In this week's episode, Jeremy Orosz discusses a formal trend that's been emerging in pop and rock songs. In the last decade or so, a surprisingly high number of songs in verse-chorus form contain only two statements of the chorus as opposed to the typical three. Over the course of the episode, Orosz walks us through his detailed corpus-based study, discussing nuances of this trend and the impact that this form, what he calls "2C" for short, has on the organization and sound of this music.

This episode was produced by Zach Lloyd along with Team Lead Anna Rose Nelson.

SMT-Pod Theme music by Zhangcheng Lu; Closing music "hnna" by David Voss. For supplementary materials on this episode and more information on our authors and composers, check out our website: https://smt-pod.org/episodes/season03/

[Intro Theme Zhangcheng Lu, “BGM Scales,” followed by producer intro.]

Welcome to SMT-Pod, the premier audio publication of the Society for Music Theory. In this week's episode, Jeremy Orosz discusses a formal trend that's been emerging in pop and rock songs. In the last decade or so, a surprisingly high number of songs in verse-chorus form contain only two statements of the chorus as opposed to the typical three. Over the course of the episode, Orosz walks us through his detailed corpus-based study, discussing nuances of this trend and the impact that this form, what he calls "2C" for short, has on the organization and sound of this music.

About two years ago, I gave a deep listen to NPR's playlist of their top 100 songs of 2021. I figured this would be worthwhile since I was about to teach a graduate course in popular music. At the very least, I’d learn about some emerging artists—and I did! But I ended up learning something else as well.

After completing a formal analysis of each song, I noticed that a remarkable number of the songs on this list—at least 25 of the 100 songs—were clearly in Verse-Chorus form, but they included only two statements of the chorus section. This surprised me, because as far as I was aware—both from my own listening and from reading scholarship on popular music—songs in Verse-Chorus form most typically include three statements of the chorus: one following each of the two verses, and a third chorus following a bridge, interlude, or other contrasting section.

In this podcast, I’ll share what I learned from studying songs with only two chorus statements, which I will call “2C” form for short. Specifically, I’ll talk about how these songs are typically organized, how long they last, and which artists create them. I was also curious about the history of songs in 2C form.

I could think of a few examples of songs from earlier decades that had only two chorus statements—like Stone Temple Pilots' “Interstate Love Song”

Let’s begin by exploring the songs in 2C form from 2021. Instead of looking at the NPR list alone, which was compiled by a small group of journalists, I decided to also look at the songs on US Billboard Hot 100 chart from the same year, in order to get a bigger picture. Combing the 100 songs on the NPR list and the songs on the Billboard Hot 100 doesn't quite give 200 songs to work with, however, because ten songs overlap between the two lists, and a few entries were unusable for documenting trends in recent popular music.

It’s worth pausing to acknowledge that there are quite a few “maybes”—songs that one might reasonably argue also should count—but if there is room to debate whether or not there is a chorus, which section counts as the chorus when there are two viable candidates, or even sometimes how many statements of the chorus there are, I have excluded it from the list.

Limiting ourselves to these 38 clear cases of 2C form, I think the most pressing question to answer is how these songs are organized in the absence of a third chorus statement. While they all have at least one verse, and most have a short intro and outro, beyond this, the formal shape of these songs varies widely both in which sections are included, and in the order in which these sections appear.

The most noticeable difference in formal design involves the treatment of the bridge section. I’ll divide these songs into three “types” based upon whether or not a bridge appears, and where in the song the bridge appears, if present. Type 1 songs are those without a bridge or substantial contrasting section; Type 2 are those with a bridge near the end of a song, following two verse-chorus units; and Type 3 are those with a bridge, but not at the end of that song—in other words, the bridge in a type 3 appears somewhere before the second (and last) chorus statement.

Type 1 songs—those without a bridge—are the most common in this set; 22 of these 38 songs in 2C form—that’s nearly 60%—fall into this category. Besides “Whoopty” by Rapper CJ, which features only a single verse between the two chorus statements, most of these songs include, at a minimum, two verses and two choruses, in that order, bookended by a short intro and outro.

