Start learning how to play the piano today with flowkey: go.flowkey.com/davidbennett 🎹😁 📌 SMALL REVISION: 8:08 "Treacherous" by Taylor Swift doesn't actually use the Axis progression, my mistake! However, I've now found two more Taylor song that I had missed that DO use the Axis progression... "Christmas Must Be Something More" and "Crazier", so Taylor has actually used the progression at least 20 times! 😅😅

@DavidBennettPiano

Жыл бұрын

@@Konsider huh?

@ansfridaeyowulfsdottir8095

Жыл бұрын

@@DavidBennettPiano What about G Bm Em C? What's that called and who uses it? {:o:O:}

@Dyas777

Жыл бұрын

There is this sad-heroic theme in One punch man that uses this

@bubbacat9940

5 ай бұрын

​@@ansfridaeyowulfsdottir8095I think that would be I-iii-vi-IV and it's used in stay by Rhianna and Mikky Ekko

@ansfridaeyowulfsdottir8095

5 ай бұрын

@@bubbacat9940 *_"I think that would be I-iii-vi-IV"_* Cheers. It's used by a lot of people, actually. {:o:O:}

I’d never noticed that “Please Play This Song On The Radio” uses the axis progression but that’s entirely in line with the song’s joke - it’s deliberately as catchy and radio-friendly as possible before ending with a string of expletives and the refrain “can’t play this song on the radio”.

@MagnezoneFilms

Жыл бұрын

Interesting name for a song

@peik5569

Жыл бұрын

yay a fellow NOFX fan

@skakirask

Жыл бұрын

First NOFX song I ever heard. Meta humor always gets me.

@MartijnFrazer

Жыл бұрын

I’m so glad to finally have a NOFX song mentioned in one of these David Bennett vids

@snookerwither9955

Жыл бұрын

Makes me think of the Queens Of The Stone Age Song called "Feel Good Hit Of The Summer" which has lyrics that are just a list of drugs over and over

I wonder how much the Axis of Awesome skit directly contributed to its decline in the 2010s. I remember the sketch being pretty popular pretty quickly, at least in the UK, and I imagine any songwriters hearing it must have been very conscious of it if they started to think about including the progression in songs after that.

@jihwan990706

Жыл бұрын

This may explain the peak just 1-2 years after the release of the skit (it takes time for it to become popular), then the MASSIVE decline the year right after- quite interesting to think about

@Zveebo

Жыл бұрын

@@jihwan990706 Yes, definitely. There’s also a wee bit of lag time with when people write and release songs, so I think the timing is pretty consistent with that massive drop off. Not to say it wouldn’t have happened eventually anyway, but the decline is so steep it feels like there was a definite trigger.

@Willie_Wahzoo

Жыл бұрын

It's still VERY popular and is used to make huge hits all the time.

@infernalsquid

Жыл бұрын

@@Willie_Wahzoo but it’s definitely LESS popular.

@AutPen38

Жыл бұрын

Yeah, once something becomes a meme, it often becomes deeply unfashionable quite soon after. No one trying to make money from creativity wants to be seen wearing last year's fashions. You have to wait a couple of decades until the time is right for a revival. See also flares or skinny jeans. If your grandad starts wearing skinny jeans, you should switch to baggy pants to stay ahead!

Fun fact: In 1980, Status Quo did a "best of" album where every song is a gold-record-selling 12 bar blues. It's called, amusingly, "12 Gold Bars".

When you explained that this chord progression is the 12 bar blues progression of the 90s and 2000's - it made me want to know what are they other "go-to" chord progressions of each musical era in the past century. Maybe an idea for future videos?

@DavidBennettPiano

Жыл бұрын

I guess there is I VI ii V which was really common in the 30s and 40s, and then evolved into I vi IV V in 50s and early 60s doowop music. 😊

@vvilliam5677

Жыл бұрын

There’s a lot of i-bVI and i-v in the 2010s although maybe not the same level of dominance

@unacuentadeyoutube13

Жыл бұрын

@@DavidBennettPiano correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Pas de deux (The Nutcracker) by Tchaicovsky use the I vi IV V progression in the first few seconds of the piece?

@DavidBennettPiano

Жыл бұрын

@@unacuentadeyoutube13 quite possibly! I vi IV V was certainly used in many classical works 🙂

@unacuentadeyoutube13

Жыл бұрын

@@DavidBennettPiano it's a lovely chord progression, no doubt why it was so popular in the 50's, the axis of that era

I feel like Don't Stop Believin is the classic song that established the I V vi IV forever into the pop lexicon. It came out in 81, sort of giving songwriters the mold for the perfect pop song, using the progression itself as the hook, playing it non stop throughout the whole song and showing how "dynamic" it could be. It's maybe the Axis of Awesome guys chose to start their medley with it.

@jeremysmetana8583

Жыл бұрын

Journey themselves had already used it in "Anyway You Want It," on the previous album. The Cars had already subverted it with a flat IV variant in "Just What I Needed" in 1978. John Mellencamp used it twice in the '80s, Henry Lee Summer ripped Mellencamp off for his only hit with it, and U2 had a huge hit with it the year before that. Since "Don't Stop Believin'" was a rock radio favorite that really got its pop legs in the 2000s, it's likely all of these things were factors in the spread of its popularity.

