The last great pop hook

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-hkpLXwHUQ

Obnoxious, which is what noisy female pop should be like. Add a slight element of europop to the mix, and that's about right.

I DON'T CARE - I LOVE IT

[alan nagsworth]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-hkpLXwHUQ

Obnoxious, which is what noisy female pop should be like. Add a slight element of europop to the mix, and that's about right.

I DON'T CARE - I LOVE IT

I find this song very grating. That buzzing lead synth is awful. I mean, I know you don't care, and you love it, but Charli XCX has been involved in far better stuff since this.

[Brundle-Fly]

Another vote for Happy.

Tightrope by Janelle Monae.

I wonder if 'melody' is the most subjective thing of all? More than taste in aesthetic, humour or physical attraction?

[Lordofthefiles]

Bad Romance has at least two killer hooks.

F-my-H almost 9 years ago!... I'm old as shit!!

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

https://youtu.be/dX3k_QDnzHE

Oh wait no hang on, it's still Midnight City by M83. Relentless hook. And why not.

The saxophone blowout at the end is still one of the great - relatively recent - moments of delivery... a pop song reaching its zenith.

[buzby]

:O

I forgot about this song, it's so good! I also forgot how much I bloody fancy Rachel Stevens. Phew.

The extended mix is great too. I like that as well as being a great pop sing it's a meta commentary on the music industry's pop starlet meat grinder. It also wound Alison Goldfrapp up because Richard had the temerity to use the Schaffel beat (even though Goldfrapp had cribbed it off 70s glam disco stuff like The Crunch), and resulted in Geri Haliwell locking herself in a car outside his studio in a fit of pique because she couldn't have the song.

[Jockice]

Beat of My Drum by Nicola Roberts is arguably the best British pop song to peak at number 27.

Nonsense. Bad Cover Version by Pulp wins that award.

[Jockice]

The last pop record I can remember really liking is We Found Love by Rihanna. Which was (gulp) seven years ago. I am spectacularly not down with the kids these days. You may scoff, but it'll happen to you too if you live long enough.

[gilbertharding]

Some Girls by Rachael Stevens sounds very Goldfrapp to me. Not a criticism, of either. On the subject of catchy songs called Some Girls I always had a very grudging affection for the one by Racey.

Moving on... Charli XCX seems to have a good line in hook-heavy pop tunes. You know them all.

[buzby]

Some Girls by Rachael Stevens sounds very Goldfrapp to me. Not a criticism, of either.

Like I said, they both use the Schaffel beat beloved of 70s glam and which made a bit of a comeback in certain dance music circles (most notably electroclash) in early noughties. Goldfrapp jumped on the Schaffel bandwagon pretty early while making Black Cherry. Mr. Philips produced Some Girls in response to having remixes he did for Goldfrapp's Strict Machine rejected (as mentioned previously, Train and Strict Machine owe a debt to stuff like The Crunch, so Philips just mined the same references).

Goldfrapp continued with the Schaffel thing on Supernature with Ooh La La, which she claims was influenced by T. Rex, but it's plainly a pastiche of Spirit In The Sky (Wikipedia says it was sampled on it based on a specious comment in an NME article, but it wasn't - it's a copyright-dodging interpolation). By the time it was released Some Girls had already been a hit, people noticed the similarities and Ms. Goldfrapp got very annoyed at being compared to Stevens in interviews (and said some very catty things about her in the process). It's a bit rich considering Goldfrapp weren't being massively original in the first place.

[hummingofevil]

Not sure how far from blueprint is acceptable to vear but for vocal hooks that stick in ones head it's hard to beat The Lovely Eggs. At their most pop there is not much that beats them. Maybe this:

https://youtu.be/mYyYqhxxHYY

[alan nagsworth]

Not sure how far from blueprint is acceptable to vear but for vocal hooks that stick in ones head it's hard to beat The Lovely Eggs. At their most pop there is not much that beats them. Maybe this:

https://youtu.be/mYyYqhxxHYY

Uhh beating eggs, lovely or not, is really easy mate. Typical of this bloody student forum to not know the most basic of culinary methods

[Better Midlands]

Depeche Mode used the Schaffel beat in Personal Jesus which was sampled by Jamelia in Beware Of The Dog a few years after Some Girls.

https://youtu.be/xMs172JU30Q

[kidsick5000]

Of the songs she has either kept for herself or were written for others but rejected, there's Chandelier

Good god yes. It's so damn tempting to sing along to it. REally. THe urge is so strong I can barely control it.
Full throated bovine wail it would be, even though I know it will sound like Reeves and Mortimer taking on the high parts of Good Vibrations.
But it is bloody glorious

[gilbertharding]

Like I said, they both use the Schaffel beat beloved of 70s glam and which made a bit of a comeback in certain dance music circles (most notably electroclash) in early noughties. Goldfrapp jumped on the Schaffel bandwagon pretty early while making Black Cherry. Mr. Philips produced Some Girls in response to having remixes he did for Goldfrapp's Strict Machine rejected (as mentioned previously, Train and Strict Machine owe a debt to stuff like The Crunch, so Philips just mined the same references).

Goldfrapp continued with the Schaffel thing on Supernature with Ooh La La, which she claims was influenced by T. Rex, but it's plainly a pastiche of Spirit In The Sky (Wikipedia says it was sampled on it based on a specious comment in an NME article, but it wasn't - it's a copyright-dodging interpolation). By the time it was released Some Girls had already been a hit, people noticed the similarities and Ms. Goldfrapp got very annoyed at being compared to Stevens in interviews (and said some very catty things about her in the process). It's a bit rich considering Goldfrapp weren't being massively original in the first place.

And if I'd READ THE F***ING BOARD I'd have seen your previous post. As well as the Charli XCX love.

