What makes a pop song a pop song? An essay.

What makes a pop song popular?


When turning on the radio or tv to a music station, it will not take very long until I hear a catchy song that I may enjoy immediately. In many cases this song will inevitably end up on my 'songs I am sick of list', simply because I tend to hear it quite frequently. Many times I wonder, what makes this song so popular? Why is it so catchy that I find myself humming along to the melody when I am painstakingly cleaning the bathroom or labouring in my front yard?
When considering this topic and hearing successful songwriters weigh in on the subject, I find two common denominators: either it is a gift from the heavens, or one can manufacture a song that connects with people by using a few key tricks. As gifts are never expected and always appreciated, I am much more inclined to put more focus on what these tricks of the trade are. While exploring the finer methods of song craft, I was validated in my understanding that the 'hook' was one of the most important elements in the creation of a catchy song.
The hook is basically a musical idea that will grab the listener's ear. This hook can consist of things such as unique rhythmical phrasing or a really cool instrumental riff.
When I spent an afternoon at an A&R demo listening meeting at the world renowned South By Southwest music festival, it was very apparent to me that the hook was a key ingredient in a song. There were A&R representatives from Warner Music, Universal, and EMI to name a few, and these experts indicated that if they were not hooked within the first minute of a song that they were listening to, they would simply stop listening.
Another element of a catchy song is to have strong and easily understandable lyrics. Bob Dylan once said that good songs need to say something. Whether it is a socially relevant subject, a heartwarming story, something funny, or a play on words, the lyrics have a large role to play in communicating to the listener's ears, emotions, and heart. Truly great lyrics will allow the listener to interpret specific meaning that they can identify with, and this could have a completely different meaning from what the lyricist may have intended.
Many gatekeepers in the music industry will not give your song the light of day unless it is a short song. In the glory days of radio, one would have been hard pressed to find a song on air that was longer than two minutes. One of the first groups to have a successfully high charting long song was the Beatles with their song Hey Jude. Clocking in at over seven minutes, it may be argued that this song received the nod to be played on air simply because it was the Beatles who released it. However it did quite successfully use the hook and understandable lyric characteristics referenced earlier to assist in its nomination for radio airplay. When it comes to consistency, local producer and Manitoba Music grant adjudicator John Paul Peters once told me that his general rule of thumb is to keep a song under four minutes. His reasoning had to do with the fact that he did not want a song eliminated from a program director's playlist considerations because the song was too long. If your song can not get played on air, how could it ever become a hit?
On the subject of Hey Jude, and the Beatles, considered by many to be the greatest group of songwriters in modern history, the sing-along-ability of a song is generally a winner. The Beatles have made it as simple as singing Na-Na-Na-Na-NA-Na-Na. I spend a fair amount of time attending music concerts of all types, and when the artists manage to engage the audience in a sing along of their songs, this seems to resonate with an overall general feeling of community. It appears to me that people who sing along to the song are feeling like they are a part of something larger than themselves, and when I see and hear them sing with all their heart, I can only surmise that this must be true.
Although there are certainly other forces at work behind what makes specific songs popular such as danceable tempo speeds, switching to the relative minor at transition points or bridges within the songs etc, a great and popular song will always be a song that can make the listener feel some sort of emotion. Whether it’s good or bad. As Kenny Gamble, one of the founders of the genre of Philly Soul once said, when you hear a great song, you think it's about you.