@martijnjansma6050

Жыл бұрын

i would go for 'Let it be'

@Chadner

Жыл бұрын

Right, but to me the main difference is that the main hook of Let it Be is in the vocal melody or that C Bb G F turn around. Don't Stop Believing start with nothing but the axis progression on a majestic piano, it puts it on the forefront.

@Chadner

Жыл бұрын

I could be wrong, but I always thought it was the piano/ bass line that changed while the chord was still a minor sixth.

@LtMashumaro

Жыл бұрын

I feel like we can go even earlier than that, to the year 1680. Canon in D written by Johann Pachelbel has this chord progression pretty much all throughout the song.

I think there's another reason why this progression is getting rarer nowadays: in the last ten years minor key (especially aeolian) has become more popular than major in charts' songs.

@sarahk5380

Жыл бұрын

And extending that, rhythmic music over melodic. Even existing melodic lines are often quick minimalistic, just base or base-3

@mingnrich

Жыл бұрын

Could just play the minor version though (vi IV I V), there are plenty of songs that use that.

@esthersmith3056

Жыл бұрын

@@sarahk5380 nah. like, yes, but this trend long predates the popularity of the pop-punk progression, it's not like blink-182 were known for their melody lines.

@johnzackarias11

Жыл бұрын

@@esthersmith3056 I'm gonna have to call you out on that, my friend. Blink-182 are expert melody writers! Sure, they were also known for potty humor and the occasional dumb lyric, but they wouldn't have ever made it big if they weren't so good at writing melody. I'm not a fan of their latest two records but even they are absolutely chock full of catchy hooks and melodies

The 1564 chord progression may have come from the first half of Pachelbel's Canon. The 3 at the end has been swapped for a 4 to make it more loopable. (1563 vs. 1564)

@diakritika

Жыл бұрын

I think there is actually a video called "Pachelbel rant" :) kzread.info/dash/bejne/fJiszbiKqZq3fLA.html

@jj9749

Жыл бұрын

@@soarstar If it ain't baroque don't fix it

I call it the "let it be" progression. It was the first song I learned to play that uses that progression.

@jj9749

Жыл бұрын

Yes, that was the one that started it all. McCartney again proving he's a genius.

@rpstrambi

Жыл бұрын

Same here!

@romanroncato3929

Жыл бұрын

Absolutely, this discussion is incomplete without a mention of LIB

@rupertschwarz5477

Жыл бұрын

I agree. This song is all about this progression.

When I was in high school in the early 1960s, I was trying to teach myself to play the ukulele, and I learned a few chords. I discovered that I could play a series of three or four chords that would work with almost any "slow dancing in the gym" type of song (and that helped me understand how many acts were criticized as being "just a jumped-up three-chord garage band".

@tonyduncan9852

Жыл бұрын

That's all anyone is when they begin. After a decade of pain most humans become technically-slick and competent, but Art is something else. That hurts forever. My ukelele was first devoted to "Red Sails In The Sunset", but C, Am, F, D7 was my favourite pattern of the time (late 50s).

I've been writing some pop punk leaning stuff recently and was trying to avoid the cliché of the axis chord progression. But I decided to write one with it just to do it and...it ended up being my favorite song that I've written and, based on the opinions of friends and family, the best one I've written so far. I use the axis progression in the chorus, and I use it in the verse but with another V chord between the vi and IV. I broke up the "monotony" in the bridge with a iii-ii-I progression in the dominant key after moving to the dominant after the 2nd chorus and hanging on it for just long enough to make it feel like the tonic. All in all the whole song came together in about 30 minutes not counting the 2.5 hours I spent tracking the base parts and all the layers and overdubs.

@leikfroakies

Жыл бұрын

The funny thing is, reflexive hatred and avoidance of clichès is, at this point, itself a clichè. It's kinda like how in school you're told to always avoid using 'said' when writing a story, but most successful authors constantly use it as a fairly invisible word. This can do two things: 1.) Signify that the important focus lies elsewhere 2.) Help emphasise instances in which the artist deviates from the standard

@matthewvaughan8192

Жыл бұрын

Same here. Haven’t finished the verse but I’ve got this chorus in the back burners that feels like it’s a bit special. Kinda bummed to find out how common it is. I stumbled across the chords on accident just playing around in G Major, knowing nothing about music theory at the time. Hopefully the fact I’ve borrowed a Cm will give it a twist. (PreChor, 4 bar) C Cm (Chorus, 8 bar) G D Em C G D C Cm. Cm adds a bit of tension and is hopefully why it felt ‘new’ to me when I first heard it back. I suppose it all depends what you do with the rhythm & Melody, really.

@AaronAlert77

Жыл бұрын

Where can I hear it??

I remember reading something I believe was a recollection by Paul McCartney where he was talking about writing I Want To Hold Your Hand. He and John had it in mind that they were going to try to write a song specifically for the American market, since all their previous huge British smash hits were failing to take off there. They had started off with the I V vi IV progression, but in true Beatles style, they started plugging in different chords. Which is why they wound up with the unusual I V vi III that we're so familiar with in that song.

For those who start their musical journey with a guitar, it is a pretty common progression to find while learning the easiest open chord forms: G D C Em (in standard tuning, of course). And with a capo, you can play it in in other keys. Its only one more chord than the 12 bar blues, and the addition of the Em shape is about as easy as it gets. I know enough music theory to get myself into trouble, but I found that progression the first summer I picked up a guitar.

