While some brave people are out here mildly defending The Chainsmokers, the massively popular frat-boy EDM duo, they are much more widely reviled as formulaic pap, churning out the same saccharine song over and over. Many of the songs on their new album Memories…Do Not Open could receive the Nickelback treatment, their general chord progressions and dynamic shifts functioning identically song after song.
This video pretty comprehensively confirms that suspicion, showing the musical theory undergirding all of those starry-eyed club musings.
Watch as John Fassold takes the dick-measuring bros’ basic three-chord structure and turns it into wistful EDM anthems about oak trees, Febreeze, the city of Santa Fe, and more. This video proves how basic The Chainsmokers’ song-writing acumen is, but moreover it proves (again) how much fun it is to make fun of them for it. Maybe on their sophomore record they’ll find a fourth chord.