Axis of Awesome 4 chords song. How does this band play so many top songs just with 4 chords when the songs sound very different? What are the chords?

Question

In: 4

Answer 1

A lot of popular songs have similar chord progressions because they sound nice to our ears, follow a familiar pattern, and are easily looped. Even if the chord progression is the same, there’s a lot of other things that can be different—the melody, the tempo, the key, the instrumentation, and so on.

Some examples of popular chord progressions:

* The most common pop chord progression is Major 1st -> Major 5th -> Minor 6th -> Major 4th. e.g., [Don’t Stop Believin’](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k8craCGpgs)

* An inverse of the above is Minor 6th -> Major 4th -> Major 1st -> Major 5th. e.g., [Hall of Fame](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Kxf2dHlDpQ)

* The 1950s progression, so called due to its prevalence in early pop music, is Major 1st -> Minor 6th -> Major 4th -> Major 5th. e.g., [Heart and Soul](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOXl4mp_QKE)