@brendancronin3796

Жыл бұрын

you can use a drone note over them aswell

@AutPen38

Жыл бұрын

Adam Neely touched on that subject in a recent upload. In essence, one of the reasons why so many songs written on guitar sound the same is that they use the chords that are easiest to play and that have the simplest changes. Similarly, the most common keys for songs written on pianos (or in DAWs) are C and A minor, because playing with the black keys is "harder" to learn. The piano's white keys feel more natural.

@cnking27

Жыл бұрын

And if you get that pesky F chord down, you can do the same thing with C G Am F and play every country song ever written.

Seeing you mention "Time" and "Carousel" (among others) by blink 182 made me feel like I was 15 again, browsing through the giant music store we had in my nearest city, and pulling out blink's early indie releases feeling like I hit the jackpot!!! I feel bad for kids today who will never know that joy. CD shopping and finding rarities, EPs, demos, singles, and imports and bringing them into your collection is truly an unmatched experience!

@ALLKI

8 ай бұрын

So true sis

Once again, you've piqued my interest in chord progressions. Thank you for the time you spent putting this video together, getting the list of songs, etc. I am sure it was time consuming and daunting! Thank you for this video and your knowledge of music!

I think if you also included the two other common variants of the Axis progression (6-4-1-5 and 4-1-5-6) you would find a lot more examples in the modern day. To me, those seem to be just as common and cliche as the original progression.

@jeffgoblue

Жыл бұрын

True. Even the famous Axis live video contains a stretch of songs with 6-4-1-5.

@tbhousen

Жыл бұрын

what the fuck is this comment are you sure you're on the right video

@WarpRulez

Жыл бұрын

I think 6-4-1-5 actually sounds better and... I don't know... moodier? than the more straightforward 1-5-6-4 (even though theoretically they are the same, just differing in where you start).

@TheGerkuman

Жыл бұрын

It's known as the 'minor variant' because it's basically priming your brain to see the 6 chord as the temporary 'root'. And a lotta people prefer songs in the minor key!

@ShowWithNoName

Жыл бұрын

I even found a song that started on the five chord, Once in a Lifetime by All Time Low.

I can't get enough of your chord progression videos. I love learning from you so much! I got sad at the end though because I am so out of touch with new music, I hadn't a clue who any of those singers were (well, aside from Muse). Anyways, thank you for the constant education and food for thought!

@philmckenna5709

Жыл бұрын

You're (mostly) not missing much...

Interesting Maybe a video about how different this chord progression can sound (happy, sad, up beat, slow, angry and so on). And what the bands and songrighters do to change the sound and energy of the same 4 chords. Keep one thing constant and see if we can learn something about tempo, time signature, instrumentation, melody, baseline, beats and so on. Maybe we can see how much of a song is the chord progression.

@ianbartle456

Жыл бұрын

Utterly brilliant idea there, Petch. That is after all the true secret how to create contrast and variety within repetition that is at the heart of most art. It would be a very interesting study and, I think, of real interest to both amateurs and pros alike.

The first example that I remember of a song using this chord progression is the song Pachelbel's Canon in D! That was a long time ago! Good stuff! You also mentioned some variations. I learned at Berklee, from a friend, that after you play the IV chord then you can use a iv minor afterwards and this helps you to transition into some other chords. It gives it a more gospel quality.

@markchristopher420

Жыл бұрын

Randy Rhoads leaned heavily on Canon in D for Goodbye To Romance, the first song ever written for Blizzard Of Ozz, and Brian May of Queen utilized it as a template for his guitar solo in Bohemian Rhapsody... ☮️+💜+🎶

David your videos never cease to captivate and fascinate. Keep it up!

INTERESTING stuff David. I always find these videos, almost hypnotic - they're so well made lol.

It would be interesting to compile similar statistics for the "sister" chord progression, the vi - IV - I - V one. My instinct tells me that it peaks later than I - V - vi - IV, but that is just a hunch.

@613steven

Жыл бұрын

Offspring - Self Esteem is a great one

@SirBenjiful

Жыл бұрын

And its common variant, the vi - IV - I - III7 (or i - bVI - bIII - V7).

@billrazor6591

Жыл бұрын

What I don't understand is why this progression (vi - IV - I - V) is written this way (major) and not otherwise. When the harmony loops back it resolves at a major scale sixth so maybe it's not a vi but a relative minor i? And maybe this progression should be written like this: i - VI - III - VII? I've just started to delve deeper into music theory and I just can' t wrap my head around this.

@SirBenjiful

Жыл бұрын

@@billrazor6591 What feels ‘resolved’ is subjective and dependent on more than just the chords - voicing, arrangement, and many other factors also play a role. In my comment you see I wrote it both ways. Interpret it how you want. Anyway, cyclic progressions like that work so well specifically because they don’t conclusively resolve, they sound good just going round and round and round…

@billrazor6591

Жыл бұрын

@@SirBenjiful There' s so much talk about scales and modes, about how different they sound, but on paper - C Major, A minor, D Dorian, E Phrygian etc. - are exactly the same. Same notes, same chords. I don't understand what makes them sound different, how that works.

To me, vi IV I V is (kinda) the same progression. It has the same feel to it.The axis of awesome video switches in the middle of the video to that progression finding even more songs. It would be fun to see the popularity of that progression as well.

anyone else say “beato” after every time he said “1 5 6 4?”

