Musicologist Carl E. Martin may have just identified the next generational music trend. In the 2010s, it was the Millennial Whoop, the “wa-oh-wa-oh” sequence in songs like Carly Rae Jepsen and Owl City’s “Good Time” or Katy Perry’s “California Gurls”. But the latest iteration is a little more involved, and even more widespread.
The whole thing started when Martin was doing research for his thesis on the music of Nordic films. Somehow, he stumbled upon this repeated melody in modern pop music. It shows up across genres, styles, and languages as well, with lyrics or strictly instrumental. Martin posted a YouTube video with his discovery, dubbing it the Gen Alpha Melody.
His video plays these songs in sequence, starting out with mainstream pop hits like Bruno Mars and Rosé’s “APT.”, Madison Beer’s “Reckless”, Lewis Capaldi’s “Forever”, Troye Sivan’s “One of Your Girls”, and Clairo’s “Sofia”. But then it shows up in The Strokes’ “Ode to the Mets”, Volbeat’s “Heaven Nor Hell”, Yungblud’s “Sex Not Violence”, Burn the Ballroom’s “Esmeralda”, and Damiano David’s “Born With a Broken Heart”.
Musicologist Tracks Down Earliest Use of Gen Alpha Melody
Martin also gives examples of the melody in Spanish, Italian, and Norwegian, plus in music from Egypt, India, and Lebanon. On first glance, it seems to show up primarily in modern music. But Martin further explained that it has shown up in older songs as well, such as Coldplay’s “Viva la Vida” from 2008.
The full video is worth a watch, as Martin clearly put his actual research on hold to satisfy this discovery. He begins with the examples, then discusses the melody itself and how it’s composed. There’s a section for outliers, before Martin asks the biggest question of them all: Who gets the money?
Because, as Martin explains, it’s “a very specific melody being copied.” This is something that someone wrote that has been picked up in modern music. It’s more than the vocal technique of the Millennial Whoop, which is generic enough to avoid copyright. So, who wrote the Gen Alpha Melody? And how much money would they be owed?
After connecting all the dots, the oldest use of the Gen Alpha Melody that Martin could find was in Anastacia’s “Left Outside Alone” from 2004. He also calculated that Anastacia could theoretically be owed more than $100 million in royalties from the use of her melody.
Photo by Taylor Hill/Getty Images
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