An idea that has been dwelling in my mind recently is the concept of what makes a song successful in the music industry in modern times. Lots of the tracks that make their way into high-ranking spots on charts such as Billboard and iTunes and get a huge amount of radio plays are commonly stuck with the argument that they “all sound the same.” The interesting thing about this statement is that even though lots of people look down on mainstream music because it lacks creativity and/or depth, they had to make it to high-ranking spots somehow, right? Which leads me to wonder, what draws people to certain songs and how are their personal judgements of music developed?

There are countless songs that have been written throughout time that use the same chord progression; included in this list are:

“Hey, Soul Sister” by Train

“She Will Be Loved” by Maroon 5

“Kids” by MGMT

“Paparazzi” by Lady Gaga

“No Woman No Cry” by Bob Marley

“If I Were A Boy” by Beyonce

“Let It Be” by The Beatles

“No One” by Alicia Keys

“Someone Like You” by Adele

“Don’t Stop Believin’” by Journey

“Love the Way You Lie” by Eminem feat. Rihanna

…just to name a few. It’s interesting to analyze the overlaps on all of these songs because we don’t typically hear them as having a large number of similarities. In relation, there are some debates of songs that are clearly and audibly alike from the moment we first hear them. For example, to this day I still have trouble separating Omarion, Chris Brown, and Jhene Aiko’s “Post To Be” from Kid Ink, Usher, and Tinashe’s “Body Language.”

In addition, the first few times I heard “Ayo” by Tyga and Chris Brown, I could’ve sworn it was the same song as “Kama Sutra” by Jason Derulo and Kid Ink.

This is not to take jabs at these artists and attacks them as “uncreative” or “bland,” because I honestly found all of said songs to be catchy. And this occurs in other genres as well; Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers' “Mary Jane’s Last Dance” has been compared to Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Dani California.”

Also, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers' “I Won’t Back Down” somewhat resembles “Stay With Me” by Sam Smith.

These are compelling points because these artists are not typically lumped into the category of being “cookie-cutter,” but they fall into the unfortunate circumstance that so much music has been created and put out into the world that the incident of just-so-happening to create music that has similar traits to other songs is very likely.

At the same time however, is there a higher level of success for the songs that make it into the mainstream media that do actually sound different from the “usual” sound? For instance, recall hit songs like Gotye feat. Kimbra’s “Somebody That I Used To Know,” “Happy” by Pharrell, “Rude” by MAGIC!, “Thrift Shop” by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, “Rolling in the Deep” by Adele, “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley, and “Hey Ya!” by Outkast. All of these songs did tremendously well on the charts, and they had pretty unique sounds in the sense that they weren’t necessarily the typical “cookie-cutter” kind of songs that usually perform well in the music realm -- and they got an extra slight amount of praise and recognition for being different as such. This leads me to my next point, that is consumer preferences.

Music is a very dominant part of my life, and I’d consider my taste in music to be very wide-ranging and broad. I like artists varying from mainstream to small-scale, and I enjoy genres all over the board from hip hop to folk, pop to jazz, neo-soul to indie, EDM to country, and so on. One thing I find myself asking about artists though, is along the lines of “what makes them special?” By this, I mean that I find myself pondering why I should enjoy someone’s music -- what are they doing that is worthy of my attention? What makes them different from other artists? Depicting uniqueness sets apart artists in my mind from everyone else in the music industry trying to break into the scene, and a strong sense of creativity in music-creators very much sparks my interest. But at the same time, how many artists top charts with music that sounds like the song that was in its spot just the week before it? It is an interesting tear between “giving people what they want,” in the sense that an artist creates work similar to already-existing music because they know it will be perceived well as it has been proven to satisfy listeners and the artists that take the “avant-garde” approach to it and make it a goal to come up with something new that contrasts what everyone else is putting out. Of course, there is never technically a guarantee or set expectation as to what music will do well with consumers, but it’s an interesting debate to look into and try to break down which of these creation approaches operates best in the industry.