Asklemmy

I'm a sucker for a good buildup and drop in EDM. As much as I complain about tracks whose sole purpose is the drop, if I'm feeling the song and there's a good drop, you'll likely see this 40yr old's bass face.

In hip hop production, at the start of a new bar, silencing the drums and bass for the first quarter note - a technique J Dilla popularized. If your nodding your head along to beat, and the 1 is silenced like that it, it really just hits harder.

In jam/improv based music, the tension and release theory. Where the lead instrument solos in a certain key without ever hitting the root note of that key. It builds up a sense of tension since we expect to hear that note but aren't. The solo continues and the tension increases. Eventually the lead instrument hits that note, and if the band is good, the rest of the their parts increase in intensity simultaneously. The result is a sense of release from the tension and even euphoria.

I love when the track goes completely silent for a single rest after some buildup and then punches back into the full chorus. If that “gap” in noise is part of the melody itself it’s even cooler. It makes the following sound so much more impactful, even if the actual volume hasn’t increased by much.

I love songs that completely change genre partway through. Can be slow acoustic songs that switch to fast techno; loud, bangy songs that turn calm and soft; rap songs with calm, piano-based choruses; whatever.

Examples would be:

• Still Loving You by Sonata Arctica
• Lost Winter Days by Alpine Universe
• Journey to the End by Windir
• Welcome to the Black Parade by My Chemical Romance.

I like it when the vocalist announces what's coming next, like yelling "GUITAR!" right before a guitar solo or "bring back the horns" right before the brass section kicks in or "sing it, girls" right before the female backups echo the refrain.

Siren noises and airhorns and generally post-ironic soundboard noises. Like remember DJs in the early 2000s? When the radio sounded like

(Tires screeching) Husky overly excited voice: you’re listening (Siren blaring) To the one and only (Red tailed hawk screech) (Machine gun noises) 97.4 (Dog barking) (mgm lion roar) KZRL “Krazy” FM (Choir sings hallelujah) Your one-stop-shop for hits from the 70s and 80s (Chorus from “don’t you forget about me” plays) (Guitar solo from Panama)

All those stupid noises are great when they get shoved into mid 2010s dubstep music, and when they are put into SoundCloud mashups.

I quite enjoy it when songs sneakily build up, starting out with a mellow rhythm and after a few minutes, you find yourself in the middle of an epic solo on top of this thick carpet of rhythm, and it's all very much over the top, but it works, because of that slow build-up.

I love that train track or horse gallop chugging rhythm some songs have.
Gives me feelings of movement forward, travel or progression.
Great car songs!

Muse - Knights of Cydonia, Roy Orbison - I Drove All Night is probably a good examples of this.

Mixing metal with other genres or introducing instruments or elements that you otherwise wouldn't expect in metal.

By now most of these are considered to be subgenres of metal but for me it blew my mind when I first encountered them.

Bands like Ayreon, Avantasia, Subscribe, Therion, Haggard, Nightwish, Ostura, just to name a few.

Key change!

Not sure if this is a trope per se, but I love when sounds don't sound "perfect" - the producer kept in a little vocal waver, or the snare isn't hit with the exact same intensity every time. The little imperfections make it feel/sound like real humans are playing the music!

I like it when a chorus gets built up more on each repetition, either with the addition of more instrumental parts, new harmonies or background vocals, or a beat change that brings up the intensity.

Similarly, I like when that same effect happens within 2 halves of a chorus. Example of one I heard recently is the chorus of the song "Breathing" by ELLEGARDEN. The 2nd half adds a higher vocal harmony + a picked lead guitar line that open up the sound a bit and just give it a nice little emotional boost.

I like it when a song turns to sounding like a large group of people singing the song.

I really love concept albums where the chorus of the first song makes a return in the finale. Makes it feel so conplete.

Examples, all power metal:

• Gloryhammer - Return to the kingdom of Fife
• Memories of Old - The Zeramin Game
• Marius Danielsen's Legend of Valley Doom - (all three albums listened to together)

i love the "stepped sound" electro swing music has, especially when brass instruments come into play; the best example i can find is this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGbW44AEHeM

Not sure if it's a trope, per se, but I love finding good covers of my favorite songs in other languages.

Edit: When the lyrics switch into a different language on a breakdown. That's a trope, right?

2, 5, flat 6 to the key change. Or a nice 4 minor chord.

Track 99 on CDs

I call them groove breaks, when the song takes a little break and just grooves for a bit.

The video version of Even Flow by Pearl Jam has a great one, Stranglehold has one, the album version of Sweet Emotions has one as the intro, so maybe not technically a break.

Aeolian/Dorian mode mixture

I love when something is sung in a lower, more calm register and towards the end when things get fast the same thing is said but with a higher octave and more energy like it's so exciting it feels like character development but for music

BLEGH whenever the Singer in a hardcore show says BLEGH sucker punch yo neighborhood. See Hatebreed, Terror for examples of BLEGH

My favorite is when a high energy song does a soft version of the chorus towards the end of the song, and the singer sings more mellow, or sometimes even an octave down. Then the singer goes back into full energy and original octave for one line before all the instruments come back in at full volume.

I love a good "stickedibum". Which is a song ending in 4 quick drum sounds. I can't quite explain it, but for example the four very last drum notes on Alive by Pearl Jam is a stickedibum.

I don't know how to describe it or have the music theory knowledge to understand why it's so satisfying, but the outro for Tank! (Cowboy Bebop opening song) is just so good and I can't explain it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFFa0QoHWvE?t=194

I think sidewinder by avenged sevenfold does what you're talking about.

Any percussive delay with loads of filtered feedback in dub or tech house

Really repetitive samples that evolve like Global Communication - The Way

I can't think of any more examples, but bands that rework an old popular song and keep parts of the melody and make a new one. Both examples I know of are teen spirit/rape me by Nirvana.. and linoleum/linewleum by nofx and are both, imo, reflections of what gained them a larger following. Can you name some more?