You have your big groups and your indie bands, your classical composers and your jazz legends. You have the pop stars who have been around for decades and the Latin hits that consistently rank high on the charts. And then there are the music tropes: the common and overused songwriters’ clichés that seem to make their way into every single genre, from rap to rock ’n’ roll and hip-hop.
If you’re into songwriting and music production, you know how hard it is to come up with fresh ideas. Every chord, drum fill, melody, and even lyrics get recycled over and over again, and it’s getting harder to find something that hasn’t already been done or doesn’t sound suspiciously familiar. You’ve surely been there, listening to a new tune and thinking, “Hey, doesn’t this sound like that song?”
We all have music formulas that we secretly like, while others have gotten so boring and annoying that we’re ready to rip our headphones off and throw them across the room. So which tropes in music are trite to the point that people explicitly said they couldn’t stand them anymore? That’s what we’ll find out today, thanks to a Reddit thread that asked people to name the music clichés they’re sick of hearing. From the classic “boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back” love story to excessive auto-tune, we’re calling out all the overused music elements that make people want to hit the skip button!
#41
"Poorly executed bass drops that sound all the same (think chainsmokers)."
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15points
#42
"My pet peeve is when the singer says his/her own name. Has annoyed me since Sugar Ray did it in "Every Morning." Even more annoying when multiple artists are in a track and start naming themselves. It's a song, not a roll call!"
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14points
#43
"95% of the time when someone is singing about 'eyes', they try to de-emphasize the harsh sounding nature of the word by drawing it out, and putting a down-pitch on the y. So it sounds like a posh british person saying 'a*s'.
So now whenever I hear people singing about eyes, all I hear is them saying ass."
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13points
#44
"Needless fade-out endings, children that can't sing and are most likely only being paid in chocolate, slurring words so no one can understand the lyrics the first time around, and rap segments in songs they have NO BUSINESS being in."
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13points
#45
"In metal, the relatively quiet intro for 4 bars followed by an abrupt yell or growl, then followed by the basic riff. e.g. Every nu-metal song."
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13points
#46
"Singing about love, relationships (starting, having, or ending) and sex, as though that were the sum totality of human experience. I find myself drawn toward musicals and comedy songs just for the variety. There's more to life than finding the right fluids to wet particular parts of your anatomy.
Let's have a song about when you're running late to work only to discover that your car won't start, or how comforting it is to come home on a Friday night from a very busy week to the home where you live alone knowing that you have absolutely nothing planned whatsoever until Monday morning. Or a song about that time you confidently taught your kid cousin the names of the all stars and constellations you could see in the sky one night, only to look them up later and realise that you got every single one of them wrong. These are relatable experiences to most people and humanity would benefit from having them immortalised in a catchy anthem."
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13points
#47
"Ending the chorus with “tonight”
Most producer tags, Generic upward key change in the last chorus, Quiet verses, then explosive choruses (not really bad, just kind of predictable)
Also not really a cliché, but it annoys me when people only focus on Freddie Mercury, and completely ignore that Brian May John Deacon, and Roger Taylor are all also phenomenal musicians."
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13points
#48
Beastyboyy1 wrote:
"Chords. So overrated. I like the classics, back when it was just sticks on mammoth vertebrae. Then it all went downhill with those damn “Baroque’s”"
"Chords. So overrated. I like the classics, back when it was just sticks on mammoth vertebrae. Then it all went downhill with those damn “Baroque’s”"
ManPiaba replied:
"Sticks and vertebrae are for posers, grunts are where it’s really at."
"Sticks and vertebrae are for posers, grunts are where it’s really at."
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13points
#49
"Having music videos or lyrics that are inherently suggestive in nature when it's really unnecessary. I find the suggestive videos with perfectly normal lyrics the most annoying, as it's unneeded, and it's not like it's going to make me want to watch it more."
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13points
#50
"When the lyrics say "stop" and the music stops for a couple of beats. So clever, not."
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13points
#51
gozba wrote:
"How a lot of songs use the same chord changes. Yes, I know what the blues is, but that doesn’t mean all pop songs need to follow those changes. Be creative."
"How a lot of songs use the same chord changes. Yes, I know what the blues is, but that doesn’t mean all pop songs need to follow those changes. Be creative."
My_dog_is-a-hotdog replied:
"It’s not just blues though, the same chord changes have been used since the invention of the Motet."
"It’s not just blues though, the same chord changes have been used since the invention of the Motet."
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13points
#55
"No longer a thing, but The Loudness War that dominated rock and metal in the late 90s and 00s.
I don't know why people thought compression and amplification made their music better... but it's made much of that music from that period straight up unlistenable. The thing is, you can accomplish a "wall of sound" type of vibe for your music, if that's what you want, without loss of fidelity. Just look at someone like Devin Townsend... even during that period when he was still with Strapping Young Lad and had one or two solo albums out... He had that "loud" presentation of his music, but it sounded so good... because he didn't go into the sound file, cut out his lows and highs... and put out what is essentially butchered music like most of his peers in the genre."
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13points
#56
"In black metal, the use of intros. Its way overdone and so outdated, just get into it, already!!!"
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13points
#57
22poppills wrote:
"Whatever Imagine Dragons is."
"Whatever Imagine Dragons is."
Commenter No. 2 replied:
"It's like their music was made for commercials or tough dudes on tiktok."
"It's like their music was made for commercials or tough dudes on tiktok."
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12points
#58
"The electronic drum machine snap/clap that’s increasingly popular in country music."
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12points
#59
"Rhyming “fly” with “high” (even switching it up and throwing in a “sky” in there)
Rhyming “night” with “light”
Rhyming “away” with “stay”."
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12points
#60
DonovanMcLoughlin wrote:
"Any time a musician says "I don't know..." in their lyrics."
"Any time a musician says "I don't know..." in their lyrics."
DismalChance replied:
"Ozzy Osbourne has a song you're really going to love."
"Ozzy Osbourne has a song you're really going to love."
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12points