@DavidBennettPiano

Жыл бұрын

😂

@skeeterd5150

Жыл бұрын

I think august is falling really are the ones that popularized the chord progression

@UranusHz420

10 ай бұрын

@@skeeterd5150Ben a fan of August is Falling for decades

In high school after watching the axis of awesome video i had compiled a list of roughly 200 songs that i personally knew that used this chord progression (and the 6-4-1-5 repetition too), it sure was a trip down memory lane for me to watch this

Up to a point, its popularity might have had a lot to do with its versatility, with a series of satisfying but not dramatic chord changes that makes it work for a range of moods and genres. But now that everyone’s heard about it, it’s hard not to notice it, and so (as you say) people start to avoid it. It might just be the context, but in that montage of recent examples the songs all sounded a bit retro or nostalgic, which might be due to the feeling that they’re hanging on to a tired trend. On the other hand, it’s possible that its “saturation” in the 2000s might be overstated. There were 30 examples in 2011, but there must have been hundreds or even thousands of equally popular songs that didn’t use it. If the y axis (no pun intended) of the graph went up to the number of songs that charted in a year, the axis progression line might look more like a blip than total domination.

@Willie_Wahzoo

Жыл бұрын

Nope. Songs still use it all the time and sound great, and you wouldn't even notice. Lewis Capaldi's hit "Someone You Loved" Uses it in all parts except the bridge and sounds as fresh as anything made in the last 5 or 6 years.

@MisterL777

Жыл бұрын

I think people overstate how much of a song is made by its chord progression. If you remember or like a song, it's probably more because of its melody, rhythm, lyrics, syncopation, production etc than because you merely liked the chord progression.

@AutPen38

Жыл бұрын

Pop melodies are typically much simpler (and less "rangey") these days though, and you can sing many simple 2- or 3-note melodies over this chord progression. In the old days, singers would "borrow" notes from other scales, but these days the charts are - for better or for worse - made of very repetitive rhythmic phrases using a narrow range of notes and very little in the way of harmonic modulation. The TikTok generation doesn't like complexity or nuance. It wants ideas that can be summed up in 30 seconds.

A few days ago I saw Sting live in France, and he mixed "So Lonely" with "No Woman no Cry", this was very funny.

@jj9749

Жыл бұрын

He could have turned it into an Axis of Awesome tribute

@AutPen38

Жыл бұрын

Come on Barbie, let's go party!

The movement on the 3rd chord of the prog, and then followed by the 4th, equally as powerful...leading perfectly to the resolution to loop..are just incredibly emotive. My first fully fledged out serious song I wrote for my high school grunge band had this chord progression in the pre chorus and chorus. When I bumbled into it, strumming away in my room, jotting down teeny angsty lyrics at the same time (🙄 never knowing just how cliche I really was!😅), I can clearly remember, a lump forming in my throat, and tears welling in my eyes.. On THAT 3RD CHORD! I remember it so clearly! It was just such an emotive, powerful & moving chord in the prog! The song went into a local compilation CD of local bands...a few other bands, Aswell as us, each put a few original songs on it, and I remember when I realised that on part of one of the other bands had the same chord progression! It blew my young mind!🤯 (My mind was not yet ready for the truth of it's prolificacy /ubiquity) It wasn't immediately obvious. In fact, noone but me even noticed. And that's what is so good about this chord progression... it can work in SOOOOO many different ways, and yet sound fresh and original and different in them all! The only thing in common Aswell is that they all have that moving, powerful feel It's even the first four chords in Pachelbel's Canon ! (which predates the 50s song you put up by a cool 370 years... 😬 And Pachelbel's version is really just a MORE advanced iteration of this, perhaps, as you might expect from a classical composer. Killer chord progression, all up. Personal fave iterations : - Hurt, NIN - Bullet with Butterfly Wings - Self Esteem, the Offspring - Under the Bridge, Red Hot Chili Peppers - beggar's daughter, Cancer (that last one is my high school band☺️. It's a bit cheeky that 'un in there, coz [aside from being on the nose picking your own song as your favourite - though, it truly is 🤷‍♂️] you can't have heard it! Unless you know me personally. And if you do...say "hi!" Don't be a stranger! lol).

Very fresh look at an old subject. Well done

@DavidBennettPiano

Жыл бұрын

Thanks 😊

Nice. I was wondering this a few years back when I conducted a research on Billboard number one songs. A minor remark in this research was that the first #1 single to feature this progression was Let It Be by The Beatles.

I think an interesting video idea would be to look into how this chord progression is used in a whole bunch of Latin American summer hits like Despacito, Bailando, Danza Kuduro, El Perdón and more. It always surprised me how all these similar songs could get so big.

Excellent research! Enjoy your channel so much!

Mannnn... I just LOVE your videos ! ... And I am still waiting for the blooper to prove that you are not a machine. 😁🤣 Kudos from Canada

One aspect that has led to this progression to being so popular is that it has two 'inversions', if you will: one where the V, vi, and IV are played in the octave above the I (as in, say, the chorus of What's My Age Again), and one where they're played in the octave below (as in Let It Be). Despite being the same chords, it gives the progression two distinct flavors.

@matthewvaughan8192

Жыл бұрын

Can’t you invert every chord theoretically? It feels like it has 1000 different flavours. *That’s* why it’s so popular

It's interesting to see this kind of graphing and analysis. It makes me curious about what graphs for other common chord progressions are as well. Also, one thing not discussed here is the feel of this progression: it feels somehow comforting, and somehow inevitable. I wonder why that is?

