Eagle Eye Cherry, "Save Tonight"

Song: "Save Tonight"
Artist: Eagle Eye Cherry
Album: Desireless
Written by: Eagle Eye Cherry
Year: 1998
Key: Am
Classification: SF1
Lyrical content: "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" (opposite perspective); chart prediction as romantic metaphor
Where used: verse, chorus



One of the problems with designating something the "Sensitive Female Chord Progression" (one of many, many problems) lies in what to do when you inevitably identify your first example of someone with a Y chromosome using it. That honor went to Eagle Eye Cherry, who in 1998 managed to perfectly copy his sister Neneh's career by having one giant hit and then dropping off the face of the earth (or the charts, which might as well be the same thing in this business). So what'd I do in the face of a palpably male performer using a chord progression that I'd previously identified only with women? I shrugged and moved on.

Maybe if I'd picked up on an SFCP song by another male artist first — the Offspring, for instance — I'd've responded differently. But "Save Tonight" makes the transition to recognizing that dudes use the progression as well a reasonably smooth one. Cherry's playing the sensitive-boyfriend card here, begging for a romantic evening before he vanishes the next day (which makes the lyric an eerily accurate analogue to how the song would fare in the real world). There's none of the insistent urging that would suggest that the woman in question is being persuaded to succumb to Cherry's charms despite her better judgement. Whatever's going to happen after the wine has been poured has happened before, and it'll probably happen again once he returns, and he will return.

Truth be told, the whole thing's a bit boring. Cherry picks up on the SFCP right out of the gate and never once drops it. Even "One Of Us" and "Building A Mystery" throw in brief but crucial respites from the relentlessness of cycling through the same four chords ad infinitum. Cherry doesn't bother, and once the full band comes in, you've pretty much heard everything the song has to offer musically. Sure, the chorus features a slightly different melody and adds a vaguely perceptible electric guitar, and a slide guitar plays just enough notes to qualify as a solo, but "Save Tonight" essentially just goes on and on without changing in any substantial way. There's no tension anywhere in the song as a result, and it's not a particularly good sign when you keep looking at your watch as your guy's telling you to make every moment count.

Full song: Eagle Eye Cherry, "Save Tonight"
Listen to the SFCP clip for this song

Heart, "Alone"

Song: "Alone"
Artist: Heart
Album: Bad Animals
Written by: Billy Steinberg/Tom Kelly
Year: 1987
Key: E♭m
Classification: SF1
Lyrical content: unspoken yearning; "Goodnight My Someone" with hairspray
Where used: chorus



Way back when, if you recall, there was an episode of Friends that featured the guys, having just watched Behind The Music for its snark potential, sitting on the Central Perk couch, sober, thoughtful and in full agreement as Joey says, "You forget how many great songs Heart had." It's a moment that's apropos of nothing in particular except, I suspect, the fact that one of the writers had the exact same realization, and with the exact same amount of surprise, not long before. Heart's catalogue might not be especially deep, but the many choice bits have stood up a lot better than most, and their stock has clearly risen over the past few years. Part of that might have something to do with American Idol. As has been noted by several of my associates, Heart is the sleeping giant on the show every year, the regular go-to for female contestants who wish to hang on to their "edge" (so punctuated because the songs most often performed come from the band's mid-1980s reinvention into a clean, heavily-produced, image-conscious pop group) while still showing off their vocal pyrotechnics.

None of this is meant to denigrate the songs themselves or the folks behind them. Most bands never manage to succeed at even one career; Heart managed to pull off two entirely separate careers a decade apart, which deserves a salute. "Alone" was the apex of second-wave Heart and, arguably, all 1980s power ballads. It was big, it was bombastic and it was yearning and melodramatic, making it perfectly suited to both Top 40 radio and prom. In keeping with Heart's roots as Zeppelin-loving rock chicks, "Alone" is essentially their "All My Love." As for the video, well, if you're looking for the ideal visual metaphor for a power ballad, then you won't find one better than an exploding piano.

SFCP-wise, this is kind of a weird one, in that the key of the song seems to shift dramatically between the verse (which is in B♭m but ultimately resolves on a D♭ major chord) and the chorus (E♭m). But in a way, that only helps to set up the SFCP for maximum impact: after a wandering, shifting verse that leaves listeners pleasantly discombobulated and trying to gather their bearings, the simplicity and straightforwardness of the chorus provided an easy-to-follow map out of the wilderness. As for the lyrics, it's interesting to note that Ann Wilson is singing to someone who can't hear her: her calls go unanswered, her secret remains unshared. And the agony of this is tearing her apart. It seems that Heart and the guys who responsible for "Like A Virgin" helped invent emo.

Full song: Heart, "Alone"
Listen to the SFCP clip for this song

Nina Gordon, "Tonight And The Rest Of My Life"

Song: "Tonight And The Rest Of My Life"
Artist: Nina Gordon
Album: Tonight And The Rest Of My Life
Written by: Nina Gordon
Year: 2000
Key: Dm
Classification: SF1 and SF2
Lyrical content: schmoop: 10; gravity: 3
Where used: verse (SF2), chorus (SF1)

So, this song. As previously discussed, I'd certainly recognized the SFCP before, but Nina Gordon is the one responsible for it becoming A Thing. Seriously, what's going on here? Gordon used to lead Veruca Salt, who weren't exactly known for getting gooshy over gentleman callers. And while they weren't always roaring quite as ferociously as "All Hail Me" or, especially, "Volcano Girls," slower numbers like "Earthcrosser" and "New York Mining Disaster 1996" weren't exactly romantic ballads. Even "Loneliness Is Worse" had a bite to it (whether by itself or in the context of Eight Arms To Hold You) that staved off sappiness.

But even if you deem "Loneliness Is Worse" a straight-up love song (as opposed to, say, a spider luring its prey to be devoured), it still can't account for the cognitive dissonance generated by "Tonight And The Rest Of My Life." There's nothing about it that's recognizable as Gordon as she'd existed prior to the song's release: not the Sarah McLachlanish vocals, not the sweeping pop production, not the pantingly purple lyrics. (Whatever your impression of Gordon's songwriting skills prior to this, she never sang of the sky catching fire, shoreless seas and the universe resting in her arms and actually meant it... in a non-metal way, at least.) The video, above, clinches it, with Gordon glammed up to the hilt and frolicking in slow motion along a generic body of water that's clearly just a tank and some sand in a studio somewhere. The first time I encountered the video (which happened to be the first time I encountered the song), it's safe to say that I stood slack-jawed in disbelief for the next five minutes.

All of which makes "Tonight And The Rest Of My Life" something akin to the apotheosis of SFCP songs. It's about as blatant an exploitation of the chord progression as you'll find, grabbing onto the hits of McLachlan, Joan Osborne, Jewel, et al. with both hands in an effort to shed off her previous career and remold herself in their image. For her troubles, Gordon got an Adult Top 40 hit (#7!) and a high-profile placement in The Notebook, and the SFCP officially got its name.

