Millennial whoop

In the slavishly playlisted, gnat's-attention-span world of daytime radio, the Whoop has become a signalling device, often cropping up bang on cue around the one-minute mark, saying: "Hey wait! Don't run away just yet!"

Music blogger Patrick Metzger, [1]

The millennial whoop is a melodic pattern alternating between the fifth and third notes in a major scale, typically starting on the fifth, in the rhythm of straight 8th-notes, and often using the "wa" and "oh" syllables.[2]

It has been extensively used in 2010s pop music.[1][3]

Origin

The term was first coined by the musician Patrick Metzger, who described it in a blog entry on The Patterning in August 2016,[2] and later in a TED talk in February 2017.[4] He suggests that, while the millennial whoop gained popularity from the late 2000s to 2010s, it has probably always been around.[5]

Lawsuit

In 2013 songwriter Ally Burnett tried to sue Carly-Rae Jepsen and Owl City over their 2012 song "Good Time", arguing similarities to her 2010 song "Ah, It's a Love Song".[1] Jepsen settled out of court, but Owl City won.[1]

Uses

An early use of what would later be known as the "millennial whoop" is the 1983 song "Jungle Love" by Morris Day and the Time.[6] A notable use of the millennial whoop is in the 1987 theme song by Mark Mueller for the American animated television series DuckTales which ran for a total of 100 episodes.[7] It does not occur in some other language versions of the 1987 theme[7] nor in the 2017 English version of the theme song.[8]

The 2017 song "Millennial Whoop" by The Pilgrims was written as a response to the idea of older generations looking down upon the younger for using such tropes: the song makes use of the interval pattern.[9] Black Metal band Zeal & Ardor used the millennial whoop in his song "Waste" off of Stranger Fruit.[10]

Songs where the millennial whoop appear include:

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Haynes, Gavin (August 30, 2016). "The Millennial Whoop: the melodic hook that's taken over pop music". The Guardian.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Metzger, Patrick (August 20, 2016). "The Millennial Whoop: A glorious obsession with the melodic alternation between the fifth and the third". The Patterning. Retrieved 2016-09-19.
  3. ↑ Bui, Hoai-Tran (August 29, 2016). "What is the 'millennial whoop' and why is it in every pop song?". USA Today.
  4. ↑ Metzger, Patrick (February 28, 2017). "Why do so many pop songs sound the same?". YouTube. Retrieved 2017-11-14.
  5. ↑ Bartleet, Larry (September 1, 2016). "What Is The Millennial Whoop? Once You Hear This Virulent Pop Hook You Won't Be Able To Unhear It". NME. Retrieved 3 September 2016.
  6. 1 2 3 Epstein, Adam (August 27, 2016). ""The Millennial Whoop": The same annoying whooping sound is showing up in every popular song". Quartz.
  7. 1 2 NerdSync. "Why the DUCKTALES Theme Song is Stuck in Your Head Right Now...", YouTube. 4 November 2017. Retrieved 23 December 2017.
  8. ↑ Disney XD. "Theme Song DuckTales", YouTube, 15 June 2017. Retrieved 23 December 2017.
  9. ↑ "The Best Vermont Music of 2017 (So Far) - County Tracks". County Tracks. 2017-06-22. Retrieved 2017-10-23.
  10. ↑ "Zeal & Ardor – Stranger Fruit track by track". Retrieved 14 June 2018.


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