@AutPen38

Жыл бұрын

I think David sort of explained this in his other videos about chord progressions. In essence, the jump from the I to the V is a big one, and our brains want to return to the tonic (I). The vi contains two of the same notes as the I, so that's quite comforting, but the jump to the IV (subdominant) takes us away again, so we practically beg for a return to the home chord.

Love your work ! you bring me back the passion of music theory, enough to make my songwriting a wonderful journey again.

Thanks for another very interesting and engaging video. Amazing! And I love this chord progression.

@DavidBennettPiano

Жыл бұрын

😊😊😊😊😊😊

Since You Been Gone is the ultimate power chord song in this progression. It just slams 'em out without apology. (:

@jj9749

Жыл бұрын

@ghost mall The chorus

Great research, David! If you want more examples, check out the pop music from Brasil in the last decades. Specially the pop version of Forró rhythm and the Sertanejo Universitário style. Maybe the majority of Michel Teló's music employs this "chords of always" progression, as an ex-pupil of mine used to call. Cheers!

@am1b

Жыл бұрын

'Chords of always' 👏

Love this! Please do similar analyses for other common progressions

Amazing how you and your community gathered so much resources for this chord progression. Fantastic

One of the concepts I found interesting at music school was 'tonality'. 'Tonal' music orients the listener's ear to a certain musical landscape within which the piece operates. Most or all such music involves a set of harmonies ('chords') that lead back ultimately to resolution with the (Roman Numeral) ONE chord. Even the most unmusical or 'tin eared' listener instinctively 'gets' this when listening. The Axis progression simply spoon-feeds the tonality to the listener in a way that anyone can (musically) understand with no effort. It's musical 'paint by numbers'. As a lover of pop music I mostly love this progression too!

@MaggaraMarine

Жыл бұрын

Actually the Axis progression is not the best example of standard tonality, or tension and resolution. The Axis progression probably became so popular exactly because it is a bit more subtle - it doesn't spoon feed the obvious dominant-tonic resolution to the listener's ear, which actually makes it more suitable for endless looping, because the progression doesn't have such a clear end. The Axis progression is not a traditionally functional progression - it's a loop. The purpose of it isn't to create a strong feeling of direction, but to provide pleasant color to the melody that's sung over the progression. This way, the harmony is actually quite static, but it never feels like it needs to progress anywhere. There's enough color to keep it interesting (especially the relative minor chord is an important part of creating some contrast), but there isn't enough tension and release to make the progression feel like it needs to end, and it can just keep on repeating. A better example of standard tonality would be the Achy Breaky Heart progression that is the most basic form of "question and answer" structure. The 1st phrase begins with the tonic, and ends on the dominant, so that the first phrase has an open ending that basically begs for an answer - it sounds like someone answering a question. The 2nd phrase repeats a similar melody, but the harmony begins with tension (dominant) and ends on a release (tonic). The ending of it closes, making it sound like an answer to the question (it also sounds like an answer, because it basically just repeats the same music, but now it has a closing ending instead of an open one - it's basically someone giving the most obvious answer to a basic question). Achy Breaky Heart is basic tonality in a nutshell. That's why a lot of people think it's such a dumb song - it's basically the most obvious thing you can do. I would compare it to a nursery rhyme - it simply has a country rock arrangement and different lyrics, but the musical content itself is no different from the most basic nursery rhymes that everyone hears as a child (a nursery rhyme for adults, I guess).

@AutPen38

Жыл бұрын

Is Achy Breaky Heart just a two-chord song with the tonic and dominant (I V)? That might explain why I found it so boring. I'd rather listen to some kids singing the Wheels On the Bus Go Round and Round... All day long!

The Smashing Pumpkins "Today" was the first song I played this progression on. Then I noticed it in myriads of other songs. I always equated the popularity of to "Canon in D" being played at every wedding ever. This progression sounds like a summarized version of Canon in D with it's uplifting emotion like you're stepping above the dark clouds for a moment. Perfect for the song "Today" which is about being suicidal and realizing you can only go up from that low of a point.

@dggydddy59

Жыл бұрын

Except Pachelbel's Canon in D doesn't really follow that progression. Maybe you know that but I can't tell from your comment whether you do or not.

@coreyreynolds3585

Жыл бұрын

Totally, it’s not the same. But for some reason I’ve always felt like the I V vi IV progression sounds like a summarized version of Canon in D. It’s more of a feeling thing than literal.

@dggydddy59

Жыл бұрын

@@coreyreynolds3585 Gotcha. Cheers!

@AutPen38

Жыл бұрын

We have such short attention spans these days that we lose focus if the progression is 8 chords long. Someone realised that after the identical first three chords, you could just go to the IV and then straight back to the I after four. Maybe in the future, all songs will just go I-V or I-IV like nursery rhymes. A lot of modern pop is very simple harmonically.

Love this channel!

Superb research and presentation, thank you so much!

@DavidBennettPiano

Жыл бұрын

Glad you enjoyed it!

I remember when I joined a pop-punk band for a while in the year 2000, and the first song we played was NOT a I-V-vi-IV, but a I-iii-vi-IV. Wow, such a modification!

@alessandrosummer

Жыл бұрын

it doesn't change that much the V chord has just one note different to the iii chord

@mickeyrube6623

Жыл бұрын

@@alessandrosummer I think you missed the joke here...

@alessandrosummer

Жыл бұрын

@@mickeyrube6623 ah I got it now

@Willie_Wahzoo

Жыл бұрын

1 3 6 4 is still VERY common. GAYLE's his "abcdefu" is a great example of recent huge success with that progression, and there are MANY others.

