The Passing Of Verse-Chorus
If you follow pop closely, the New York Times Opinion Page (here) is a must read, as it details 2011 Calvin Harris seachange, “A new class of songs like “We Found Love” by Rihanna and Calvin Harris hit the charts and quickly undercut the hegemony of the chorus in pop. The high point of “We Found Love” is not the chorus, when Rihanna sings the titular lyric; it’s the instrumental section that follows, full of pumping synthesizers and pounding drums rushing in with euphoria.” The Nate Sloan and Charlie Harding article puts into words what we have all been feeling about pop music.
Essentially, EDM guys like Harris began a protest where the hook took over from the chorus, that dropping the bass was where they wanted to reach, and the killing of verse-chorus-repeat.The excitement of the bass drop was more thrilling than the chorus, and, in the following decade as streaming took over, it managed to lop a minute off the average song length, making it quicker to repeat stream and easier to acclimatize young folks or zoom in for a Tik Tok hook.
This is not great for the song because
1 – tunes are the artform
2 – It is easier to create hooks… not easy, just easier and more prolific.
The net result is a different pop music landscape., a levelling out of the playing field, and a song by construction more than inspiration.