Full song: Nina Gordon, "Tonight And The Rest Of My Life"
Listen to the SFCP clip for this song

Natasha Bedingfield, "Angel"

Song: "Angel"
Artist: Natasha Bedingfield
Album: Pocketful Of Sunshine
Written by: Rodney Jerkins/Rico Love/Lashawn Daniels/Crystal "Crystyle" Johnson
Year: 2008
Key: Bm
Classification: SF1 variant
Lyrical content: a good man is good to find; pretty much just a sideways "Umbrella," really
Where used: verse, chorus

Natasha Bedingfield is a puzzle to me. She has, to my ears, a genuinely interesting voice, with slight cracks running all the way through it that afford her a tremendous vulnerability and openness, and everything about Pocketful Of Sunshine seems designed to obscure exactly that fact. About halfway through listening to the album the first time, I found myself thinking, "I am only halfway through." The songs are mostly factory readymades, and she's ProToolsed to within an inch of her life. It's as though someone said "So, Natasha, you know your whole selling point, the thing that makes you special in a pop arena populated by the Mariahs and Beyoncés and Christinas and Leonas of the world? Yeah, let's fix that." Making her sound robotic sort of misses her appeal entirely.

Then again, what do I know? "Pocketful Of Sunshine" was a huge hit despite suffering the same affliction as Oasis's "Champagne Supernova" and Fastball's "Out Of My Head," where the songwriters essentially said, "One verse! Done!" (Though it should be noted that "Pocketful Of Sunshine" goes one step further, in that it doesn't really have a verse, either.) "Angel" was less ubiquitous, possibly due to being less catchy than a song that's pretty much all chorus. It's not actually a true SFCP, going the same route as Iggy Pop's "The Passenger" in that it switches between a modal approach (ending on A major) and a tonal approach (ending on F#7) on alternate passes. It's a little unsettling, since both chords lead back to the Bm but in very different ways, so there's a constant shift required to make sense of it. But heck, anything that injects some character back into the otherwise gleaming production surrounding Bedingfield is fine by me.

Full song: Natasha Bedingfield, "Angel"
Listen to the SFCP clip for this song

Madonna, "The Power Of Good-Bye"

Song: "The Power Of Good-Bye"
Artist: Madonna
Album: Ray Of Light
Written by: Madonna/Rick Nowles
Year: 1998
Key: Fm
Classification: SF1
Lyrical content: open your heart, already; dumping as nuclear option
Where used: Verse, chorus

Madonna |MTV Music

In retrospect, it doesn't look as though Madonna needed a hit quite so badly. Erotica had stiffed a bit (pun unintended but recognized and unedited), but Bedtime Stories kept the train rolling with "Take A Bow" and "Secret," and Evita gave her the cachet of being Oscar-adjacent, even if nobody saw the movie. At the time, though, the general feeling was that Madonna's momentum was dissipating, and fast. Ray Of Light put a decisive end to such talk, once again repositioning Ms. Ciccone at the dead center of mainstream pop and setting her up to stay relevant for the next decade.

While hardly the highlight of Ray Of Light -- that comes down to a battle between "Drowned World (Substitute For Love)" and the title track, gilded cage versus delirious freedom -- "The Power Of Good-Bye" was a fine single from a fine comeback album. A lot of the credit goes to William Orbit, whose command of electronica prevented the song from being little more than an Ace Of Base knockoff. (There are, it should be pointed out, worse things to be.) More than a lot of SFCP songs, "The Power Of Good-Bye" simply sounds interesting, with a constantly shifting landscape that's constantly in motion and squiggly bits that flit past Madonna, who's standing resolutely still. Considering that the song is a last-ditch for attention from someone incapable of slowing down to give her what she needs, her placidity becomes the song's crucial virtue.

Interestingly, there's a demo version of the song out there that's not nearly as SFCP-tastic as the one that eventually made the album. For one thing, it only shows up in the chorus. The verses are completely different, with a chord progression that rises and falls in a minor key but doesn't have the same sort of circular resolution found with the SFCP. Since Ray Of Light was released in March of 1998, a full eight months after Sarah McLachlan's Surfacing (which featured "Building A Mystery" as its leadoff single), I suddenly find myself with the question of why "The Power Of Good-Bye" morphed into the now-familiar version. I'm not sure I'm ready to say that it was a conscious effort on Madonna's part to duplicate McLachlan's (and Joan Osborne's) success. But it does make a guy wonder.

Full song and SFCP clip disabled

WBUR "Here And Now" interview

The SFCP was featured on today's episode of "Here And Now" on WBUR and many NPR affiliate stations. You can listen to the show in its entirety here; the interview takes up the last ten minutes or so. That includes the various attempts by host Robin Young and me to sing "One Of Us" over various SCFP songs. Note the use of the word "attempts."

Thanks to Young and producer Emiko Tamagawa for all their help.

Listen to the interview: WBUR "Here And Now" for March 4, 2009

Vanessa Carlton, "Hands On Me"

Song: "Hands On Me"
Artist: Vanessa Carlton
Album: Heroes & Thieves
Written by: Vanessa Carlton/Stephan Jenkins
Year: 2007
Key: E♭m
Classification: SF2 (with a brief lapse into SF1)
Lyrical content: true love is eternal; the Dalai Lama would want us to have sex
Where used: Verse, chorus



I honestly would have thought that we, as a nation and a culture, would be over "A Thousand Miles" by now. But by gum, there it is, in approximately a third of all the commercials and previews for romantic comedies (the other two-thirds being taken up by "Unwritten" and "Suddenly I See") still, to this day. Haven't those tinkly piano cascades been played out and squeezed dry? It would seem the world believes that they haven't. Heroes & Thieves doesn't offer anything quite so egregious, though Carlton does manage to find room for the line "I'm a sycophantic courtier with an elegant repost." (That's the way "riposte" is spelled in the liner notes, so: [sic].)

To the extent that there ever was anything Sensitive and Female about the SFCP, it was probably inevitable that Carlton would eventually grab hold of it. She leans pretty heavily on it throughout but gets points for making the verse and chorus entirely different from one another despite having the exact same progression underneath both. It's still afflicted by Carlton's tendency to write lyrics like a pretentiously artsy high schooler, but it's bright and catchy. That's practically a triumph right there.

Full song: Vanessa Carlton, "Hands On Me"
Listen to the SFCP clip for this song

CBC Radio 2 Morning interview, featuring "Alone" by Heart (Friday, February 13, 2009)

The SFCP was featured on Friday's Radio 2 Morning radio program on the CBC, which is Canada's public radio. Tom Allen interviewed me for eight minutes or so, and we talked about which SFCP songs might be the best for Valentine's Day and whether the SFCP might be the Fresh Prince of all chord progressions. (Quick answer: it's not.)