Three clear examples of songs in this form are “Iced Coffee” by Larry June

Unlike Type 1 songs, Type 2 examples have a contrasting section after the second chorus, typically serving as the last substantial section of the song. 12 out of these 38 songs—or about 30%—are Type 2. Examples include Olivia Rodrigo’s "déjà vu"

In some Type 2 songs, like “Juno” by the BlackStarKids

Type 3 songs, which include a bridge or contrasting section somewhere before the second and final chorus, are, in this set of songs, the most rare; only four of these 38—a bit over 10%—fall into this category. Each of them has a unique formal shape; all of the sound clips I’ve played so far have been part of the song’s chorus, these next four will be the bridge. Although in 3-chorus songs, a bridge most typically appears immediately before the last chorus, only one of these four songs features a bridge that directly precedes the second-and-final chorus, which is the song “Marchita” by Mexican songstress Silvia Estrada.

I’d now like to address the typical duration of these songs. Although one might assume that most of the songs in 2C form are among the shortest to appear on their respective year-end lists, the 2C songs from 2021 are, on average, similar in length to their 3-chorus counterparts. Songs with at least three choruses from the 2021 NPR and Billboard lists have an average length of three minutes and 36 seconds, while the 2C songs are, on average, only 11 seconds shorter, averaging three minutes and 25 seconds.

Despite an unremarkable average length, the duration of these 2C songs varies widely. While 10 of them are less than 2-and-a-half minutes in length, 8 of them are more than 4 minutes long. The two longest entries, both Type 2 songs, include two verses, two choruses, and a bridge, plus quite a few “interludes” that increase their length appreciably. “Hard Drive” by Cassandra Jenkins, which is about five and a half minutes long, features extended spoken sections.

And the longest track “Eternal Gate” by the doom metal band Khemmis is over 7 minutes long due to its expansive guitar solos.

On the other hand, some of these 2C songs are notably short. One example even is less than 2 minutes: the song “Just for Me” by Pink Panthress clocks in at only a minute-56.

That said, I would argue that some of the longest 2C songs from 2021—those that pass the five-minute mark—may avoid a third chorus statement to prevent them from reaching an unwieldy length. Two such examples come to mind. One is “Let ‘Em Burn” by singer-songwriter Emily Scott Robinson. The first chorus appears late in the song, following two complete statements of the verse plus pre-chorus, and the more emphatic second statement of the chorus forms a more than satisfying conclusion to this moving lyric ballad.

A similar example is the song “What It Is” by Amber Mark. This tune features a chorus that is nearly a full minute in length. If a complete 3rd chorus had been included following the bridge, the song would be over 6 minutes long. But ungainly length isn’t even the most compelling reason not to include another statement of this section. The four-line chorus is catchy, but it’s also quite repetitive; the first, second, and fourth lines have essentially the same musical material, and this content might feel a bit stale after a third time through. The song instead concludes with a brief nod to the chorus (a pared-down version of the first line only, rather than the section proper) which, I think, is a wise production decision

I’d also like to share some observations about which artists produced the most 2C songs in the NPR and Billboard lists from 2021, both in terms of artist identity and genre. Even if the relationship between genre affiliation and music style is tenuous at best, it is nevertheless a productive parameter for exploring the 2C songs.

First, there are seven more songs in 2C form on the NPR list than there are on the Billboard Hot 100. This can partly be explained, I believe, by the fact that most songs on the Hot 100 are by big-name artists—pop giants like Ariana Grande, Ed Sheeran, and Dua Lipa— and country stars like Luke Combs and Florida Georgia Line. In 2021, at least, these established acts generally stuck with the tried-and-true formal template, including 3 or more chorus statements in their songs. The NPR list, rather, included music by a more diverse set of artists—representing a wider range of genres, geographical locations, stages of career, and relative levels of fame or prestige. Perhaps unsurprisingly, a wider range of formal shapes can be found on this list, which not only means that there are more songs in 2C form, but also more songs that are not clearly in verse-chorus form.

