I had an idea to why metal is so interestingly the black sheep of music, and I’m going to prove it by a practical experiment. I’ve taken the top 10 tracks of the Most Requested Pop songs and Metal songs off of iTunes charts, and I’ve compared their key signature. I’ve allowed only one song for each artist, skipping if the same artist had more than 1 song in the chart. Data obtained from songdata.io
Here are the 10 Pop songs and their key signature:
| SONG – ARTIST | KEY SIGNATURE |
| Afterglow – Ed Sheeran | B major |
| Take You Dancing – Jason Derulo | D major |
| Head & Heart – Joel Corry feat. MNEK | A♭ major |
| Anyone – Justin Bieber | D major |
| Golden – Harry Styles | E minor |
| Paradise – Meduza feat. Dermot Kennedy | A♭ minor |
| Therefore I Am – Billie Eilish | B minor |
| Diamonds – Sam Smith | B♭ minor |
| Prisoner – Miley Cyrus feat. Dua Lipa | E♭ minor |
| Let Me Reintroduce Myself – Gwen Stefani | B♭ minor |
Here instead are the 10 Metal songs and their key signature:
| SONG – ARTIST | KEY SIGNATURE |
| Hour of the Wolf – Tribulation | G minor |
| Eracist – Mr. Bungle | A♭ major |
| Ride into the Light – Spirit Adrift | D♭ minor |
| A Colossal Wreck – Every Time I Die | D♭ major |
| High Risk Trigger – Eyehategod | C major |
| Three Bridges – Cult of Luna | F♯ Minor |
| Glint (live) – Deafheaven | G minor |
| Cling to Life – Hatebreed | F minor |
| Inner Calm from Outer Storms – Killer Be Killed | E minor |
| Genocidal Humanoidz – System of a Down | D♭ minor |
With the exception of Cult of Luna’s C major, we can clearly see the more complex set of chords in the metal section; this doesn’t mean the pop songs are easy to play, just maybe less sophisticated than the metal ones.
I personally prefer a more refined music, that can provoke more than one emotion in a song, but of course that’s just personal taste. Metal music has always been known for having elaborate composing and live performing, sometimes even having more band members than a standard one. What are instead your opinions on this? Is it consistent that metal has more complicated melodies and music of pop music?
