With another pop music trope for a new generation recently revealed, we’re thinking back to pop clichés of years past. The Gen Alpha Melody is the latest in a long line of meme-able, repetitive sequences that have shown up in mainstream music. But what about those that came before? Did the Millennial Whoop pave the way for the Gen Alpha Melody? And how far does it all really go back? Here’s just a sample of some of pop music’s greatest clichés.
The Lick
The Lick evolved within popular jazz and classical compositions, eventually becoming one of the most recognizable jazz clichés of all time. It’s been around for a long time, first appearing in classical arrangements like Stravinsky’s The Firebird. But it wasn’t officially named until around 2011, when musician Alex Heitlinger posted a compilation video of songs featuring this popular sequence of notes.
Just like with the Gen Alpha Melody video, hearing these songs one right after the other is mind boggling. It’s easy to overlook how widespread these themes are in pop music, until you hear them all in sequence. Then, they’re impossible to ignore, and you’ll hear them everywhere. The Lick became undeniably linked with jazz music after that, and shows up most often during improvisational pieces.
The Millennial Whoop
In the 2010s, a vocal phenomenon exploded in mainstream pop music called the Millennial Whoop. This was a short sequence of notes, often repeated in a chorus, accompanied by “woah-oh-woah-oh” vocalizations. The prime example of this is in Carly Rae Jepsen and Owl City’s 2012 single “Good Time”. But it also appeared in Katy Perry’s “California Gurls”, Kings of Leon’s “Use Somebody”, Kesha’s “Tik Tok”, Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance”, and Frank Ocean’s “Ivy”.
The Millennial Whoop of the 2000s evolved out of a 1980s Italian one-hit wonder. Baltimora’s 1985 single “Tarzan Boy” featured one of the earliest uses of the sequence, with vocalizations in the chorus used to mimic Tarzan’s famous call. Years later, it became a mainstream pop music cliché when it saturated the airwaves.
Stomp-Clap-Hey
One of the worst Millennial music offenses has to be the stomp-clap-hey genre of folk pop that grew in the late 2000s. We’re talking Mumford & Sons, The Lumineers, Of Monsters and Men. Not to mention the biggest offender of them all, Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, whose hit “Home” was recently labeled the “worst song ever made”. This micro-genre of hipster indie folk was widespread from about 2009 to 2012, so thankfully it ran its course pretty quickly.
However, in recent years, stomp-clap-hey has returned to the majority consciousness. Those who had a fully developed brain during this time often remember it with sepia-toned, self-deprecating nostalgia. But Gen Z kids with nothing better to do released it from its time prison and stared at it with unfiltered derision. It’s cringe, there’s no denying that fact. The stomp-clap-hey years were a weird time, and the music was undoubtedly kind of bad. But was it the worst music ever made? That list is way too long these days. But I’d say “Home” cracks the Top 40 at least. It’s definitely in my personal Top 5 most-hated, despite what I said about nostalgia. Ho, Hey, both things can exist.
Photo by Marc Broussely/Redferns
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