Thanks go out to Allen and CBC producer Alison Howard for their parts in this interview, as well as to the anonymous CBC staffer who first heard about the SFCP when it was being discussed on Seattle radio. That explains how it crossed the border, though it raises other questions as to how a Boston newspaper article was picked up on the other side of the country. In any event, it's an international story now. In case you missed it, here's the interview and the top-of-the-hour teaser that preceded it.

Listen to the full interview: CBC Radio 2 Morning for February 13, 2009
Listen to the teaser: CBC Radio 2 Morning 9:00 a.m. teaser

Sarah McLachlan, "Building A Mystery"

Song: "Building A Mystery"
Artist: Sarah McLachlan
Album: Surfacing
Written by: Sarah McLachlan/Pierre Marchand
Year: 1997
Key: Bm
Classification: SF1
Lyrical content: Goth come-on; hipster-idol glorification
Where used: Verse, chorus



At first blush, McLachlan's song seems like a "One Of Us" clone. There's the Lilith Fair-branded singer (in fact, the first tour took place during the summer that Surfacing was released) and the use of the SFCP in both the verse and chorus. And then there's the production, about which songwriter Eric Bazilian told me, "They obviously really studied the sonics of the 'One Of Us' drums. They nailed it on that."

But the structure of the song itself isn't so simple, with McLachlan making a few subtle choices to generate a slight sense of disorientation. For starters, she teases the chorus at the end of the first verse but holds off on actually delivering it until she's finished with not just the second verse but also a prechorus that offers one of the only three moments that shake up the otherwise uninterrupted SFCP. We're pretty much ready for some sort of break -- a solo, a bridge, something -- by the end of that chorus, but the song's gathered too much momentum by then, so that when McLachlan hits the third verse with the line "You woke up screaming aloud," it's both jarring and inevitable at the same time. That's a testament to the hypnotic heft provided by the constant cycling of the chords and echoed in the lyrics.

Full song: Sarah McLachlan, "Building A Mystery"
Listen to the SFCP clip for this song

Joan Osborne, "One Of Us"

Song: "One Of Us"
Artist: Joan Osborne
Album: Relish
Written by: Eric Bazilian
Year: 1995
Key: F#m
Classification: SF1
Lyrical content: Hypothetical religiosity in the form of rhetorical questioning; Kevin Smith's Dogma five years early
Where used: Verse, chorus



I'm starting with this one because its relationship to the SFCP is a little complex. It certainly wasn't the first song to use the SFCP, not by a long shot. It's not even the song that made me realize that this chord progression was a common one; that honor goes to Sarah McLachlan's "Building A Mystery." (And even that's trumped by the dim realization when I was a teenager that Roxette, Starship and Heart -- twice! -- were all singing the same song.) But it's always seemed to me to be the nexus around which all SFCPs rotate, in kind of the same way that Greil Marcus viewed the Sex Pistols as the intersection of 20th Century postmodernism and dada/Situationalist philosophy. Everything that came before seems to have been leading up to it, and everything that came after has to contend with it.

What helps bolster the centrality of "One Of Us" is that the entire song is based around the SFCP. There's a prechorus (which is revisited at the start of the solo) that splits off from it, but otherwise, the song is the SFCP and nothing but. The vocal melody in the verse shows off part of the strength of the SCFP: Osborne only needs three notes -- a central tone, a whole step up and a half step down -- to cover the four chords as they shift underneath her. It's dead simple, and that up-and-down melody provides a bit of a glimpse as to the way the chords move smoothly from one to the other. Other songs might use it in more elaborate ways, but it's hard to spot a better example of why the SFCP is so versatile than this song right here.

Full song: Joan Osborne, "One Of Us"
Listen to the SFCP clip for this song

FAQ: What does "classification" mean?

Q: What does "classification" mean?

A: Allow me to hand this one over to "One Of Us" songwriter Eric Bazilian:

A bit of nomenclature, by the way, for clarity's sake...

SF1 would be the two beats per chord change variant, e.g. One Of Us, Peace Of Mind, Scott McKenzie, Two Story Town

SF2 is what I'm calling the one bar per chord., e.g. Zombie, It's My Life

FAQ: Why do you care about this, exactly?

Q: Why do you care about this, exactly?

A: I wish I could tell you. All I know is that at some point, I heard the SFCP enough times that I just started picking up on it without even trying. It's kind of like the Wilhelm Scream in the movies: you might never notice it, but once you become attuned to it, you'll spot it everywhere.

FAQ: Are you saying that anybody who uses the SFCP is a hack?

Q: Are you saying that anybody who uses the SFCP is a hack?

A: Not at all. It's a tool like any other. Chord progressions get reused all the time. There's the 12-bar blues, the I-vi-IV-V favored by 1950s rock and roll (and -- seriously -- half of the score of the stage version of Grease) and the I-V-vi-IV covered by Rob Paravonian in his famous Pachelbel Rant, among others. I could fill volumes with I-V-♭VII-IV, seriously.

FAQ: What's so sensitive and female about this chord progression? Don't angry men use it too?

Q: What's so sensitive and female about this chord progression? Don't angry men use it too?

A: Sure do. Here's the thing: "Sensitive Female Chord Progression" was the name I came up with when I first noticed this phenomenon. The first songs that I tied to a common set of chord changes were Joan Osborne's "One Of Us," Sara McLachlan's "Building A Mystery," Melissa Etheridge's "Angels Would Fall" and Jewel's "Hands," which are all songs by Lilith Fair artists. Hence the name. Since the next song I identified was Nina Gordon's "Tonight And The Rest Of My Life," which was a super-goopy pop plea from someone who was rather fierce when she led Veruca Salt, the name seemed to fit all the more.

Since then, though, I've discovered that the SFCP is a heck of a lot more versatile than that. I'd say that half the songs I've found are by men (go figure), and it can be used quite aggressively. But for better or worse, it's stuck in my head as the Sensitive Female Chord Progression, which is how I first presented it to the world in the Boston Globe.

In sum: it's a dumb name. I wish I'd named it something else. But this is what I'm stuck with.

FAQ: Shouldn't it be i-VI-III-♭VII?

Q: You say the progression is vi-IV-I-V. Shouldn't it be i-VI-III-♭VII?

A: Technically, yes. If you're claiming that the progression is in a minor key, then it would indeed be correct to start it on the 1. However. It's also not exactly wrong to say that it starts on the 6, either, although that implies a major key for the progression overall.

What's really important about designating it vi-IV-I-V is that not only is that simpler and cleaner, it hammers home the crucial point that the progression is built from the four most basic chords in modern pop music. You take the I, the IV, the V and the vi, and you could generate a huge chunk of pop and rock from the last 50 years. They're versatile enough that you could just switch them around in whatever order; the SFCP is simply one combination. That becomes far less clear if you "correctly" designate it as i-VI-III-♭VII.

FAQ: What is the Sensitive Female Chord Progression?

Q: What is the Sensitive Female Chord Progression?

