When did this chord progression become so popular?

The famous four chords, the "axis" progression, the classic and infamous pop song chord progression. It is considered utterly ubiquitous but when did songwriters actually start using it, and has it now finally fallen out of style?
📌 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! 😅😅
📌 I was going to put the list of all of the songs I gathered here in the description but it actually exceeds the character limit, so I've put it on this public Patreon post: / 74410753
Axis of Awesome comedy skit: • Axis of Awesome - 4 Fo...
And, an extra special thanks goes to Douglas Lind, Vidad Flowers, Ivan Pang, Waylon Fairbanks, Jon Dye, Austin Russell, Christopher Ryan, Yu Kyung Chung, Toot & Paul Peijzel, the channel’s Patreon saints! 😇
SUPPORT ME ON PATREON: / davidbennettpiano
0:00 Introduction
0:55 the earliest songs to use the Axis progression
2:45 the 1970s
3:38 the 1980s
4:17 the 1990s
5:08 the 2000s
6:26 the 2010s
7:25 which artist has used it the most?
8:08 the Axis progression in 2022
9:06 piano outro

[@DavidBennettPiano]

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]

@@Konsider huh?

[@ansfridaeyowulfsdottir8095]

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

[@Dyas777]

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

[@bubbacat9940]

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

[@ansfridaeyowulfsdottir8095]

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

[@iainlindley]

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]

Interesting name for a song

[@peik5569]

yay a fellow NOFX fan

[@skakirask]

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

[@MartijnFrazer]

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

[@snookerwither9955]

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

[@Zveebo]

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]

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]

@@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]

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

[@infernalsquid]

@@Willie_Wahzoo but it’s definitely LESS popular.

[@AutPen38]

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!

[@DeGuerre]

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".

[@theplaylister]

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]

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]

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

[@unacuentadeyoutube13]

@@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]

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

[@unacuentadeyoutube13]

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

[@Chadner]

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]

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.

[@martijn_yt]

i would go for 'Let it be'

[@Chadner]

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]

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]

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.

[@zhaoli4608]

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]

I think there is actually a video called "Pachelbel rant" :) kzbin.info/www/bejne/gJXbnImHrpyEgq8

[@jj9749]

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

[@purplealice]

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]

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).

[@mattiat.6697]

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]

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

[@mingnrich]

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

[@esthersmith3056]

@@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]

@@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

[@dggydddy59]

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.

[@mastod0n1]

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]

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]

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]

Where can I hear it??

[@dennisriddle]

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]

you can use a drone note over them aswell

[@AutPen38]

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]

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.

[@katiukulele]

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!

[@onpoc]

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

[@jj9749]

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

[@rpstrambi]

Same here!

[@romanroncato3929]

Absolutely, this discussion is incomplete without a mention of LIB

[@rupertschwarz5477]

I agree. This song is all about this progression.

[@HANSMKAMP]

@@jj9749 But he used it in just two songs, besides Let It Be also in Oh! Darling! I know hundreds of Beatles songs, but I don't know more songs than these two, using this chord progression.

[@thegothaunt]

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]

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

[@frankfrank7921]

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

[@alexfischer9213]

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

[@sarahschouveller1993]

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]

So true sis

[@roo72]

Very fresh look at an old subject. Well done

[@DavidBennettPiano]

Thanks 😊

[@shannonsx4143]

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

[@lueysixty-six7300]

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).

[@stefangudmund]

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

[@DavidBennettPiano]

😊😊😊😊😊😊

[@jihwan990706]

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

[@4ofwands]

Excellent research! Enjoy your channel so much!

[@HedeccaTamer]

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

[@robertpowell9618]

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]

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... ☮️+💜+🎶

[@Andy-lm2zp]

Superb research and presentation, thank you so much!

[@DavidBennettPiano]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@garyewart9185]

Love this! Please do similar analyses for other common progressions

[@markzeddo6033]

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]

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.

[@Petch85]

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]

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.

[@StevenTwoTwo]

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

[@joelcaron8291]

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

[@gikem4882]

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]

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

[@tbhousen]

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

[@WarpRulez]

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]

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]

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

[@jenshaglof8180]

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.

[@christopherfryda]

Love this channel!

[@philippepujol2806]

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

[@Teemu_V]

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.

[@guilhermetavares1975]

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]

'Chords of always' 👏

[@MaTTheWish]

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

[@SandalwoodBros]

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]

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

[@DanielBrandurSigurgeirsson]

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]

Offspring - Self Esteem is a great one

[@SirBenjiful]

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

[@billrazor6591]

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]

@@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]

@@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.

[@wellurban]

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]

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]

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]

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.

[@tomdaoust]

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.

[@EarlOfMaladyCrescent]

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

[@blacklabelnic]

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

[@BewareofDarkness44]

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.

[@mason87104]

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

[@jensenhealey08]

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.

[@F.-VonEverHeck]

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.

[@GuillaumeBetous]

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]

He could have turned it into an Axis of Awesome tribute

[@AutPen38]

Come on Barbie, let's go party!

[@VincenzoToroRoot]

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

[@InsolentDrummer]

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

[@rpstrambi]

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.

