Different Keys

Recently I've been obsessed with learning how to write simple songs and become comfortable with simplicity. This fascination has lead me to become more interested in the overall structure of songs and what keys and chord progressions they use. I became even more interested in what keys and chord combinations make a song a hit. So over the thanksgiving break, I locked myself in my basement with only a few packs of capri sun, a box of Ding-Dongs, and a paper and pen. I decided to get down to the bottom of what makes a song a hit by comparing the top five songs of 2011 with the top five songs 20 years ago in 1981. The results were, very interesting, somewhat informative, and partially useless. They go as follows;

In November 2011 the top five songs according to Billboard are :

1. Rihanna- "We Found Love"
2. LMFAO- "Sexy and I Know It"
3. Adele- "Someone Like You"
4. David Guetta- "Without You"
5. Bruno Mars- "It Will Rain"

In November 1981 the top five songs according to Billboard were:

1. Hall & Oates- "Private Eyes"
2. The Rolling Stones- "Start Me Up"
3. Chris Cross- "Arthurs Theme (Best You Can Do)"
4. Sheena Easton- "For Your Eyes Only"
5.  Bob Seger- "Trying To Live Without You"

The first thing I noticed was that all of the songs from the 80's were a little bit better (except Sheena Easton, sorry James Bond fans.) I also noticed that all of the songs from the 80's used a much larger number of chords than the current hits.

After finishing off my fourth Capri sun, and carefully dissecting each song, I noticed that 6 of the 10 songs were in the key of D, two were in A one was in A minor, and one was in F. For non musical people, this means that D=Hit songs.

Another thing I noticed, and thought was quite interesting was that "Start Me Up" and "We Found Love" used the exact same chords, in almost the exact same sequence, And they were both entirely major chords.

Also, almost all of the songs used a pattern where they would; play a chord, play a different chord, return to the first chord, play a new chord, and then repeat. This was very interesting because the only songs that didn't use this pattern were both the songs that are number one hits.

A lot of my investigation turned out to be useless but what I did find out was pretty interesting.
So remember folks, if you're going to write a song in november, major chords are your friend, and D=Good.