‘Simply Irresistible’: recurring accent patterns as hooks in mainstream 1980s music

Abstract

This essay explores connections between the notion of ‘hook’ and several recurring accent patterns found in rock music from the 1980s. It begins by identifying seven syncopated accent patterns and presents a list of over 150 songs from the 1980s that use one or more of these patterns. It then presents three main ways that the accent patterns help create ‘hooks’. First, several songs use one of the patterns to create a strong title hook, as in Rick Springfield's hit, ‘I’ve Done Everything for You', the title of which is set with a syncopated and distinct rhythmic pattern. A second type of ‘hook’ comes in the form of a ‘significant gesture’ that usually precedes the chorus. The pre-chorus ‘My-my-my-my, ah, woo!’ gesture from The Knack's ‘My Sharona’ is an excellent example. Finally, a third type of ‘hook’ involves the combination of a repeated accent pattern with a recurring pitch pattern, as in the guitar introduction to AC/DC's ‘For Those About to Rock’. By realising that these three examples all use the same accent pattern in significant, but different, ways, we acknowledge the prominence of this and other patterns while furthering the discourse on the notion of the ‘hook’.

A dynamically minimalist cognitive explanation of musical preference: is familiarity everything?

“…However, mere exposure still has an important role to play in mental representation, and this can be further exemplified in the importance of repeated material used within a piece of music ( Ockelford, 2005 ). Within-piece repetition has the ability to engage the listener’s attention and emotional response ( Livingstone et al, 2011 ; Margulis, 2013a , b ) as well as with-in piece repetition with elaboration and ornamentation, such as the Theme and Variations form ( Keller and Schubert, 2011 ) and the “hook” in popular music ( Traut, 2005 ). This furthers the present argument that the search for existing mental representations, which can be of a musical fragment, will lead to a positive affective outcome for the listener.…”

Musical Nuances and the Aesthetic Experience of Popular Music Hooks: Theoretical Considerations and Analytical Approaches

“…However, in the case of these two examples, the rhythmic tension induced by the metric dissonance of the main, asymmetrical accent patterns already is quite high. According to Scott Murphy, notions of conflict and resolution are pivotal to such patterns, "as the groups of three create tension before giving way to the two-groups, which seem to realign the rhythm with the underlying metre and 'resolve' the metric tension" (Murphy, 2002in Traut, 2005).…”

Anticipatory Syncopation in Rock: A Corpus Study

“…Another type of syncopation that does not seem convincingly explained as anticipatory is cross-rhythm (Biamonte, 2014;Traut, 2005). In Figure 16B, the four syllables of the phrase are each, essentially, a dottedquarter note in duration, suggesting a pulse that goes against the underlying 4/4 meter.…”