The Millennial Whoop

You probably listen to popular music.

Let me clear something up first. I don’t mean that in any way that would make me seem like an elitist hipster snob that can’t ever listen to anything “mainstream”.

Rather, I mean it in the literal sense. There are dozens of songs that have been extremely popular in the past few months or years that we could all probably recognize as soon as they started playing. For example, Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Good Time” or Twenty One Pilot’s “Ride”.

Now, the purpose of this post isn’t going to be criticizing these songs. You can decide for yourself whether they are good or bad, based on your own tastes. (Although I will admit that personally I think Twenty One Pilots are pretty good.) The actual reason I bring up these two songs is because they are good examples of the concept of the “Millennial Whoop”.

The Millennial Whoop is an extremely fascinating (or annoying, depending on who you ask) musical pattern that has become extremely prevalent in popular music in the past few years, hence the name. Essentially, the Whoop refers to progressions of notes that alternate between the 5th and 3rd notes of a major scale, typically accompanied by the singer belting out “WHOA-OH-OH-OH-OH-OH” along with the notes.

As examples, you can check out the whoop in action in the two songs I mentioned:

Carly Rae Jepsen – Good Time (the whoop happens practically as soon as you start the video)

Twenty One Pilots – Ride (the whoop is first heard at 0:48)

So, you might be thinking, “Cool. You pointed out a similar pattern in two popular songs. So what?”

Basically, the Millennial Whoop goes way further than just these two songs I’ve shown as examples. The popularity of the whoop by recording artists has skyrocketed in recent years, and it has a lot to do with how we consume music, which is very closely linked to how much we actually enjoy the music (duh).

And such is the appeal of the Millennial Whoop, utilizing it’s 3rds and 5ths. These alternating major 3rds and 5ths sound extremely harmonically pleasant together, so when we hear them on the radio, not only does it catch our attention quickly, but it does so in such a way where we start to enjoy the melody practically immediately. You know how sometimes you hear a song come on for the first time, and after listening to it only once, you already think it sounds really good? There have actually been studies conducted in the auditory sciences showing that this is far more likely when the Millennial Whoop is present.

It’s an extremely simple note progression, but it’s easy to anticipate and catch onto, and it sticks in our minds after we hear it. We could probably all sing along to the Millennial Whoop pretty well in most songs too, considering that usually, all you need to say is “Whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh”. Music artists (and popular pop artists especially) know this well, which is why practically every single popular artist nowadays has the whoop in at least one of their songs.

But that’s not necessarily bad for our music industry. Every artist should be able to capitalize on something that people like to listen to, and there’s nothing inherently bad about a chord progression so catchy that we can’t help but enjoy it. However, the reason that it has started to become more of a concern for the music industry in recent years is because of just how much we hear it through today’s popular music, to the point that it holds the risk of getting seriously repetitive. If you go and turn on 98.5 FM right now, and don’t hear the unmistakable whoop by 10 minutes later at most, I would extremely surprised.

My take is that if you hear the same progression in every song, then no matter how good said song may be, eventually, you are going to get tired of it. But I also can’t say whether getting tired of songs is a bad thing because I also love discovering new music all the time as well. So really, my own opinion on the whoop is conflicting. Overall, I think that there are valid points for either side –  the positive or the negative – that the millennial whoop is enjoyable and valuable, or that it is repetitive, boring, and annoying. Perhaps both sides could even be true at the same time, depending on how good of a mood you’re in while listening.

More examples of the whoop:

• Katy Perry — “California Gurls” (1:05)
• Demi Lovato – “Really Don’t Care” (1:00)
• CHVRCHES — “The Mother We Share” (0:32)

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