A: It's any chord progression that starts with the minor six (vi) and then moves to the major four (IV), the major one (I) and the major five (V). Ideally, it would then repeat. As an example, a SFCP in A minor would be Am-F-C-G.

FAQ: What's this blog all about?

Q: I don't get it. What's this blog all about?

A: The short version is that I figured that as long as I was keeping a list of songs with the same chord progression, I might as well do something with it. (The long version can be found in my Boston Globe article that prompted this blog.) So every week I'm going to post another song that uses the Sensitive Female Chord Progression to demonstrate the ubiquity of it.

Questions? Comments? Song suggestions?

Have any questions about what's going on here? Any comments you'd like to make? Any suggestions for songs I may have missed? Feel free to contact me at spacecitymarc [at] gmail [dot] com. I'm happy to hear about how I can make this project better.

You can also look directly to the right of this post to check out the FAQ list and the complete list of identified SFCP songs. Perhaps I've already answered your question. If not, feel free to email me or leave a comment on the appropriate post. Thanks.

Song list

This is the list of every song I've been able to find (and confirm) that uses the SFCP. Found one that's not here? Leave it in the comments, or email me.

(Songs with "*" use the chords in the SFCP but aren't quite canonical, in the sense that they don't repeat in the same way as the others in the brief time that they pop up.)

1967
*The Doors - "Crystal Ship"
Scott McKenzie - "San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair)"

1974
*UFO - "Doctor Doctor"

1975
*Joan Baez - "Diamonds & Rust"

1976
Boston - "Peace of Mind"

1977
*Iggy Pop - "The Passenger"
Sea Level - "Storm Warning"

1978
Blondie - "Just Go Away"

1979
Graham Parker and the Rumour - "Protection"

1980
*Squeeze - "Another Nail For My Heart"
Warren Zevon - "Play It All Night Long"

1981
*Human Switchboard - "Who's Landing In My Hangar?"
The Rings - "Who's She Dancin' With"

1982
*D.O.A. - "I'm Right, You're Wrong"
The Go-Go's - "Worlds Away"
Toto - "Africa"

1984
The Scorpions - "Still Loving You"
Vixen - "Give It A Chance"

1985
Heart - "What About Love"

1986
Hüsker Dü - "No Promise Have I Made"

1987
Johnny Clegg & Savuka - "Great Heart"
Heart - "Alone"
Loverboy - "Love Will Rise Again"
The Smiths - "You Just Haven't Earned It Yet, Baby"

1988
Midnight Oil - "Beds Are Burning"
The Posies - "I May Hate You Sometimes"
Roxette - "Chances"
*Roxette - "I Could Never Give You Up"
Roxette - "Listen To Your Heart"
Voice Of The Beehive - "Don't Call Me Baby"

1989
Alice Cooper - "Poison"
The Cult - "Sweet Soul Sister"
Ani DiFranco - "Fire Door"
Tom Petty - "Yer So Bad"
Starship - "It's Not Enough"

1990
Bad Religion - "21st Century (Digital Boy)"
INXS - "Hear That Sound"
Jeff Lynne - "What Would It Take"
Straitjacket Fits - "Hand In Mine"
Yanni - "Almost A Whisper"

1991
White Lion - "Broken Heart"

1992
Bad Religion - "Generator"
The Bottle Rockets - "Wave That Flag"
Gin Blossoms - "Until I Fall Away"

1993
The Smashing Pumpkins - "Disarm"
Therapy? - "Screamager"
Urge Overkill - "Sister Havana"
*U2 (featuring Johnny Cash) - "The Wanderer"

1994
Tori Amos - "Cloud On My Tongue"
The Cranberries - "Zombie"
Loreena McKennitt - "The Bonnie Swans"
The Offspring - "Gotta Get Away"
The Offspring - "Self Esteem"
Roxette - "Crash! Boom! Bang!"

1995
Ani DiFranco - "Shy"
Guster - "Window"
Jewel - "Foolish Games"
Joan Osborne - "One Of Us"

1996
Reel Big Fish - "Beer"
Social Distortion - "Don't Drag Me Down"
Paul Van Dyk - "Home"
The Waifs - "Brain Damage"

1997
Cotton Mather - "Password"
Sarah McLachlan - "Building A Mystery"
Shania Twain - "That Don't Impress Me Much"

1998
Eagle Eye Cherry - "Save Tonight"
Peter Gabriel - "I Grieve"
 Jewel - "Hands"
Madonna - "The Power of Good-Bye"
Neutral Milk Hotel - "In The Aeroplane Over The Sea"

1999
Melissa Etheridge - "Angels Would Fall"
The Offspring - "The Kids Aren't Alright"
The Red Hot Chili Peppers - "Otherside"
Britney Spears - "Born To Make You Happy"
Antonello Venditti - "In Questo Mondo Che Non Puoi Capire"

2000
Joseph Arthur - "In The Sun"
Bangs - "Undo Everything"
Bon Jovi - "It's My Life"
Bon Jovi - "Two Story Town"
Tracy Chapman - "Telling Stories"
Eagle Eye Cherry - "Burning Up"
The Cure - "Maybe Someday"
Nina Gordon - "Tonight and the Rest of My Life"
Reggie And The Full Effect - "From Me 2 U"
Sick Of It All - "America"
Cat Stevens - "I've Got A Thing About Seeing My Grandson Grow Old"
U2 - "In A Little While"
Lee Ann Womack - "I Hope You Dance"

Lee Ann Womack - "I Know Why The River Runs"

2001
Michelle Branch - "All You Wanted"
Butterfly Jones - "Anywhere But Now"
Ani DiFranco - "Marrow"
Ben Folds - "Not The Same"
Damien Rice - "Cannonball"
Shakira - "Whenever, Wherever"
The Shins - "Girl On The Wing"
Yiruma - "River Flows In You"

2002
Bad Religion - "Shattered Faith"
Celine Dion - "A New Day Has Come"
Celine Dion - "I Surrender"
Iron & Wine - "Upward Over The Mountain"
Avril Lavigne - "Complicated"
Poyushchie vmeste (Поющие вместе) - "A Man Like Putin (Такого как Путин)"
Sum 41 - "The Hell Song"
Sum 41 - "Still Waiting"
Sum 41 - "Thanks For Nothing"
Superdrag - "The Staggering Genius"
Keith Urban - "You'll Think Of Me"

2003
Gavin DeGraw - "Chariot"
Girlyman - "Maori"
Ben Harper - "Amen Omen"
Lillix - "It's About Time"
Longwave - "Tidal Wave"
Liz Phair - "Why Can't I?"
Staind - "So Far Away"
Yellowcard - "Believe"

2004
Arcade Fire - "Rebellion (Lies)"
Ryan Cabrera – "On the Way Down"
Kelly Clarkson - "Behind These Hazel Eyes"
Green Day - "Holiday"
Jay-Z/Linkin Park - "Numb/Encore"
Avril Lavigne - "Don't Tell Me"
Avril Lavigne - "My Happy Ending"
Social Distortion - "Reach For The Sky"
Regina Spektor - "Us"
Sum 41 - "Pieces"
Keith Urban - "Tonight I Wanna Cry"

