The Most Repetitive Showman
The Greatest Showman is a 2017 movie musical starring Huge Actman Hugh Jackman as P.T. Barnum, along with a star-studded supporting cast performing at the highest level. The film enjoyed great commercial and critical success and is still beloved by many.
I didn’t care for it.
While watching the film, I noticed that most of the songs sounded awfully similar to each other. In particular, the film heavily relies on the progression I-V-vi-IV. This is understandable to an extent, as this progression is extremely popular in modern music – according to hooktheory.com, it is the most commonly found progression in their database by a large margin. I wasn’t surprised to hear the progression appear in The Greatest Showman, but I was surprised by just how often it was used. In my viewing and listening experience, I felt as I was listening to the same song for most of the film, and it wasn’t a particularly original or interesting one song. However, when I tried to explain this to others who were less familiar with chord progressions, I realized that this analysis was both hard to explain and hard to quantify. So, naturally, I built a program to remove the ambiguity. Now I can take every chord progression in The Greatest Showman and analyze EXACTLY how repetitive the soundtrack is, by comparing all of the chords to the I-V-vi-IV progression, which from this point on I will simply refer to as the Common Progression.
Let’s start from the beginning.
The Greatest Show
The film opens dramatically, by which I mean loudly, then quietly, back and forth over and over again. According to my The Greatest Showman songbook, which will be my official source for all chord progressions throughout the soundtrack, the introduction alternates between a B minor chord and “N.C.,” or No Chord. Eventually this settles in to a continuous B minor. While two slight chord changes are suggested, the sparse orchestration does make them feel more like a suggestion, and they don’t form any sort of looping progression besides continual B minor – the audience doesn’t perceive a true chord change until a minute and forty seconds through the first track. The lyrics remain equally consistent, as the ensemble vocals shout a prolonged “Whoa” nine times before we ever hear another word (Barnum correctly stating that this break from the intro is indeed the moment I’ve been waiting for), and will continue to return to this rich narrative vein throughout the song. While I don’t find that particularly interesting, analysis with the program can confirm it obviously doesn’t match the Common Progression. Visuals below, in case you really couldn’t tell that not changing chords at all didn’t match the Common Progression.
In a complete reversal, the song then launches into the chorus, with the 8 chord progression D A Bm7 G D F# Bm G5. I conducted this portion of the analysis before I had developed the split chord sheet, but the effect is the same, and in this instance it’s useful to have the first half of the progression visible separate from the second (see the outro). The first half shows a near perfect match besides a single extra tone, and while the back half falls barely under 50, due almost entirely to the F# chord, this means that the average scores of the chorus round to 69, indicating a nice overlap with the Common Progression.
The second verse is far shorter than the first, lasting only around 20 seconds. While it still occasionally sits on B minor, it does so for much less time. This verse also contains the progression Bm G E5 F#, but this progression plays once through without any repeat, so analysis with the program isn’t particularly appropriate in this instance. It’s fair to say neither verse is a fit with the Common Progression.
And then we’re back to the chorus! We know this one matches well with the Common Progression. Maybe the bridge will bring something new.
Nope! The bridge Bm G D A is a 100% match. After the bridge concludes we return to the chorus, which after a while transitions to an outro which gets rid of the second half of the chorus progression (you remember, the half that WASN’T a near-perfect match), leaving just D A Bm7 G until the end of the song.
So, this song effectively has three types of sections. The verse sections have very little overlap with the Common Progression, while both the chorus and bridge contain either heavy or complete overlap. But wait, the chorus and bridge may use the same progression, but they start on different chords, doesn’t that count for something? No. Not according to the program at least, which I designed to discount such a phase shift, because I don’t believe it counts for anything either.
A Million Dreams
The musical’s second song opens with the 8 chord progression G D/F# Em7 C5 G D C5x2. For the record, this will be the last time I include any notation on chord inversion or what note is in the bass (because the program analyzes chord root, not lowest tone) unless the note in the bass is not otherwise part of the chord. As we can see below, the song’s intro and verse also share heavy overlap with the Common Progression. It was at this point in my first viewing where I started to have a sense that the Common Progression might be sticking around for a while.
The verse then transitions to a prechorus with the progression D Em7//D C(add2)(x2), which at various points throughout the song will be altered slightly with additional nonchord tones. I don’t have photos of this section’s analysis, as I completed it before I had built the manual comparison section and adding nonchord tones to the display was very difficult at the time. However, I ran the progression in its various forms and no permutation ever got above 45, so this section is pretty safely not a match.
