MODULATING FROM ONE KEY TO ANOTHER

RULE NUMBER ONE--

establish hook as soon as possible in new key, or in transition to new key. ideally, some repetition in short term, which is arguably the quickest way to establish a hook for listener.

(It may be true that there are other ways to establish a hook, but that those ways are harder to quantify or link to a formula. Thus, repetition is not necessary, but it's as close to a fail-safe plan as anything I can think of.)
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ELEMENTS OF COMMERCIAL POP MUSIC I OBSERVED AT THE NAIL SALON

I don't listen to much of today's commercial pop music, unless I can't avoid it. Today I was getting a couple nails fixed (a la Nashville guitar pickers), when I got the chance to listen to a few presumably current hits. (My idea of current is anything released since Steve Miller's "Abra Kadabra".) Here are my observations, based on nothing remotely approaching a scientific data sample.

There are two main moods of commercial pop song that predominate.

1. Wistful/celebratory.
In this style, the tone of the thing early on is a kind of wistful acknowledging of sad events. Gradually, the tone changes into a celebratory mood.
This approach tends to be mostly a major key sound. (This tone is sometimes a kind of "cheerful existentialism," which seems smart somehow, making it an effective choice for indie artists who want to present a package that has more "substance" than the moneymaking pop artists. It's also effective for the moneymakers, who use this tone too, but with higher production values.)

2. Gloomy/empowered.
In this style, the tone is more melancholy-- which makes it more dramatic when it changes to a finger-wagging rejection of the villains who caused the sad events. This says, "I've been hurt bad, but now I'm over it and I'm taking 'ownership' of my life back from those who've tried to steal it from me. Watch out, mean people!"
This approach is more often in minor.

Both of these obviously related sub-styles sometimes use a structural device (usually in a chorus) where the chords wind around until finally resolving on beat one of a new section with a return to the tonic chord. (It's common for the melody to use the classical music principle of elision, where a line ends at the point where the new melody section begins. It worked for Mozart, and it works for the saucy/bossy blonde pop singer formula.) This new section is often more or less instrumental, kind of a brief celebratory dance before going back to the melancholy verse vibe.


The following statement is a theory only-- I can't back it up with evidence, and I welcome suggestions from readers. (In other words, feel free to agree while providing evidence of specific songs, but I'm also interested in songs that would cause me to adjust my vague timeline.)

To me, this kind of tone is self-indulgent, as well as being arguably based in denial for many listeners. My guess is that some of the source for it is the indie punk rock movement of the 1980's. If you want to oversimplify, Kurt Cobain grew up listening to SST albums along with some classic rock, blended the self-regarding teenage angst of much indie rock with the pop/rock muscle of the Beatles et al. This formula rang true for so many millions of people that it eventually grew like kudzu, forcing its way into the mainstream. (It also seems that this kind of approach to tone is nothing new-- it's the core of power-ballad formula. I think it's fair to say, though, that Kurt Cobain made it "cool" in a way that Pat Benatar did not. On the other hand-- "alternative" became the mainstream pretty quickly, "coolness" is mostly a marketing tool these days, and I hope younger people can forgive my sense that Pearl Jam and their fans remind me of Styx and their fans. Perhaps Kansas is a more reasonable point of comparison.)
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