Everything you should know about “millennial whoop”

By: Darwin Pesco

“Ohhh….ahhh….ohhhh…..ahhhh”

Everyone is hearing that sequence in every pop song. Well, that is a feature of today’s songs that are the main reason why we are always hooked with every tune of it.

The millennial whoop was coined by The Patterning writer Patrick Metzger, and it is defined as “a sequence of notes that alternates between the fifth and third notes of a major scale.”

Evidently, the pattern is a feature in every song, such as Katy Perry’s California Gurls where the song was started with an introduction of “wa-ohh-wa-ohh” during the bridge.

In a video by Quartz, California Girls was the peak of millennial whoop, it started every memorable pop song with “oohs” and “aahs.” Some of the songs that followed its footsteps were Carly Rae Jepsen and Owl City’s Good Time, in which Andy Samberg parodied it in his satirical film Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping.

It seems like no one can stop this phenomenon in music. Well, it is not a bad thing for according to Metzger, “The reason pop music is successful to begin with is because almost every song is immediately familiar before you get more than 10 seconds into a first listen.”

So next time you have a favorite song, check out if there’s a millennial whoop feature in it.