Why Do Westlife Stand Up for the Key Change

I'm not a great fan of pop music to be honest. I much prefer heavy metal. One band a loath is Westlife, the Cheezy Irish band from about 10 years ago. You may notice that all of their songs sound the same and most pop songs sound the same too. Now that sounds like a sad old dad moaning about modern music. But, there is a reason why all pop songs sound the same and it has more to do with maths than creativity.

In my last post I talked about the golden ratio, it is a ratio that appears in nature and art that we are naturally drawn to. Notice that the curve of an arch in our churches looks beautiful and we are drawn towards it, similarly in music a cord of notes sounds beautiful. Why because the cord is in that same golden ratio of 1.6.

So here is why all pop songs sound the same the height of the song should be found in the ratio of 1.6. So if you apply some maths you can find out where the height will be without listening to it. Westlife’s you raise me up is 4 mins long, which is 240 sec. The golden ratio is 1.62 so if we divide 240 sec by 1.62 we will find out when Westlife stand up for the key change.

So lets do it: 240 / 1.62 = 148 sec which is 2 min 28 sec into the song.

Test it out with the youtube video below. Go to 2 min 20 sec and notice the bridge of the song some in at 2 min 28 sec

Me and my son made a video where tested out various songs a last year have a go yourself its fun in a nerdy way.

The question for us is why are we drawn to beauty?

Why are these patterns within our universe?

It’s almost as if someone is trying to communicate with us, I wonder who that could be?