As the first month of Q4 comes to a close, it’s time for October’s Under the Hood, where we take a look at the month’s 15 Hot 100 Top 10 hits.
The month’s top artist was Lil Nas X with three Top 10 hits – Montero (Call Me By Your Name), Industry Baby and Thats What I Want – followed by Ed Sheeran, Justin Bieber and Drake with two hits each. Together, these top four artists comprised over half of the month’s Top 10 (nine out of fifteen songs).
But what did these songs, in addition to the month’s other six hits, look like at the compositional level?
- Primary Genre: October’s most popular primary genre was pop with 60% (9 songs) of the Top 10. Hip hop followed with 20% (3 songs) including Industry Baby, Knife Talk and Way 2 Sexy.
- Sub-Genres & Influences: Pop was an influence in all but one song, Drake’s Knife Talk. Rounding out the top three were hip hop (a mainstay in the top three) at two-thirds of songs and rock, dance/club and electropop, which tied for third place at one-third each. The latter three have all been on the rise over the last several quarters.
- Lead Vocals: Roughly half (8 songs) of the month’s Top 10 featured multiple lead vocalists. As usual, male vocalists dominated with two-thirds of songs (10). Three were female-led (Easy On Me, Good 4 U and Kiss Me More) and two were male/female duets (Essence and Levitating).
- Lyrical Themes: The top three lyrical themes so far in Q4 are love/relationships at 67% (10 songs), lifestyle at 33% (5 songs) and hooking up at 27% (4 songs) (note that songs can possess multiple themes). While love/relationships and hooking up both rose notably in October, lifestyle was cut down from half of songs in Q3 to just one-third so far in Q4. This is largely due to the influx of Drake songs last quarter, six of which had a lifestyle theme. Only one lifestyle-themed Drake song carried over into Q4.
- Instruments: The five most popular instruments in October were synth bass and drums at 93% of songs (Adele’s Easy On Me was the only exception, which had electric bass and only very minimal kick drum), followed by non-bass synths at 80% (12 songs), electric guitar at 60% (9 songs) and claps at just over half (8 songs).
- Key & Tempo: While two-thirds of October’s Top 10 hits were in a minor key, major keys were the most popular among #1 hits with three out of the month’s four chart-toppers. In regard to tempo, average tempo so far in Q4 is up to 105 BPM, 12 BPM faster than Q3’s average of 93 BPM. This rise comes after one full year of quarters averaging between 87-88 BPM.
- Song Length: Average song length in October was 3:20, 15 seconds shorter than the Q3 average of 3:35.
- First Chorus Occurrence: The average time it took to reach the first chorus in October’s Top 10s was 37 seconds, which was on par with the Q3 average. The 20-39 second range was the most popular with roughly half of songs, followed by the 1-19 second and 40-59 second ranges at 20% each.
- Intro & Outro: Every single song began with an intro (note that My Universe’s intro consists only of a brief two-second riser leading into a chorus). The average length was 11 seconds, and the most popular characteristics were possessing a sparse arrangement and establishing the backing music of the following section (80% of songs each). As for the outro, all but four ended with an outro, with the remaining songs (Fancy Like, Levitating, Shivers and Thats What I Want) ending with a chorus. The average outro length was 15 seconds.
How will the rest of Q4 shape up? Stay tuned for next month’s Under the Hood to find out!