2005
Acceptance - "So Contagious"
James Blunt - "Out Of My Mind"
Bon Jovi - "Have A Nice Day"
Tracy Bonham - "Something Beautiful"
Tracy Chapman - "Change"
*Alice Cooper - "Dirty Diamonds"
*Garbage - "Why Do You Love Me"
Girlyman - "Speechless"
*Missy Higgins - "The Sound Of White"
Missy Higgins - "They Weren't There"
Missy Higgins - "Unbroken"
The Hold Steady - "Don't Let Me Explode"
Hope Partlow - "Who We Are"
Jovanotti - "Mi Fido Di Te"
Adrienne Pierce - "Lost And Found"
Stars - "One More Night"
Katie Todd Band - "Figure It Out"
The Veronicas - "Everything I'm Not"

2006
Assembly Of Dust - "40 Reasons"
Boys Like Girls - "The Great Escape"
Kasey Chambers - "Colour Of A Carnival"
Kasey Chambers - "Dangerous"
Kasey Chambers - "Living On The Railroad"
Cobra Starship - "The Church Of Hot Addiction"
Teddy Geiger - "Night Air"
Micah P. Hinson - "The Leading Guy"
The Hold Steady - "First Night"
Into Eternity - "Severe Emotional Distress"
Mat Kearney - "Undeniable"
Mat Kearney - "Wait"
The Killers - "For Reasons Unknown"
Kristy Lee (Cook) - "Devoted"
*Loreena McKennitt - "Beneath A Phrygian Sky"
Pet Shop Boys - "Integral"
Pink - "I'm Not Dead"
Pink - "U + Ur Hand"
Rascal Flatts - "Stand"
Rascal Flatts - "What Hurts The Most"
The Rasmus - "No Fear"
Red Hot Chili Peppers - "Snow"
The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus - "Face Down"
Damien Rice - "9 Crimes"
State Radio - "Camilo"
The Veronicas - "4Ever"
Yogi - "Let You Go"

2007
Natasha Bedingfield - "Angel"
Colbie Caillat - "One Fine Wire"
Vanessa Carlton - "Hands On Me"
The Juliet Dagger - "Flinch"
Avril Lavigne - "The Best Damn Thing"
Avril Lavigne - "Innocence"    
Avril Lavigne - "One Of Those Girls"
Ben Lee - "Is This How Love's Supposed To Feel?"
Maroon 5 - "Back At Your Door"
Tim Minchin - "Canvas Bags"
Hannah Montana - "Nobody's Perfect"
Bret Mosley - "Climbing The Floor"
John Murphy and Underworld - "Sunshine (Adagio In D Minor)"
OneRepublic -"All We Are"
The Postal Service - "Grow Old With Me"
LeAnn Rimes and Bon Jovi - "Till We Ain't Strangers Anymore"
LeAnn Rimes and Reba McEntire - "When You Love Someone Like That"
Marija Šerifović - "Molitva"
*Bruce Springsteen - "Radio Nowhere"
Stars - "The Night Starts Here"
Taylor Swift - "Christmas Must Be Something More"
Timbaland, featuring OneRepublic - "Apologize"
Carrie Underwood - "So Small"
Carrie Underwood - "Twisted"
Carrie Underwood - "Wheel Of The World"
Dan Wilson - "Breathless"
Whitley - "More Than Life"
Wire Daisies - "Mary Jane"
Elliott Yamin - "One Word"

2008
Addison Road - "All That Matters"
Akon - "Beautiful"
*Katie Armiger - "Unseen"
Attack Attack! - "Stick Stickly"
David Archuleta - "A Little Too Not Over You"
David Archuleta - "Waiting For Yesterday"
David Archuleta - "You Can"
Basshunter - "All I Ever Wanted"
Beyoncé - "Broken-Hearted Girl"
Beyoncé - "If I Were A Boy"
Beyoncé - "Radio"
The cast of Camp Rock - "We Rock"
Carolina Liar – "I'm Not Over"
Caithlin De Marrais - "Outer Space Is Still Sexy"
*Marié Digby - "Stupid For You"
Alejandro Escovedo - "Sister Lost Soul"
Giant Sand - "Fire In The Belly"
Guns 'n' Roses - "Shackler's Revenge"
Ha*Ash - "Already Home"
Neil Halstead - "Spinning For Spoonie"
Randy Houser - "Wild Wild West"
Leslie Hunt - "Down Day"
A Kiss Could Be Deadly - "Broken Music"
Jet Lag Gemini - "Bittersweet"
Greg Laswell - "It Comes And Goes (In Waves)"
*Lenka - "Don't Bring Me Down"
Looker - "Spit For Your Shine"
Demi Lovato - "This Is Me"
Aimee Mann - "Borrowing Time"
Meaghan Jette Martin - "Too Cool"
Idina Menzel - "I Stand"
Lady GaGa - "Poker Face"
MGMT - "Kids"
Milk, Inc. - "Forever"
Moby - "Every Day It's 1989"
Noah And The Whale - "Give A Little Love"
The Offspring - "You're Gonna Go Far, Kid"
Katy Perry - "Fingerprints"
Xavier Rudd - "Shiver"
Serena Ryder - "All For Love"
Serena Ryder - "Brand New Love"
Serena Ryder - "Sweeping The Ashes"
Secondhand Serenade - "Fall For You"
The Small Sounds - "Mothers & Daughters"
The Submarines - "You, Me And The Bourgeoisie"
The Subways - "Shake! Shake!"
Sugarland - "Take Me As I Am"
Taylor Swift - "You're Not Sorry"
3Oh!3 - "Don't Trust Me"
T.I. – "Whatever You Like"
The Weepies - "All Good Things"
The Weepies - "Antarctica"

2009
The Alibi District - "Movie Night"
Kris Allen - "No Boundaries"
*Kris Allen - "The Truth"
Lily Allen - "Back To The Start"
Justin Bieber - "Love Me"
Diane Birch - "Rewind"
Black Gold - "Shine"
Bon Jovi - "Work For The Working Man"
Boys Like Girls - "Love Drunk"
Breaking Benjamin - "Without You"
V. V. Brown - "Shark In The Water"
Colbie Caillat - "I Never Told You"

