chord progression
5 tracksThe order in which chords follow each other. A few progressions recur across thousands of songs; the choice shapes whether music feels resolved, yearning or restless.
Harmony
minor key
6 tracks.
What it is
Music centred on a minor scale, whose lowered third gives a darker or more melancholic colour than a major key. Much dance music is in minor keys, which keeps euphoria bittersweet.
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Hear it in these tracks
Michael Jackson
Billie Jean
One of pop's most recognisable bass lines carries Michael Jackson's paranoid tale of a paternity claim, a tight, shadowy groove that sounds as sharp now as it did on Thriller.
Ed Sheeran
Shape of You
A plucked marimba-like loop, a dancehall bounce and a flirtation that starts at the bar: Shape of You is the minimal pop machine that took over the world in 2017.
Daft Punk
Give Life Back to Music
The curtain-raiser of Random Access Memories: live drums, Nile Rodgers' guitar and a vocoder mission statement announcing that Daft Punk came back to make music breathe again.
Deluxe
Tum Rakak
'Tum Rakak' is a song by Deluxe, the moustachioed band from Aix-en-Provence: a funky live-band groove in B-flat minor with Liliboy singing a gleefully absurd lyric about curiosity, party crumbs and a truck that reeks in the heat.
Mount Sims
How We Do
A dark, pulsing piece of electroclash from Mount Sims's 2002 debut UltraSex, released on Gigolo in Europe and Emperor Norton in the US: gritty machine beats, minor-key synth melodies and a cool, defiant vocal.