Yesterday Once More

6 Oct 2015

Riffs And Hooks

Hi Listeners

This week we are presenting two features of popular music: riffs and hooks. Without getting too technical we have defined a riff as the ‘musical sequence in a song usually as the opening instrumental segment and repeated throughout the song’ while hooks are ‘phrases or words that literally ‘hook’ the listener and draw them into a song’. The hook is repetitive and attention grabbing. In selecting songs that demonstrate riffs we have included familiar riffs such as in ‘Day Tripper’ (Beatles), ‘House Of The Rising Sun’ (Animals), ‘Wild Thing’ (Troggs), ‘Shakin’ All Over’ (Normie Rowe) and ‘Pinball Wizard’ (The Who). The success of a good riff is whether the listener can recognise the song easily from just the riff.

Hooks in songs are the essential heart of a song. Without a hook a song would not have much appeal. To demonstrate whether a song has a great hook or not longevity can be the bench mark. That is why I’ve included a sixty year old song ‘Whatever Will Be Will Be’ (Doris Day) because the hook reaches across many generations. Some research has been done to select great hooks and the Queen song ‘We Are The Champions’ figures prominently in the top bracket of songs with great hooks. Some hooks can be annoying such as Culture Club’s ‘Karma Chameleon’ but others catchy such as Johnny O’Keefe’s ‘She’s My Baby’ or Bobby Sherman’s ‘Julie Do You Love Me’.

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