The Clean - "All Those Notes"
Taio Cruz - "Break Your Heart"
Daughtry - "Life After You"
Daughtry - "Supernatural"
Deer Tick - "Smith Hill"
Jason Derülo - "In My Head"
Marié Digby - "Shoulda Been Simple"
Marié Digby - "Machine"
Cara Dillon - "The Parting Glass"
The Dimes - "Lovely Mary Dyer"
*Benjy Ferree - "Whirlpool Of Love"
The Fray - "You Found Me"
Selena Gomez & The Scene - "More"
Selena Gomez & The Scene - "Naturally"
Great Northern - "Driveway"
Green Day - "21 Guns"
Honor Society - "My Own Way"
Honor Society - "Over You"
Hoobastank - "The Letter"
Ian Hunter - "Man Overboard"
Chris Isaak - "We Let Her Down"
Iyaz - "Replay"
Kiss - "Say Yeah"
KSM - "Distracted"
KSM - "Read Between The Lines"
LANDy - "Just A Thought"
Oren Lavie - "Her Morning Elegance"
Lifehouse - "Halfway Gone"
Demi Lovato - "Gift Of A Friend"
Demi Lovato - "World Of Chances"
LoveSick Radio - "Over You"
Maino ft. T-Pain - "All of the Above"
Melissa McClelland - "Brake"
Mika - "We Ate Golden"
Oceana - "Cry Cry"
Paramore - "Where The Lines Overlap"
Ramona Falls - "Melectric"
Rascal Flatts - "Unstoppable"
The Rural Alberta Advantage - "Don't Haunt This Place"
The Rural Alberta Advantage - "Drain The Blood"
*Russian Circles - "Hexed All"
Sarazino - "Cochabamba"
Sarazino - "Desbaratado"
The Sounds - "Crossing The Rubicon"
The Sounds - "The Only Ones"
Regina Spektor - "Blue Lips"
Ryan Star - "Breathe"
The Swell Season - "I Have Loved You Wrong"
Tegan And Sara - "Northshore"
Tinted Windows - "Back With You"
Tiny Animals - "Answer Me"
Tiny Animals - "Norway"
Carrie Underwood - "Change"
Carrie Underwood - "Songs Like This"
Weezer - "Can't Stop Partying"
Weezer - "Put Me Back Together"
Elliot Yamin - "Doorway"

2010
Against Me! - "Bamboo Bones"
Jason Aldean and Kelly Clarkson - "Don't You Wanna Stay"
Allstar Weekend - "Amy"
Allstar Weekend - "Journey To The End Of My Life"
Almost Recess - "The Remedy"
AM Taxi - "The Mistake"
*AM Taxi - "Thanner Boyle Vs. The 7th Grade"
Dave Barnes - "God Gave Me You"
Sara Bareilles - "King Of Anything"
Sara Bareilles - "Let The Rain"
Justin Bieber with Sean Kingston - "Eenie Meenie"
Big Time Rush - "Til I Forget About You"
Brutha - "One Day On This Earth"
Margaret Cho - "Calling In Stoned"
Margaret Cho - "Hey Big Dog"
Miley Cyrus - "Stay"
Kara DioGuardi and Jason Reeves - "New York In Wintertime"
Eminem featuring Rihanna - "Love The Way You Lie"
Eminem - "Not Afraid"
*Evelyn Evelyn - "You Only Want Me 'Cause You Want My Sister"
Sky Ferreira - "Obsession"
Gogol Bordello - "Immigraniada (We Comin' Rougher)"
The Green Children - "Life Saviour"
The Green Children - "We're The Future"
John Hiatt - "The Open Road"
HoneyChild - "Driving Song"
Jewel - "No More Heartaches"
*Jewel - "Ten"
*Joey + Rory - "That's Important To Me"
*Dan Kaplan - "Can't Get Her (Out Of My Mind)"
Sean Kingston - "Eenie Meenie"
Lady Antebellum - "Hello World"
Greg Laswell - "Let It Ride"
The Lonely Island, featuring Akon - "I Just Had Sex"
Shelby Lynne - "Like A Fool"
The Maine - "Color"
The Maine - "Inside Of You"
The Maine - "Saving Grace"
Maroon 5 - "Never Gonna Leave This Bed"
Bruno Mars - "Grenade"
Matisse - "Better Than Her"
Nellie McKaye - "Bruise On The Sky"
*Sarah McLachlan - "Illusion Of Bliss"
Mobile Wash Unit - "Open Book"
Monte Negro - "Perderte (Sonambulos Sin Sueño)"
Murdocks - "Die Together"
*My Chemical Romance - "Planetary (Go!)"
Kate Nash - "Early Christmas Present"
Nelly - "Just A Dream"
Carrie Newcomer, featuring Mary Chapin Carpenter - "Before And After"
*Joanna Newsom - "'81"
Oceana - "Cry Cry"
The Open Feel - "Detach"
Plain White T's - "Broken Record"
Lindsey Ray - "Goodbye From California"
*The Red Elephant - "Brooklyn Sleigh Ride"
Robyn - "Cry When You Get Older"
Yvette Rovira - "Fearless"
Justin Rutledge - "Turn Around"
Sons Of Sylvia - "Love Left To Lose"
Starry Saints - "Unseeing Eyes"
Stars - "The Last Song Ever Written"
Taylor Swift - "Back To December"
*Tristen, "Battle Of The Gods"
Trumpeter Swan - "Eternal Pessimist"
Keith Urban - "Long Hot Summer"
The Weepies - "Hope Tomorrow"

2011
Atlas Genius - "Trojans"
*Augustana - "On The Other Side"
Ian Axel - "Say Something"
Bear Lake - "Scissors"
Natasha Bedingfield - "Neon Lights"
Natasha Bedingfield - "Run-Run-Run"
Natasha Bedingfield - "Touch"
Natasha Bedingfield - "Try"
James Blunt - "Superstar"
Breaking Benjamin - "Better Days"
Colbie Caillat - "Brighter Than The Sun"
Kimberly Caldwell - "Heart Like Mine"
Kimberly Caldwell - "Taking Back My Life"
Kelly Clarkson - "Hello"
Kelly Clarkson - "What Doesn't Kill You (Stronger)"
Coldplay - "Paradise"
Javier Colon - "A Drop In The Ocean"
Dennis Crommett - "Dark Gray Horses"
Daughtry - "Crazy"
Daughtry - "Break The Spell"
Daughtry - "Gone Too Soon"
*Daughtry - "Losing My Mind"
Evanescence - "Lost In Paradise"
Evanescence - "My Heart Is Broken"
Foo Fighters - "Arlandria"
Fountains Of Wayne - "Acela"
Cast of Glee - "Get It Right"
Gloriana - "(Kissed You) Good Night"
Kina Grannis - "Gone"
Kina Grannis - "Strong Enough"
Jason Isbell And The 400 Unit - "Stopping By"
Jessie J - "Nobody's Perfect"
Jessie J - "Who You Are"
Jordan Knight - "Believe"
Jordan Knight - "Unfinished"
Lady Antebellum - "Just A Kiss"
Lady Antebellum - "Wanted You More"
The Lonely Island featuring Michael Bolton - "Jack Sparrow"
Demi Lovato - "Skyscraper"
Demi Lovato - "Unbroken"
Anaïs Mitchell - "Wait For Me"
The Morning Birds - "Higher Thoughts"
Over The Rhine - "The Laugh Of Recognition"
Sean Paul - "She Doesn't Mind"
Pitbull featuring Chris Brown - "International Love"
Pitbull featuring Ne-Yo, Afrojack and Nayer - "Give Me Everything"
Ron Pope - "A Drop In The Ocean"
Ron Pope - "Tightrope"
Ron Pope - "Wherever You Go"
Rihanna featuring Calvin Harris - "We Found Love"
Ringside - "Stay"
Ringside - "This Time"
Roxette - "She's Got Nothing On (But The Radio)"
Runner Runner - "Falling"
Runner Runner - "Life After You"
Runner Runner - "Running Away"
Matthew Ryan - "All Hail The Kings Of Trash"
Matthew Ryan - "All Of That Means Nothing Now"

