concludes that, while songwriters typically adhere to a loose set of rules, they do not follow them exactly. Therefore, the success of a popular song cannot be credited to any single songwriting formula.
Copyright
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Recommended Citation
Stricklin, Jeremiah, "Understanding the Business of Popular Songs" (2012). Honors Theses. 87.
https://aquila.usm.edu/honors_theses/87