Second, although few generalizations can be made about the genre of the 2C songs on the NPR list— as these songs are drawn from just about every imaginable genre from Indie Pop to Reggaeton—the songs in 2C form on the Hot 100 are somewhat more uniform. Even with a healthy skepticism about genre labels, of the 18 songs in 2C form on the Billboard list from 2021, 12 or 13 of them can be categorized as hip hop.

Yes, there are also entries by artists like Olivia Rodrigo and SZA, but far more of these songs are by artists who describe themselves as rappers first and foremost. In fact, the only artist who had multiple 2C songs on the 2021 Billboard list is Drake. His “Wants and Needs” featuring Lil Baby is a clear Type 1 song as is “Knife Talk” featuring Project Pat and 21 Savage

It’s also worth mentioning that Drake’s song “What Next” is a song that I identified as “maybe” in 2C form—it depends on which section one interprets as the chorus.

Now that I’ve offered some observations about the 2C songs from 2021, I’d like to explore the Billboard charts from the decade leading up to that point to provide some insight on the history of this form type. I looked at the year-end US Hot 100 charts from 2011, 2013, 2015, 2017, and 2019 to see if there is evidence of any emerging trends. Based on this data, I’d like to share some observations about the number of chorus statements in these songs across this decade. Note that nearly every song on these odd-year Billboard charts from 2011 to 2021 is in Verse-Chorus form.

Only a few songs each year—not more than three—might reasonably be analyzed as strophic, through-composed, or in another shape without a chorus.

The most important takeaway from looking at the earlier charts is that the number of songs in 2C form on the Billboard lists generally increased over this time span. In 2011, there was only one clear example. In both 2013 and 2015, there were six. In 2017, that number rose to 14 examples; in 2019 there were 16, and, as mentioned before, there were 18 examples on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 2021.

The 47 examples of 2C songs that appeared on the five earlier year-end charts have much in common with the songs from 2021, both in terms of formal structure and genre. I’ll address each in turn. In regard to form, Type 1 songs—those without a bridge—were the most common in these pre-2021 Billboard songs as well. By my count, 35 out of these 47 songs in 2C form—a bit over 80%—are Type 1, while there are 4 examples of Type 2 and Type 3 songs respectively, or about 9% each. Just about every specific formal shape from 2021 has a precedent in a song from one of the earlier charts, both in terms of which sections are included and where those sections appear.

When it comes to genre, recall that at least 2/3rd of the 2C songs on the 2021 Billboard chart were best described as hip hop. Not only was Drake the only artist with multiple 2C songs on the 2021 lists, but he also had 2C songs on all but one of the earlier charts I looked at. In fact, his song “Headlines” was the only clear 2C example from 2011; having only two chorus statements, it is somewhat of an outlier among the hip hop and R&B songs that made the Billboard list that year, many of which had not three but four chorus statements. Examples of 4-chorus songs from 2011 include Nelly’s “Just A Dream,” Waka Flocka Flame’s “No Hands,” and Wiz Khalifa’s “Black and Yellow.

The mention of 4-chorus songs leads me to another interesting observation: On the Billboard charts I looked at between 2011-2021, there was a slight decrease in the number of songs with at least four chorus statements as the years went on. When I say, “at least four,” that means, in most cases exactly four, but there are a handful that have five choruses like Blanco Brown’s “The Git Up.”

To be specific, the charts from 2011, 2013, and 2015 all had between 13 and 16 songs with four or more chorus statements, while none of the charts from 2017 or later cracked double digits; each had either 6 or 9 songs with more than three statements of the chorus. Without suggesting a causal relationship, it’s worth noting that this apparent trend complements the increase in songs in 2C form. While the number of songs with three choruses generally remained static on all six of the Billboard charts I looked at, on the three earlier charts, 4C songs outnumbered those in 2C form. On the three later charts, however, the opposite was true; songs with fewer than three iterations of the chorus were more common than those with four or more.