Cody Simpson - "All Day"

Sloan - "Unkind"
The Smoking Popes - "College"
The Strokes - "Under Cover Of Darkness"
*Sunny Sweeney - "Staying's Worse Than Leaving"
Taylor Swift - "Sparks Fly"
Tinie Tempah - "Love Suicide"
Tinie Tempah - "Written In The Stars"
Keith Urban - "Long Hot Summer"
Kate Voegele - "Say You're Mine"
You Me At Six - "The Dilemma"
You Me At Six - "This Is The First Thing"
Eli Young Band - "Crazy Girl"

2012
Gary Allan - "Every Storm (Runs Out Of Rain)"
ASAP Rocky featuring Drake, 2 Chainz and Kendrick Lamar - "Fuckin' Problems"

Big Dipper - "Forget The Chef"
Cherri Bomb - "Raw. Real."
Kenny Chesney - "Come Over"
Dispatch - "Circles Around The Sun"
Jeremy Fisher - "Built To Last"
Flo Rida - "Whistle"
The Gaslight Anthem - "45"
Girlyman - "Caroline"
*Girlyman - "Empire Of Our State"
*Girlyman - "Nothing Left"
Ellie Goulding - "Burn"
Horse Feathers - "Bird On A Leash"
Casey James - "The Good Life"
Carly Rae Jepsen - "Curiosity"
Aimee Mann - "Charmer"
Aimee Mann - "Disappeared"
Mumford & Sons - "Below My Feet"
*One Direction - "Live While We're Young"
Hayden Panetierre - "Love Like Mine"
Charlie Peacock - "Till My Body Comes Undone"
Gretchen Peters - "Five Minutes"
Pink - "Here Comes The Weekend"
*Joel Rafael - "Dance Around My Atom Fire"
Rascal Flatts - "Let It Hurt"
Roxette - "It's Possible"
The Script - "Hall Of Fame"
*State Radio - "Black Welsh Mountain"
Taylor Swift - "Stay Stay Stay"
Train - "Drive By"
Walk Off The Earth - "Summer Vibe"
Walk The Moon - "Anna Sun"

2013
Casey Abrams - "Get Out"
*Avicii - "Wake Me Up"
Josh Berwanger - "Baby Loses Her Mind"
Luke Bryan - "Crash My Party"
City And Colour - "The Lonely Life"
Daft Punk - "Contact"
Lee DeWyze - "Stay Away"
Echosmith - "Cool Kids"
Fall Out Boy - "Alone Together"
Fall Out Boy - "Just One Yesterday"
Fall Out Boy - "Miss Missing You"
Fall Out Boy - "My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light Em Up)"
Selena Gomez - "Love Will Remember"
Selena Gomez - "Slow Down"
Kree Harrison - "All Cried Out"
Kalli - "Nothing At All"
John Legend - "All Of Me"
Demi Lovato - "Heart Attack"
Demi Lovato - "Neon Lights"
Demi Lovato - "Never Been Hurt"
Demi Lovato - "Warrior"
New Politics - "Fall Into These Arms"
Hayden Panetierre - "I've Been Used"
Patty (Patricia Dłutkiewicz) - "Krzyk" ("Scream")
Cassadee Pope - “Wasting All These Tears”
Thomas Rhett - "It Goes Like This"
Amy Speace - "Bring Me Back My Heart"
Amy Speace - "In Salida"
*Amy Speace - "Perfume"
Tiesto - "Red Lights"
*Twenty One Pilots - "Trees"

2014
Jason Aldean - "Burnin' It Down"
Jason Aldean - "Gonna Know We Were Here"
Jason Aldean - "I Took It With Me"
Jason Aldean - "Tryin' To Love Me"
James Bay - "Craving"
Big & Rich - "Look At You"
The Both - "Milwaukee"
Clare Bowen - "Black Roses"
Luke Bryan - "I See You"
Colbie Caillat - "Try"
Common and John Legend - "Glory"
Ht Bristol, Charlie Bannister, Vincent Steele & Nine One One (Extreme Music) - "Bring Me Back To Life"
*Marianne Faithfull - "Love More Or Less"
Fall Out Boy - "Immortals"
5 Seconds Of Summer - "End Up Here"
Florida Georgia Line - "Sippin' On Fire"
Guided By Voices - "Some Things Are Big (And Some Things Are Small)"
Chrissie Hynde - "Like In The Movies"
Justice Crew - "Que Sera"
Christina Perri - "Human"
Maya Rudolph, Kristen Bell and Sean Hayes - "Frozen Again"
Chadwick Stokes - "Our Lives Our Time"
Carrie Underwood - "Little Toy Guns"

2015
Adele - "Hello"
Jason Aldean - "Gonna Know We Were Here"
Rachel Bloom - "I Give Good Parent"
Luke Bryan - "Games"
Luke Bryan featuring Karen Fairchild - "Home Alone Tonight"
Brandi Carlile - "I Belong To You"
Brandi Carlile - "The Things I Regret"
Michelle Chamuel - "Lottery"
Eric Church - "Kill A Word"
Kelly Clarkson - "Good Goes The Bye"
Kelly Clarkson - "War Paint"
Luke Combs - "Hurricane"
Mikky Ekko - "Loner"
Karmin - "Everything"
Ryan Link - "Under The Rug"
Metric - "Celebrate"
Kip Moore - "Wild Ones"
The Scorpions - "We Built This House"
*Skellums - "Growing Old"
Alan Walker - "Faded"
X Ambassadors - "Unsteady"

2016
Kelsea Ballerini - "Peter Pan"
Dierks Bentley - "Different For Girls"
Dierks Bentley - "What The Hell Did I Say"
Basia Bulat - "Let Me In"
Mary Chapin Carpenter - "Hand On My Back"
Brian Fallon - "A Wonderful Life"
Ellie Goulding - "Still Falling For You"
Lady Gaga - "Million Reasons"
Miranda Lambert - "Getaway Driver"
Miranda Lambert - "Keeper Of The Flame"
Miranda Lambert - "Pushin' Time"
Lighthouse X - "Soldiers Of Love"
Lori McKenna- "All These Things"
Blake Shelton - "A Guy With A Girl"
Sia - "Cheap Thrills"
Gwen Stefani - "Rare"
Volbeat - "Goodbye Forever"
Danny Wood - "Broken"
Danny Wood - "Dance For Me"
Danny Wood - "Here Comes The Silence"
Danny Wood - "Hold On"
Danny Wood - "If Only"
Danny Wood - "My Sunshine"
Danny Wood - "Shine"
Danny Wood - "Waiting On I Love You"