[@johnrottler4000]

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

[@BrunoWiebelt]

love your analys

[@cakemartyr5794]

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]

Damn good question - and well worth exploring.

[@radiozelaza]

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]

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

[@mickeyrube6623]

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

[@alessandrosummer]

@@mickeyrube6623 ah I got it now

[@Willie_Wahzoo]

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]

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.

[@shootytheturtle]

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

[@DavidBennettPiano]

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 😊

[@613steven]

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?

[@olachristianbardsen3171]

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.

[@camacaron06]

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

[@ardiris2715]

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

[@jj9749]

@ghost mall The chorus

[@jehmarxx]

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

[@dontmindme6995]

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

[@eamonnmorris5331]

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]

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]

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!

[@leikfroakies]

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.

[@King4taday]

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 😳

[@AriomesterDaniel]

Great job!! How did you gathered this list? Is there a chord library by song?

[@flatfingertuning727]

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]

He acknowledges these types of differences in the video.

[@flatfingertuning727]

@@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]

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

[@jcarty123]

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]

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

[@jcarty123]

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

[@brendancronin3796]

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

[@NeonRadarMusic]

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.

[@ryangelinas9289]

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!

[@ericdoe2318]

Aww shit… it’s even my bank code

[@coreyreynolds3585]

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]

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]

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]

@@coreyreynolds3585 Gotcha. Cheers!

[@AutPen38]

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.

[@BellsCuriosityShop]

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.

[@raymondtrabulsy7294]

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]

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]

@@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]

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.

[@bernhardwall6876]

Thank you for your videos. A long time ago, there was a joke by two young women about how Britney Spears's first two hit songs, "Baby One More Time" and "Oops I Did It Again" were basically the same song. This goes farther back than the time period you cover, but I listen to a lot of "Old-Time Radio," from the 30's to the 50's. I found that so much of the popular songs of the time, particularly the older ones, had a bridge section wherein, for the last line before returning to the main section, you could literally sing, "With a hey-nonny-nonny and a ha-cha-cha," and it worked every time!

[@AutPen38]

Max Martin was every bit as good at rewriting his biggest hits as Motown's Holland/Dozier/Holland. To follow up a series of hits by the Four Tops, Holland/Dozier/Holland wrote "It's the Same Old Song" and had another chart smash.

[@rouxenophobe]

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

[@tonypet1518]

David fantastic piece of research. I've played this sequence over and over. I believe the plagal cadence is perhaps the possible key to the popularity of this sequence. So in the key of C, it would go . C MAJOR G MAJOR A MINOR AND F MAJOR TO FINISH. I'm doubting my own writing idea now even as I write. Such fun .Anyway that you for your fascinating videos.

[@tim_brooks]

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

[@DavidBennettPiano]

😂

[@skeeterd5150]

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

[@UranusHz420]

@@skeeterd5150Ben a fan of August is Falling for decades

[@skakirask]

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

[@joeharris2659]

I think this is the first time I can recall you ever mentioning the Rolling Stones (and even then it was just a brief reference on a graph!). I’d love you to do a video on whatever you find most interesting about he Stones - they seem to be a curious absence in your videos! (Perhaps they’re just not that musically innovative?)

[@martimpocinho5113]

Awesome video!

[@Datamining101]

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]

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]

In fact Let it be is a masterpiece.

[@bartek7057]

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

[@TheTrueStevieK]

Great video! Any chance you could share the entire list?

[@KarstenJohansson]

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)

[@clarencecorbeil1061]

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]

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

[@Pavel.Fomitchov]

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]

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.

[@andrewdunbar828]

It could be interesting to make another graph comparing against other chord progressions to see which other ones rose and fall about the same time and which were going out of fashion while this was getting more popular and vice versa.

[@alyssapowell1799]

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]

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). kzbin.info/www/bejne/pKaqpWCQfJhsmbc

[@MrJonnyharry]

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

[@cjlister8508]

Probably worth noting that as time progresses, more songs are released. More songs released in the 2000s than the 80s. So you would find more examples. You say that the 2020s has been drastically declined, but today there are so many songs released that there is no way you could have looked into them all and added them all that graph.

[@Jobasha]

That is true. Maybe instead of a count of usage he should have used a sampling technique to estimate the probability a song in a particular year would use the progression. That would account for the increase in music output and the inability to listen to every song.

[@andersweinstein]

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.

[@nihilosphere319]

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.

[@MrKockabilly]

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]

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

[@Willie_Wahzoo]

How do you know they only used it twice?

[@gravityemblem8931]

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

[@DavidBennettPiano]

I think it’s a British thing!

[@certainlynotthebestpianist5638]

How should it be pronounced otherwise?

[@gsus300]

Blink one eighty two

[@certainlynotthebestpianist5638]

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

[@benedictnothing]

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

[@keymaster430]

It's even in Classical Music (kinda). Cannon in D, I believe has a constant progression where the first four chords in the looping progression are the axis chords.

[@IzzoCello]

Excellent video. I’m curious to see that list of songs. Do you happen to have it somewhere we can see?

[@DavidBennettPiano]

I'm just about to add it to the video's description actually 😊😊

[@IzzoCello]

@@DavidBennettPiano you rock sir!

[@ciankeith3999]

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]

😅😅😂😂