[The Boston Crab]

Probably the sax solo outro to Bobby Jean.

LOVE YOU BIG MAN
LOVE YOU BOSS
LOVE YOU MORIBUND AMERICAN MANUFACTURING
etc.

[kidsick5000]

I think you will find Xenomania nicked the hook for The Promise from Ronnie Hazlehurst's theme for Blankety Blank

RIGHT YOU, BUZBY! If that's even your real name.
You and I are going to have words.
It bloody happened again. Strolling back from the canteen at work, humming along...

"tum te tum You're gonna make me, make me love you
Nothing at all, nothing that I do
BLANKETY BLANK, BLANKETY BLANK!!!"

It's not fair

[buzby]

RIGHT YOU, BUZBY! If that's even your real name.
You and I are going to have words.
It bloody happened again. Strolling back from the canteen at work, humming along...

"tum te tum You're gonna make me, make me love you
Nothing at all, nothing that I do
BLANKETY BLANK, BLANKETY BLANK!!!"

It's not fair

Heh! Don't shhot the messenger - blame Xenomania for being lazy theme-tune stealing slags (not just the hook either, the rest of the track is done in the style of Hazlehurst's 70s TV themes - the verses are quite reminiscent of elements in The Two Ronnies intro and outro themes. It was a common observation when it was released, Terry Wiggon even mentioned it on his radio show.

It's hardly the only example in Senomania's Girl's Aloud canon - No Good Advice's verses are a thinly disguised copy of  My Sharona.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

https://youtu.be/dX3k_QDnzHE

Oh wait no hang on, it's still Midnight City by M83. Relentless hook. And why not.

The saxophone blowout at the end is still one of the great - relatively recent - moments of delivery... a pop song reaching its zenith.

Come on now, that last 30 seconds...

[non capisco]

That extended version of 'Some Girls' by Rachel Stevens is a soddin' banger. It completely passed me by when it was a hit single 14 years ago for some reason. But then I completely misremembered that S Club 7 song as going "S Cluuuuuuub's gonna fuck you uu-u-uuup" so what do I know.

The first Sugababes single Overload is the best thing they ever did by a country mile, I'm saying
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CV7EI-s3MqU&frags=pl%2Cwn

We're just doing great pop hooks by now, right? Just to reiterate I don't think a record that came out 18 years ago was the last great pop hook, I'm not some kind of staggering dimwit.

[hummingofevil]

In comments section this is described as an "accidental banger". Attempted piss-take or not it is so unbelievably catchy.

https://youtu.be/VDYCiatghgI

[Better Midlands]

In comments section this is described as an "accidental banger". Attempted piss-take or not it is so unbelievably catchy.

https://youtu.be/VDYCiatghgI

Post Malone's pre-fame euro-pop piss take is catchy too
https://youtu.be/XWr2VZiov_A

[Clownbaby]

This cast a spell on me since I heard it. She's done a bunch of ironically uncomfortable songs that sound like an alien trying to recreate Britney Spears. The sort of eerily limp repetition won't leave my head

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=epRMpS5lk2I

Hot like the tropics hot like the tropics hot like the tropics hot like the tropics hot like the tropics hot like the tropics hot like the tropics hot like the tropics hot like the tropics hot like tropics

[Phil_A]

It's got to be Blue Lights, innit. Kind-of stopped me in my tracks when I first heard it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYwRsJAPfec

[purlieu]

This cast a spell on me since I heard it. She's done a bunch of ironically uncomfortable songs that sound like an alien trying to recreate Britney Spears. The sort of eerily limp repetition won't leave my head

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=epRMpS5lk2I

Hot like the tropics hot like the tropics hot like the tropics hot like the tropics hot like the tropics hot like the tropics hot like the tropics hot like the tropics hot like the tropics hot like tropics

Oh, I love her. 'Smooth Like Power Steering' got stuck in my head for ages when I first heard it. I love that she plays live at noise shows and stuff.

[jobotic]

I was going to say Call Me Maybe but until reading this thread I was convinced it was by Katy Perry. Must have only heard it on the radio and zoned out when the DJ spoke.

Talking of Katy Perry the chorus to California Gurls is pretty damn catchy.

Agree also about Forget About It and The Promise.

Some of them on here I've forgotten how they go as they were playing.

This isn't pop and I can never decide if he's good or not (actually I can - he can be great and he can be fucking dreadful) but ths is a real earworm.

Lil B - No Black Person Is Ugly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83p69JhDnwU&app=desktop

[FsF]

Despite sounding rather smug and plummy, the unusually-surnamed George Ezra has a few catchy moments in his song 'Paradise' from earlier this year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOwihbur34E

[thecuriousorange]

Black Magic by Little Mix was a corker.

[flotemysost]

Not suggesting it's the last great hook, as it's hardly recent, but I've always loved Oblivious by Aztec Camera: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2B2Sc2G_5ZA One of those songs I first heard in a shop or something, pre-Shazam, but remembered it for years until I could finally identify it.

Resuming the Charli XCX appreciation, her choruses on Iggy Azalia's hit Fancy were clearly the best (and catchiest) bit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-zpOMYRi0w

Another obvious choice, but The Cardigans' Lovefool is so simple but works so well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NI6aOFI7hms  (Although as I child I used to get it confused with Barbie Girl, for some reason.) They've got so many ridiculously perfect hooks to choose from, though.

I've also quite enjoyed the various chart hits over the last decade or so with female vocals and catchy but slightly dark/moody-sounding melodies - Umbrella by Rihanna (which was of course gargantuan at the time), I Kissed A Girl by Katy Perry, RIP by Rita Ora, etc.

[canadagoose]

The bridge and chorus of The Pretenders' Human is really catchy. I don't know why it came to mind, but it did. Stuck in my head for ages when I first heard it.