2017

Dove Cameron and Sofia Carson - "Space Between"

Charli XCX - "Boys"

Kasey Chambers - "Summer Pillow"

Alice Cooper - "Genuine American Girl"
Erasure - "Take Me Out Of Myself"
Luis Fonsi featuring Daddy Yankee (with Justin Bieber) - "Despacito"
Grant Gustin - "Runnin' Home To You"
Dustin Lynch - "Small Town Boy"
*Aimee Mann - "Good For Me"
Old Dominion - "No Such Thing As A Broken Heart"

2018
Chvrches - "Miracle"
The Interrupters - "She's Kerosene"
Maddie & Tae - "Friends Don't"
Jason Mraz - "Have It All"
Carrie Underwood - "Backsliding"
Carrie Underwood - "Low"
Pale Waves - "Came In Close"
Kim Wilde - "Pop Don't Stop"
Eli Young Band - "Love Ain't"

2019
Abacus Rings - "Back At School"
Sara Bareilles - "Saint Honesty"
Dalton And The Sheriffs - "You Ain't Her (And She Ain't You)"
Lana Del Rey - "California"
The Highwomen - "My Only Child"
Miranda Lambert - "Fire Escape"
Marina - "To Be Human"
Travels With Brindle - "Rudolph's Ranch"

2020
Gabby Barrett - "Write It On My Heart"
Lina Cooper - "This Time"
Dua Lipa - "Physical"

2021
Kaylee Federmann - "Her Song"

Kaiti Jones - "Gettin Around To It"
Carly Pearce - "What He Didn't Do"
Morgan Wallen - "Wasted On You"

2022
Avril Lavigne feat. Blackbear - "Love It When You Hate Me"
Tegan And Sara - "Sometimes I See Stars"

2023

Morgan Wallen feat. Ernest - "Cowgirls"

2024

Mark Ambor - "Belong Together"

Beau - "What Are You Doing To Me"
Amythyst Kiah - "I Will Not Go Down"
Amythyst Kiah - "Dead Stars"

John Morgan feat. Jason Aldean - "Friends Like That"

Morgan Wallen - "Lies Lies Lies"

Koe Wetzel feat. Jessie Murph - "High Road"

In the media: The Boston Globe

[This is the article in today's Boston Globe where I took this thing public after quietly keeping track of the SFCP on my own for quite some time.]

Striking a chord

Here's an easy way to see if a song uses the Sensitive Female Chord Progression: Just sing Joan Osborne's lyric's: 'What if God was one of us? Just a slob like one of us?' over the suspect four chords.

Joan Osborne (Rahav Segev for The New York Times)

By Marc Hirsh Globe Correspondent / December 31, 2008

Even though Beyoncé's "If I Were a Boy" hit radio too late to be the song of the summer, there's still a case to be made that it's the perfect song to cap off the year. It's not because of the empathetic lyrics, or B's heartrending, disappointed vocals. No, it has everything to do with the four chords that underpin the song's verse, circling from yearning to triumph and back again, four chords that were inescapable in 2008.

Let's call this the Sensitive Female Chord Progression, so named because . . . well, because when I first noticed it in 1998 (when I became keenly aware that Sarah McLachlan's "Building a Mystery" sounded an awful lot like Joan Osborne's "One of Us"), it seemed to be the exclusive province of Lilith Fair types baring their souls for all to see. Think Jewel's "Hands." Melissa Etheridge's "Angels Would Fall." Nina Gordon's "Tonight and the Rest of My Life."

So what is the Sensitive Female Chord Progression, exactly? It's simple enough for the music theory-inclined: vi-IV-I-V. No good? Well, for a song in the key of A minor, it would be Am-F-C-G. Still confused? Here's an easy way to see if a song uses the chord progression: Just sing Osborne's lyrics, "What if God was one of us? Just a slob like one of us?" over the suspect four chords. If it fits, you've just spotted one in the wild. Once you're attuned to it, you'll hear it everywhere.

And the Sensitive Female Chord Progression was indeed everywhere in 2008, which started off with OneRepublic's "Apologize" enjoying its chart afterglow. Since then, it's popped up in songs by Aimee Mann ("Borrowing Time"), Secondhand Serenade ("Fall for You"), Katy Perry ("Fingerprints"), Moby ("Every Day It's 1989"), Sugarland ("Take Me As I Am"), Carolina Liar ("I'm Not Over"), T.I. ("Whatever You Like"), Natasha Bedingfield ("Angel"), and, in a last-minute shocker, Guns N' Roses (the chorus of "Shackler's Revenge").

It turns out I'm not the only one intrigued by this phenomenon. Hooters guitarist Eric Bazilian, the songwriter behind "One Of Us," has a particular interest in it. "I think it's a comforting chord progression," he says. "It was iconic with Heart. It became more iconic with Joan [Osborne]. It became even more iconic with Sarah McLachlan. There's not a lot of testosterone in it, even though ['One of Us'] was written by a man. But it was written by a man to impress a girl. Think about that."

The guys play with this chord progression too, of course. Boston's "Peace of Mind" and Iggy Pop's "The Passenger" gave it a whirl in the mid-1970s. The Smashing Pumpkins made it orchestral and ominous with "Disarm," Bon Jovi turned it into a pop-metal fist-pumper on "It's My Life," and the Offspring has used it no less than three times.

Composer and conductor Rob Kapilow, who hosts National Public Radio's "What Makes It Great?," says the magic of the Sensitive Female Chord Progression lies in the way it can be played over and over and return smoothly to the first chord each time. "What this allows is for it to be very fluid. You're really not centered anywhere. What it does is not have that kind of resolution, that kind of firm, declarative 'We're here.' That's part of the appeal for rock. You want to just keep cycling."

Jack Perricone, chair of Berklee College's songwriting department, thinks the mixture of chords gives the progression emotional heft. "It starts on a sense of maybe disquiet," he says. "In a sense, it's three-quarters major and one-quarter, but a very important quarter, being minor.

"And I think that has to do with credibility, what people experience in life. . . . I mean, that's not a bad mixture, one-quarter sadness or darkness and three-quarters light."

Songwriters reuse certain chord progressions all the time, from the 12-bar blues to the doo-woppish I-vi-IV-V (forever familiar to novice piano players as "Heart and Soul") that helped dominate the 1950s with songs like "Earth Angel" and "Donna." So just because the Sensitive Female Chord Progression had a banner year doesn't mean songwriters are running out of ideas - only that when Beyoncé wanted to tug at the heartstrings, she knew exactly which tool to use.