On to the chorus. Its progression of G D Am11//G Csus2 uses an A minor variant of chord rather than the E minor we might expect from the Common Progression, but in this case the great amount of nonchord tones encompassed all the notes of E minor anyway, further raising the score to a heavy overlap once again.
The bridge is a different story. With the progression Em Em/D# Em7 C#halfdim C(add2) G D#dim, this progression is far from the Common Progression.
I initially didn’t plan to include an image of this chord progression, as it resists analysis due to its form. It opens with a chromatic walkdown, and the progression never makes a complete repetition as the second iteration alters both the chords and the phrase length, making it resistant to analysis with this program. I decided to include this example because even in its simplest form it pushed against the program’s outermost edge at the time and showed no significant overlap. There’s a lesson here: if you don’t want your song analyzed by a pedant, then make your song less straightforward to analyze so a pedant can’t learn intermediate Excel and dissect your song. This section is a refreshing break from the commonality of the rest of the song and film as a whole, and reminds me that the composers could’ve written something interesting if they had so chosen. Instead we come running back to the far-too-familiar arms of the Common Progression when we relapse return to the progression in the chorus. With the exception of the prechorus and the novel bridge, another song concludes with great overlap to the old progression we may not know and love, but the progression we certainly know.
Come Alive
Alright. I like this song. Out of everything on the soundtrack, this is easily my favorite. It’s not just because it strays from the Common Progression throughout, but the fact that [SPOILER] seven of the other eight songs rely on that same progression reeeeally helps this one stand out.
The first verse opens with sparse suggestions of chords, similar to some phrases toward the start of The Greatest Show, but this time we DON’T take 100 full seconds to develop into something else while shouting “Whoa” a lot of times. The progression, more fully realized through the later and more fully orchestrated verses, plays D Am11 G(sus2/4) Gm, repeats twice, meriting analysis and earning a low score of 33.07. The next 8 measures don’t quite repeat, so analysis isn’t really required, but just in case I checked and yep, they aren’t any more similar to the Common Progression. This is followed by a prechorus which also doesn’t quite repeat, but scores similarly low at 17.49.
The song’s chorus generally follows the progression D Am11 C(add2) G, but frequently peppers in nonchord tones not specified above. After trying a number of variations and examining the written notes in the guitar and piano lines, the highest I could persuade the score to move was 53.06. Sure, that is just within the threshold I usually give for showing similarity, but that is the maximum within the progression, and when taking the average of the chorus the number falls below 50.
Now seems a good time to mention that the above-or-below-50-to-60 dividing line is somewhat arbitrary, largely being based on the results found in testing the program, and is left as a range to emphasize the potential ambiguity within this range. Scores in this range should be examined with extra care, remembering the degree of uncertainty found here. Remember that a score of 50 doesn’t indicate that 50% of the song is a match and 50% isn’t, because we are multiplying by fractions placed in absolute best fit. The program and its grading scale are new enough that understanding the meaning of the numbers may take some time, and they are best expressed in relation to one another – giving a score of 53 is somewhat meaningless in a vacuum, but easily shows comparison of similarity in contrast with other examples. It’s also possible that this range guideline could change over time, as we understand the program’s tendencies better. Keen observers may notice that some screenshots list the line of significance as 50, because this line has already moved since the start of this endeavor as I better understood the program I constructed and how it functioned.
The bridge similarly stands sturdily on its own, amassing a score of 24.59 with the progression Csus2(add#4add6) Gsus2(add6)/Bb D E7, repeated twice, followed by transitional material back into the chorus. No section of this song shows any significant commonality with the Common Progression. Maybe I have misjudged this musical’s redundance.
(Okay, I haven’t. I wouldn’t have spent this many hours analyzing a musical I don’t care for just because two songs share similarity. This song is not a sign of what’s to come, it’s an exception to the rule.)
The Other Side
The film’s fourth song starts similarly independently, with a progression of A5 G5 F5 E earning a score under 20. The 8 chord prechorus shows a flash of commonality with the progression F5 C5 G Am, but the final two chords change on its repetition of F C5 D7(add4) E, dragging the score back below 40%.
And here comes the chorus. Fsus2 C G(add4) Am7 repeats three times, and on its fourth iteration substitutes the final chord with E7. That E7 performs an outsized amount of work, in conjunction with a little nonchord tone help along the way, in bringing this progression’s average score down to merely 60 when the root motion suggests a higher similarity than the score might suggest. I’m not trying to weaponize the score against certain songs or the bias of my ear, I acknowledge that I hear this chorus as more similar to the Common Progression than I would’ve anticipated given its score, and I acknowledge that the results are identifying something I missed myself. If I’m to build an objective system to analyze similarities and repetitions between chord progressions, I must stand by its results or rewrite the system, and no way am I doing that in the amount of time I have currently. While not as similar as many other song sections in the musical, the chorus of The Other Side is more similar to the Common Progression than anything in the rest of this song or in the previous song and suggests a notable, even if less than expected, degree of commonality.
