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" Ever wonder why a lot of the big hit songs on the radio sound the same? That&amp;#039;s because there are only so many combinations of chords you can string together to make music. As a songwriter, I&amp;#039;m always analyzing chord progressions, and lately I&amp;#039;ve been hearing a lot of one in particular: minor 6-4-1-5. Forget your daily lotto. These four numbers can make a musician a lot of money. I&amp;#039;ve found that anytime this sequence of chords forms a chorus, the song is a smash. To prove it, I ensconced myself in my upstate New York toolshed, where I stayed for 12 days, subsisting on only Toblerone bars and pouches of Capri Sun.  With Project 6-4-1-5 under way, I began with my theory&amp;#039;s bell cow: Sarah McLachlan&amp;#039;s gigantic 1997 hit, &amp;quot;Building a Mystery.&amp;quot; Using the chord progression minor 6-4-1-5 for its chorus, it is one of the most harmonically influential songs written in the last decade. I say harmonically because the sound of McLachlan&amp;#039;s refrain is unforgettable, yet I can&amp;#039;t really follow the lyrics. (I think the story takes place in the Bat Cave, but I&amp;#039;m not certain.) Though McLachlan didn&amp;#039;t invent this chord progression -- it appears two years earlier in Joan Osborne&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;One of Us&amp;quot; -- it was only after she used minor 6-4-1-5 in her megahit that it began to show up elsewhere. Lee Ann Womack borrowed it to great effect three years later for the chorus of her hit country ballad, &amp;quot;I Hope You Dance.&amp;quot; These two songs serve as great replacements for one another in a pinch at the karaoke bar.  The most recent 6-4-1-5 subscriber is Ryan Cabrera, with &amp;quot;On the Way Down,&amp;quot; which I instantly pegged as a &amp;quot;Mystery&amp;quot; devotee. Ditto for 2001&amp;#039;s Michelle Branch ditty &amp;quot;All You Wanted.&amp;quot; Avril Lavigne&amp;#039;s biggest song to date, 2002&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;Complicated,&amp;quot; also has the same chord progression. She liked it so much, she used it again on &amp;quot;Don&amp;#039;t Tell Me&amp;quot; two years later. All these tunes burned up top-40 radio, and though you may not remember a single lyric, the bet here is that upon second listen you could easily hum their refrains. So what is it about the chord progression minor 6-4-1-5 that makes it so infectious? Music theorists will tell you that the wavelengths of each chord fit together mathematically. But I just think people know a hit tune when they hear it. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/music/a2800/esq0506mayer-38/>