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[–] Whitemail [S] 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago 

I have heard Steve Lukather talking about a song another member of Toto wrote being in the loathsome I V IV vi progression. He said he was trying to disguise it. I haven't seen that one, but I've seen a similar type one. You can take it to mean that a chord progression is used too much, or you can listen to what makes all of these bands and songs different. There's more to music than just chord progressions. If Journey or the Red Hot Chili Peppers were playing that chord progression without singing, I'm sure you'd have no trouble telling which band was which. There is also so much jazz, pop, and blues all based around the 1, 4, 5 based progressions or sometimes just 1 and 4.

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[–] wahala ago 

Yes! You are totally spot on about the chord progressions. While, yes, they are formulaic, if used well they can be part of very unique and creative music.

So what is it about so many modern pop songs that make them so awful and truly grating on the ear?

I think you may be onto something with levels. Bass should be felt but it doesn't need to rattle screws out of your car to be effective. The mids and highs don't need to be buried into one mushy level either. Sound engineers don't get enough credit for the work they do.

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[–] Whitemail [S] 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago  (edited ago)

Things that I know of that make music good and interesting:

Timbre diversity (this has been proven to be lacking in the music industry's garbage). When listening to Imogen Heap or Frou Frou, you never know what kind of instruments you will hear. Compare this to country music that is the most narrow and always uses the same old instrumentation. Sometimes it isn't unusual sounds that matter, but the fact that the sound has not been heard on the album previously. If you went 10 songs on an album without a piano, adding a piano to the eleventh song will be fresh and interesting, although the piano sound is old as the hills.

Chord substitutions - using a chord that doesn't fit the Major, minor, minor, Major, Major, minor, diminished framework. Generally that 7th diminished chord is too scary for pop songs. I heard recently it's actually used in some Christmas classics as a ii7 dim in the minor key. Mariah Carey has it in her song All I Want for Christmas is You. Paul McCartney uses a major to minor chord substitution in this song for a drastic effect before switching to the minor key for the chorus. He also uses the major 7th in the minor key, the distinctive part of the harmonic minor scale.

Key changes - this will often be used in bridges with the pop music formula and it's pretty common to do the relative major/minor switching such as Crazy Train going from F# minor to A. Some songs, though, will have drastic key changes and modal shifts in the middle of rifts. Invaders has a whack as key change in the chorus of either 1 half tone or 3 whole tones. I don't remember. Reckoning Day has a modal shift from E minor to F# minor and then returns to E minor. A similar type of modal shifting was used by Iron Maiden in the old days with a shift of one and half tones up.

Rhythms that seem new and interesting. I will use the opening drum beat in this 311 song as an example of this. It's nothing but a relatively simple drum beat, but it sounds fresh and interesting all by itself. Of course this is rather subjective, so I hate to use this as an example. Aside from this the good melodies generally have a rhythmic motif that is established without being so blatantly repetitive and then deviated from. This is used in a lot of traditional songs a lot, and it may be why they endured for so long. In Santa Claus Comes to Town, you can pick up in the repetitive doo-da doo doo rhythm in the initial melody that is repeated 4 times. The following section is similarly repetitive and even has a note out of key but not out of harmony.

Harmony can be thought of as a way of doubling a melody, but outside of that, it is basically how the melodic notes agree with the chordal notes and whether the chord changes are agreeable. This is actually a complicated subject, but the gist of it is that you have to anchor non-chord notes in the melody to ones that are in the chords. The more complex and interesting songs will make clever and intense use of the non-chord tones anchored to chord tones. Marty Friedman likes to bend major 7s in the minor key up to the tonic note, thus going from awfulness to perfect resolution rather quickly.

Using the uncommon modes or uncommon scales. Most songs are in the Major key (ionian) and minor key (aeolian). I think mixolydian would be most common after that. 311 using the phrygian mode. Yngwie Malmsteen also tends to use phrygian a lot, but with the same sharped note in the harmonic minor. I'm not sure what you call this alteration of the phrygian mode.