In the second verse, the open 5ths of the first verse are filled out into full chords (Am G F E), resulting in a slightly higher, but barely more significant, score of around 27. These completed triads continue into the second 8 chord prechorus, again raising that score slightly as the first half is a near total match and the second half expresses significant difference.
The track continues with another chorus, followed by a postchorus following the same progression. The bridge/transitional material that follows contain chord lengths and irregular chord changes that defy measurement, showing again both the limits of the system and the decisions of the songwriters when they create something that can be analyzed with such ease. And then we’re back to the chorus. This is now the second song with verses containing little overlap, and choruses with great overlap. Watch for this trend, you haven’t seen the last of it.
Never Enough
Now at the musical’s midpoint, we encounter a score that, in contrast with the last song’s chorus, is higher than I would’ve expected. The verse progression of Ab//Eb Fm Db//Ab Ebsus//E doesn’t sound particularly similar to the Common Progression unless you’re doing the auditory equivalent of squinting, but the program seems to grab on to the unsplit minor chord as the point of firmest compatibility and produces a score juuust barely over 50, this time due to split chords instead of nonchord tones. This again shows the challenges of the scores in the less-understood middle of the scale. As this score falls within the ambiguous range, it falls to the analyst to use best judgement in determining the significance of the overlap. In this instance, I feel very comfortable saying this does not constitute significant overlap, while still noting the ambiguity indicated my the score.
This is followed by a prechorus which should be glad it doesn’t repeat, because if it did then its progression Fm Db Ab(add9) Ebsus//Eb would fit well enough with the Common Progression to put the verse’s score in perspective. Perhaps it exists as a herald to the chorus that follows, whose progression Ab Eb Bbm//Fm Db exhibits a score in the low 80s, and would be a perfect match if not for the first half of the split chord providing some slight variation. In the second half of the chorus the Eb major chord will occasionally add4, and the Db will occasionally add #4 or 9, but even accounting for all nonchord tones the lowest the chorus score ever dropped rounded up to 73.
This is Me
The musical’s sixth song is only the second we’ve encountered to declare itself independent from the Common Progression. Its verse of Bm//A D G//Bm, switching the final chord to A in its final repetition before the chorus, shows little sign of commonality.
The chorus progression enjoys adding and subtracting tones from the progression, making analysis long and unwieldy and not helpful to show in screenshots. The progression and its slight permutations follows D (or D5) Bm (or Bm7) G (or Gadd2 or Gsus2) A (or Asus or A5 or A(add4)). I’m not taking pictures of all those. After playing around with the different combinations I was able to get the progression up to 51, but like the score in Come Alive’s chorus, that was using the most nonchord tones at my disposal. 51 is the maximum score with those variables, not the average of the progression which, I’ll be honest, I didn’t run the exact numbers on because the more permutations you study, the more you realize it isn’t a good match.
For those keeping score at home, so far only two of our six songs have avoided the Common Progression. There are no further songs of this nature. We have a third of the film left in front of us.
Rewrite the Stars
This song does NOT start with lots of incomplete B minor chords contrasted with sections of silence, as the film’s opening track did. This song starts with lots of incomplete B-flat major chords contrasted with sections of silence. It honestly sounds less like The Greatest Show than my description suggests, but it is the justification I need for not analyzing the beginning of the song further. Once the actual chord progression begins it follows F(add4) Gm7 Ebsus2(x2), which scores upwards of 58.
That sounds like a lot, until you remember that nothing before this point proved a significant match, therefore lowering the section’s average significantly. Now seems like a time to mention that notes outside a typical triad have the potential to adjust the score either up or down, in ways that are often challenging to predict. The system simply observes what notes are, and aren’t, played in the two progressions in their state of best fit, and sometimes those realizations are unexpected. In this case it seems the score found a tighter fit due to these notes, but once we average the score with what came earlier in the verse the section’s score drops below significance.
Once we hit the chorus, a lot of the ambiguity is removed. This seems to keep happening when we hit the chorus. With a progression of Gm7 Ebsus2 Bb F, this maps reliably onto the Common Progression with a score that rounds up to 80. There are a couple moments between verses, and after the second chorus, where we slip into a slightly different progression, but after the chords are stated they never complete a full second loop, so they do not require analysis. I can say that with authority, since I made the program. That’s the great thing about this program, it’s made to analyze loops so the little bits that get dropped between sections matter just as much as the little bits of crumbs that get dropped between couch cushions. It’s not laziness that I don’t analyze each individual chord, it’s the way the program works! And I built it to work that way, because I am lazy. Or a genius. It’s definitely one of those. Here’s the analysis of the chorus.