And while we’re on the subject of songs with fewer than three chorus statements, there are some songs that I analyzed that I would argue have only one statement of the chorus. This observation may seem surprising—or perhaps even oxymoronic—to those familiar with form in popular music. One might argue that repetition is central to the definition of this formal section; I typically define the chorus to my undergraduate students by how it repeats lyrics from one iteration to another in the same song. Nevertheless, it is certainly possible for a section that has the other hallmarks of the chorus—internal repetition of text, inclusion of the song’s title, and a sense of building or leading up to the section in the previous verse and/or pre-chorus.

There are at least three tracks—all from 2021—that might plausibly be analyzed with one chorus statement. Note that I did not include these songs among the 38 examples of 2C form discussed above. I’ll play a bit of the apparent chorus of each. Perhaps the most straightforward of these is “Gyalis” by Capella Grey. This song has three distinct sections that I am inclined to label as Verse, Pre-Chorus, and Chorus respectively.

Another is “Tombstone” by Rod Wave, which includes a single statement of an apparent Verse, Chorus, and then an outro or post-chorus that recycles a bit of material from the chorus.

Clearly, it would not be appropriate to draw any conclusions about the fact that there are three apparent 1C songs on the 2021 lists but none on the earlier charts. Little can be inferred from this information alone. But it is consistent with the evidence found on the Billboard charts of a rise in the number of 2C songs 2C and the complementary decrease of in songs with more four or more chorus statements.

If this trend of “dechorusification"—that is, if the average number of chorus statements continues to decline or stays low—this would indeed be a sea change for form in popular music. It’s worth pausing to ponder why might this be the case?

For much of the 20th century, terrestrial radio was the primary means through which consumers encountered new music. Although popular music changed significantly over this period, most music distributed over the radio had something in common: The primary portion of the song was typically heard at least three times. This is true of the Tin Pan Alley era, during which most songs were in AABA form; the refrain, most typically the title line of the song, appeared—most often—in each of the song’s three (or more) A sections. The same can be said after the mid-1960s, when verse-chorus form became the hegemonic formal shape in popular music; three or more chorus statements were more or less expected.

An unfortunate reality of distribution over a medium like radio is that listeners tune in during the middle of a song, or tune out before the song has finished. Saturating tracks with the song’s title, whether the refrain or chorus, is advantageous if the goal is to increase the number of consumers who remember the song, even if they only hear a portion of it. The more people who can sing (or at least recall) a catchy hook, the more there are who could tell a DJ what to play, or tell the clerk at their local record store what single they’d like to buy.

Today, consumers who listen to new music through, say, Spotify, can simply replay a catchy song to hear it again or check their history to remember what it was they listened to. Even those who listen to the radio in their car are likely to have a display on their dash that shows the song title and artist name. Therefore, given the contemporary methods of distribution, artists and producers may feel greater freedom to create music in different formal shapes. Not long ago, having three or more chorus statements was a clever and perhaps necessary means of making sure that consumers remembered a song; today, this is simply no longer the case.

Of course, even though the year-end charts I looked at show a clear and consistent increase in the number of songs in 2C form, it’s not yet certain how generalizable these findings are. For now, I will continue to explore year-end lists to see if songs with fewer chorus statements become the “new normal,” or if this trend is merely a flash in the pan. Thanks for listening!

[Outro Theme by David Voss, “hnna”]

Thanks to everyone who brought this podcast to life. The entire team at SMT-pod was incredibly helpful and patient throughout the process, and I am grateful for their help. My peer reviewer, Trevor DeClercq, gave insightful comments that allowed me to improve my first draft dramatically. I’d also like to thank anyone and everyone who talked to me about this project over the past several months—and there are a lot of you! All of you helped to think about these songs more clearly and coherently, and I appreciate it!

[Outro Theme by David Voss, “hnna”]

Visit our website smt-pod.org for supplemental materials related to this episode and to learn how to submit an episode proposal. And join in on the conversation by tweeting your questions and comments about this episode @SMT_Pod. SMT Pod's theme music was written by Zhangcheng Lu with closing music by David Voss. Thanks for listening!