A study of “harmonic surprise”—points where the music deviates from listener expectations—in popular music over several decades found that Childish Gambino’s “This Is America” had the most contrastive harmonic surprise. Hip-hop artist Childish Gambino (aka actor Donald Glover ) made a splash in 2018 with the release of his Grammy-winning hit single, ” This Is America .” With its stark, sudden shifts between choral melodies in major chords and menacing percussive elements drawn from the trap subgenre , the song constantly defies the listener’s expectations throughout.
Source: Hit songs rely on increasing “harmonic surprise” to hook listeners, study finds