@MisterL777

Жыл бұрын

Most of the 4 chord loops can be seen as a variations/substitutions of I V vi IV. But that's not a bad thing in itself it's just how harmony works.

Wow - Leave it to greats like Phil Spector, Carole King & Paul McCartney to be the first pop artists using this progression to make ear-candy, giant-hit songs. Btw, the Beatles loved _To Know Her Is To Love Her_ and did it in their early 60s club act. Never before did I see how it influenced _Oh Darling_ & _Let It Be_ (chord-wise).

@StratsRUs

Жыл бұрын

But the middle bit of the Teddy Bears Spector song is where the sublime kicks in

@jcarty123

Жыл бұрын

@@StratsRUs Agreed! 😂 I'm hard-pressed even to say what key it's in.

@brendancronin3796

Жыл бұрын

yeah Spector was mad as a brush ...I wonder if the 'Wall of sound ' was what Spector constantly heard in his loony head

Nice research David. My fav is Jimi's Bold as Love.

I was pretty shocked when I learned the Weezer songs My Name Is Jonas, Pork and Beans and Ruling Me all used the same chord progression, and as a songwriter it shocked me to know that I had used this chord progression twice within the span of two years for two songs I wrote without even realizing it. Crazy how it’s just so easy to write with this chord progression

I like that you can also start it by the middle and have vi-IV-I-V, that is also very popular, such as many Offspring songs, Bon Jovi etc.

Just did a presentation exactly about the four chord progression in a physics seminar course two days ago.

Excellent video, as always! 🙂 Over the last four years, I've discovered a lot of non famous bands through KZread, particularly metal ones. There's one called Temperance who very often use the minor version of this chord pattern: | vi | IV | I | V |

"Blink One Eight Two" always cracks me up! :D

@DavidBennettPiano

Жыл бұрын

I think it’s a British thing!

@certainlynotthebestpianist5638

Жыл бұрын

How should it be pronounced otherwise?

@gsus300

Жыл бұрын

Blink one eighty two

@certainlynotthebestpianist5638

Жыл бұрын

@@gsus300 Ah, ok, this sounds ok too, I supposed it should be "one hundred eighty two", which is way too much syllables

@benedictnothing

Жыл бұрын

Interesting. Can't say I've ever heard them called Blink 1 Eighty 2. Must be British thing then.

I wrote a song for my brother in 2008, and used this chord progression. I didn't give it any thought, I was just noodling around and it came to me. It would make sense that I would subconsciously pick that up based on the popularity of the time. I was big into pop-punk during my teenage years in the 90's, so this totally lines up.

Pachelbel's Canon In D, Rob P did the Axis thing long before Axis did it, and I think the cultural shift was Torn by Natalie Imbruglia

Interesting stuff David, a good watch. I heard you on Popmaster the other day, that was a surprise 😂

You know that just Canon in D is also VERY Similar to this progression as well notice how it became more and more popular after Canon was recorded in 1968 just like the use of the repeating loop and the Stepwise Chord progression Also Alan Walker’s On My Way and Let It Be by the Beatles and Can You Feel The Love Tonight use this chord progression as well

I always called it the Blink 182 progression because when I was learning chord progressions on guitar, it was mainly Blink 182 songs, many of which were 1-5-6-4

Great analysis. I've been a fan of rock music since I was 5 years old. I'm 70. I played very briefly in a rock band in the late 60s and studied music theory. Your video, research, and observations were really fun. Great work. Thank you.

Take me Back Country Roads is the 50s progression in the verse (but two bars on the I and the IV,V in one bar) and the Axis progression in the Chorus. so I, vi, IV, V: I, V, vi, IV. Axis wasn't a cliche when he wrote it but now it's two cliches strung together.

I'd like to see a chart which separates out different ways of using I/V/vi/IV, based upon whether it is used as a four-chord loop (many of the pop punk examples), as the first four chords of an 8-chord loop (Don't Stop Believin'), as a four-chord pattern that gets used twice in a verse or chorus (Can you feel the love tonight), as a pattern that's just used in the chorus of a song but not the verses (Take On Me), etc. One particularly interesting use of this chord progression is Amazed, by Lone Star, which uses Axis chord sequence twice in Ab, once in Cb, and twice in Db, before doing a Mario cadence back to Ab. While there are some songs in the Axis tribute which in fact loop I/V/vi/IV, I don't think it's fair to lump togehter all of the songs which make use of the progression as part of their overall chord structure, or combine it with key changes.

@Willie_Wahzoo

Жыл бұрын

He acknowledges these types of differences in the video.

@flatfingertuning727

Жыл бұрын

@@Willie_Wahzoo Yes, but the chart doesn't distinguish them. The earlier examples didn't include I/V/vi/IV in a loop, much less use it *as* a loop, but many later songs do, and it would be interesting observe whether there was an evolution between using the I/V/vi/IV/I/V/iii/IV loop of "Don't stop believin'" to simply repeating the first four chords of that, or whether the four-chord loop evolved separately.

@ianbartle456

Жыл бұрын

@@flatfingertuning727 I agree - you make a good point. IF we're going to analyse, let's really ANALYSE! ;-)

This was the first chord progression I ever learned. To this day it still hits different than all other progressions on an emotional level.

@IllusionSector

Жыл бұрын

It hits *me* on an emotional level too in that I vomit with rage at the painful uncreativity of anyone who didn't have the taste or the sense to avoid it since 2010. In fact, by the time I finish typing up this comment, about 50 more hacks will have released a new cookie-cutter song with that awful chord progression.