Tightrope
I was ready to like this song. We left common time behind and, for a moment, the Common Progression as well. Our verse progression of A C#7 D Bm opens with a score of under 35, followed by a not-quite-repeating prechorus that scores 43.73 in its first half and 36.22 in its second.
Off to an interesting start. Let’s see what the chorus does.
The chorus does what the chorus always seems to do in this film. With a progression of A E7 F#m D twice through, then F#m D A E(add4) once, then A E7 F#m//E(add4)) D(add2) in its final version, the very lowest of these four chord groups sits at 64.67, with the highest pulling the average much higher, as seen below. Once again, the composers have set up an original song, only to transition into the most well-worn paths when we arrive at the chorus.
From Now On
In a break from norms, the film’s final song opens with a verse that strongly matches the Common Progression, C#m Asus2 E B(add4). Usually we have to wait until the chorus for the soundtrack to settle into this place, but we’re diving straight in here. No sense in prolonging the inevitable, I guess. Maybe the song title refers to how often we’ll encounter the Common Progression.
Surprisingly, this isn’t exactly the case. The prechorus never loops and metrically resists analysis. Moving on to the chorus, we find that the Common Progression is, surprisingly, almost avoided over its 16 measures. Sure, it appears blatantly in its 9th through 12th measures – A(add2) E B(add4) C#m – with a score of 86.22, but when viewed in its broader context the score is far lower, and this almost feels like a knowing nod to the songs that have come before and fallen. I won’t punch down on a song for a single unrepeated instance of the Common Progression, as this is one of the progression’s more tasteful occurrences in the film and to lump in this unrepeated instance would be a misuse of the program.
A proper use of the program would be examining the bridge, which uses the same progression as the verse. There’s the Common Progression again, the only song to exhibit this commonality that doesn’t use the progression in the chorus, but instead in the verse and the bridge, which later serves as an outro to the song with the same progression and score. This plays until the end of the film, leaving us with the same Common Progression that has pervaded nearly the entire musical.
Results and Conclusions
Here is a summary of the sections of each song containing significant overlap with the Common Progression:
The Greatest Show: Chorus (69), Bridge (100), Outro (93)
A Million Dreams: Verse (67), Chorus (71)
Come Alive: (no significant overlap)
The Other Side: Chorus (60), Postchorus (60)
Never Enough: Chorus (73+) (Verse overlap of 51 excluded)
This is Me: (no significant overlap)
Rewrite the Stars: Chorus (80)
Tightrope: Chorus (65-93)
From Now On: Verse (80), Bridge/Outro (80)
By my calculations, out of the film’s nine tracks, this progression was heavily used in seven of the songs. That is simultaneously frequent enough to become very redundant to someone focused on the chord progressions, and also not frequent enough to be counted as a motif – if this very common progression appeared in every single song, I could see the characterization of its use as motivic (even if it would be the least original motif for a pop musical), but its total absence from two songs for seemingly no narrative reason suggests otherwise. I would be willing to hear an argument in favor of the motif interpretation, but I can’t find any logic behind the Common Progression’s deployment in this way, given the “theme” doesn’t appear connected to any character, action, or item of narrative significance beyond “It’s the big part of the song now!” Even excluding the verses, bridges, and other sections which rely on the Common Progression, two-thirds of the film’s choruses are essentially the same progression, and it’s the most common progression in popular music today. That suggests to me that the composers are defaulting back to whatever is most familiar to the audience, both within and outside of the film. I should say, I don’t have anything inherently against the Common Progression. There are some songs that utilize the progression which I enjoy and appreciate. It just appears SO frequently that I can’t help but make comparisons between them. A song built around the Common Progression invites comparison to the other thousands of songs with the same progression, so while some might view the progression as a shortcut for making something sound familiar to an audience, I feel it has the opposite effect of being so familiar that it becomes redundant if it isn’t one of the very best in the pack. I wouldn’t be surprised by seeing the progression appear over the course of a pop musical, probably 2-3 times given its prevalence in the rest of pop music. But seven songs out of nine? To me, that is repetition to the point of annoyance, or at least disinterest. None of the film’s Common Progression songs on their own are strong enough for me to count them among the best examples of the progression, and taken as a whole work the progression is so pervasive that it weakens each song trapped in this repetition, and the Commonality and Repetition Analysis of Progression score proves just how deeply this repetition runs.