@matthewvaughan8192

Жыл бұрын

@@IllusionSector How tf does it signify a lack of creativity? Wasn’t exactly a well known internet phenomenon in the 90s. All it means is they weren’t writing songs to impress snobs like you - good on them. More to the point, the progression is super easy to stumble across on your own not knowing anything about it, (I did, this is my first time hearing about it,) as well as being incredibly versatile. That’s partly *why* it’s so popular. I’d bet any money 90% of these artists didn’t know what it was when they used it

@AutPen38

Жыл бұрын

If you'd been 20 years older, you'd probably have learned the Doo Wop progression instead. In the eighties when my school got a synthesiser, everyone wanted to learn "Heart and Soul", as it was about the simplest tune you could play using the white keys and four chords.

Sacré boulot de recherche et d'analyse. Très enrichissant. Bravo et merci !

Thanks, David, for all of your enormous efforts put into your videos! and fuck those companies and their copyright claims.

There have been really good uses of the axis progression. Don't stop believing is one of them. The song uses the simple progression at the start to signify the ordinary people in mundane lives. The music builds on top of this simple structure to signify the transition from the ordinary to the dream. In Adele's Someone Like You, she uses the simple structure to emphasise the lyrics of the piano ballad. We see something similar in Taylor Swift's All Too Well, however in this song she also uses the swell of the music to signify the changing intensity of emotion and drama in the story. It also doubles up as a really good way of emphasising how reminiscing about the good times is part of the pain and also how what she liked about the relationship was also what brought it down.

Maybe you could do a video on what kind of progression could be the next overused progression

70s kid here. The 12 bar blues was the I V vi IV of my childhood. I remember Forever Young in 1984 and it felt like something completely alien and beautiful. Which is weird because only a few years prior to that I was listening to Let it be.

@carrieyael2205

Ай бұрын

Forever Young is something special. Alphaville has made a lot of great music, but that one will always be my favorite.

Though not a pop song, I think one very interesting example is Brian Eno’s short instrumental “The Big Ship” from his 1975 album Another Green World, an electronic exploration built on a slow version of the progression which starts softly, builds to a dramatic climax, and fades again. It blows many listeners away and has been picked up for use in several films.

Would it be an overstatement to say that many an artists in the 2000s would not have survived without this formulaic progression? Haha. The fact that the Beatles - the band with the most hits - used this progression in only two of their songs is a testament to the vast range of their musical creativity.

@ericwixom7898

Жыл бұрын

It wasn’t that popular in the sixties. But yeah, the Beatles were, well, the Beatles.

@Willie_Wahzoo

Жыл бұрын

How do you know they only used it twice?

Thanks for the video and list in Patreon. As a music teacher I talk about chords,and how you only need 4 chords to play pop. I show them the Axis video and how many sound alike. With the list I can find more songs for them to learn / choose among to play.

I was learning to play guitar around the release of Joshua Tree and until I became aware of the Axis video on youtube I called the chord progression as "With or Without You" progression (a song by a proto/pop punk band I was in used it too). I referred to the Doowop progression as the "Duke of Earl" progression.

That was awesome David, I’m in music theory geek heaven! And a graph too! Omg You’re killing me here

To Know Know Him has a phenomenal middle bit though. 90's Pop Punk is where things got whiny and compressed. Everything sounds processed , synthetic and Worshippy now !

iv-I-IV-V is a permutation of the 4 chords that I don't think we see so often in pop, but I think was used effectively to carry bitterness and anger in the song Anything, Anything (by Dramarama). It's from 1985 but was still getting tons of play on KROQ and alt stations like that through the 90's. Other hits with that sequence?

I remember discovering this same progression in all my pop punk bands back around 2000. I can fill up a 100 song playlist with Mest, Good Charlotte, Blink, Green Day, Offspring, MxPx, NFG. Kinda the reason I’m ashamed sometimes to admit it’s still one of my favorite styles 😳

I imagine technology also played its role, as when eighties electronic songs became more stream they were all very much rooted in 4:4 time and in four bar loops

Actually, weirdly enough, I thought this was going to be vi-IV-I-V progression, which, we could say, is its twin brother. Wondering if this progression was as popular. As well as which chord progression is the most popular right now. 🤔 Nice video, as always!

@Magooch86

Жыл бұрын

It's technically the same progression, in the Axis of Awesome song they switch the starting point several times to cover songs that start at vi

I mean it's such a big thing that Jimi Hendrix literally named on of his albums "Axis: Bold as Love" with the song "Bold as Love" actually using the axis chord progression. What a chad

love your analys

You completely missed the most famous , influential and musically important song that uses this progression! "My Lovely Horse" from Father Ted, written by The Divine Comedy

@DavidBennettPiano

Жыл бұрын

😅😅😂😂

Aww shit… it’s even my bank code

I teach lots of new songs to kids and while this chord progression isn't as common as it once was, I find that modern pop usually consists of primarily I, IV, V and vi but in various permutations and combinations, with ii showing up to provide variety.

When you first started explaining and playing examples, I immediately thought of Skulls by The Misfits, but I honestly didn't expect you to mention them. When you moved into the 80s and 90s and talked about pop punk, I figured that was that and The Misfits had missed the train... and then out of nowhere you mentioned them. So cheers to you for that, good sir. I'm glad to see them get some lip service. Not many people realize Glenn was very influenced by 50s pop rock and doo wop. A good deal of their output is essentially aggressively distorted 50s rock music.

It's interesting how little this seems to matter to making the song "good" or not. Like, a bunch of these songs are terrible and boring, and others are great. It just goes to show that good music isn't entirely about the progressions (nor is bad).

@MisterL777

Жыл бұрын

YES I hate it when people see I V vi IV and act like it's automatically a boring song because of it. There's so much more that goes into the mix.

@leaningtower73

Жыл бұрын

In fact Let it be is a masterpiece.

David, a question for you: how did you find all the songs with this chord progression? Probably this trick is a topic for another video:-)

@AutPen38

Жыл бұрын

There's a fairly long (but incomplete) list of songs on the Wikipedia page about this progression, but I imagine David used the Hook Theory app, as that has been a sponsor of this channel, and famously has the chord progressions of thousands of pop songs included.

Great video! It would be very interesting analyze what chord progression was the most common in every decade!

I was a senior in college in 1998 and even then I was playing a medley of I-V-vi-IV songs in my coffeeshop gigs. People loved it.

Great video. I notice that this progression has a tendency to be anthemic. I'm not surprised it's popular.

i swear there's at least a dozen blink-182 songs that use this progression, if not more. edit: i wrote this comment before finishing the video, i'm glad you made a list of all their songs that use it hahaha. easily the first artist i associate with this progression

@DavidBennettPiano

Жыл бұрын

😂😊😊

Max Martin and Shellback wrote quite a few late 90s/early 2000s songs using I V vi IV. That Swedish style of formulated pop music comes from the late 70s/early 80s pop/punk Swedish music scene that Per Gessle (best known from Roxette) came out of. Per uses that chord progression quite a bit - going back to his first band, Gyllene Tider, which a huge success in Sweden and more of a punk band initially in the late 70s.

@alexjenner1108

Жыл бұрын

It would be interesting to see which songs they were and how well know those songs are. Rick Beato did a video on this and said that Max Martin had 22 #1 hits and there was really only one that was true I-V-vi-IV chord progression and that was a Taylor Swift song (about 3 minutes into the video). kzread.info/dash/bejne/oKl71o-Td5afk7g.html

You should do one on the minor version vi-IV-I-v and variations where IV is sometimes replaced with ii, and/or the v is sometimes replaced with III. Examples include Within Temptation - ice Queen and Within Temptation - It's the Fear.

If you looked at Christian Contemporary, I think you'd find a lot of songs with this progression.

Funny how 3 of the Taylor Swift songs that were on the list of the ones you found using these chords are arguably seen as 3 of her best songs. Clean. Champagne Problems and All Too Well. But I think how common those chords are within her music kind of show that fundamentally Taylors is a lyrics girl. Her strength lies with her mastery of language and lyricism. It's the words that are creating the impact hence why she can overlay her powerful words over a more simple instrumentation. I mean Champagne Problems is a very simple piano ballad. But the impact comes from the lyrics and the story within the lyrics. That song is one of the standouts from Evermore and I love talking about it. Don't get me started on All Too Well and Clean. I could write whole essays about those songs.

@lucypreece7581

Жыл бұрын

@@IncredibleGoliath She often works with a lot of the same collaborators for the production like Jack Antanoff who she has worked with for years and It also just further proves my point. She is not and has never been known as an artists who is revolutionary in terms of like production or breaking genre boundaries. She has always been a songwriter. Her strength is in her lyrics and it always has been. How her mastery of language and lyricism creates all these images in your mind and the emotions within the story hits that sweet spot. You don't need complex production to show emotion so maybe that's why she favours this chord progressions. She wants her lyrics to do all the work because they are what matter.

@lucypreece7581

Жыл бұрын

@ghost mall she knows her lane. She knows that her stregth in the music world and the thing she is most known for and the thing she does best is her lyrics and her songwriting. She captures emotion and tells a story.

It would have been a good addition to mention other songs that use this same progression but starting at different points. For example, self esteem by the offspring is vi-IV-I-V if we assume it is in Ionian, not aeolian. Another one with that progression is give me everything by pitbull. Another example is the bridge in the song daylight by maroon 5 going V-vi-IV-I. There are countless songs using this axis pattern, but changing it up slightly and starting at different points. Great video!

Scorpion's ballad Still Loving You is close with its vi-IV-I-V chord progression. Since it cycles, you could say it *is* the Axis chord progression, starting 2 chords early (or late, depending on your mood)

One intoxicating example of this progression being used as a loop is Machine Gun by Slowdive. Since listening to that, that is now my first association with this progression.

i hear these chords, i skip

@carlosribeiro3976

7 күн бұрын

i think its beautiful, but we got sick of it

@DanielS10291

6 күн бұрын

Depends what you do with it

I note Asia's Heat of the Moment in the list. I always thought this had an air of cliché about it (even though I like it). Now I know why! Thanks once more for another illuminating video. Does it matter much which inversions are used?

@ianbartle456

Жыл бұрын

Damn good question - and well worth exploring.

Surprised you missed "Down Under" by Men at Work given how thorough your list is otherwise. Great video as usual.

@DavidBennettPiano

Жыл бұрын

I didn’t count that song because the last bar of the progression goes “IV V”, rather than just “IV”. Very similar but I wanted to be strict with the definition 😊

Nice plot, would be good to see the same for all progressions! Might be able to predict the future progression!