Woah-oh-oh-oh woah-oh-oh-oh. Fuck off.
If you're heard the former on your radio and the latter in your head, then you're not alone. In fact, apparently a lot of us out there have been frustrated at the ever-growing use of what one video has coined the 'millennial whoop'.
The same 'whooping', melodic sequence has been in a lot of pop songs over the last few years. This is in all sort of genres, from the shitty pop music of Katy Perry to the shitty rock music of Kings of Leon. However, it is more prevalent in the former.
Check out this video by Quartz which explains it all in greater detail...
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Video credit: Quartz
One of the first people to talk about the whoop was musician and product manager Patrick Metzger. He said: "It's a sequence of notes that alternates between the fifth and third notes of a major scale, typically starting on the fifth.
"The rhythm is usually straight 8th-notes, but it may start on the downbeat or on the upbeat in different songs. A singer usually belts these notes with an "Oh" phoneme, often in a "Wa-oh-wa-oh" pattern. And it is in so many pop songs it's criminal."
Yeah, I don't entirely get what that means either. But we can all agree that the whooping is really annoying.
Apparently the 'whooping' was first heard in the 80s, with songs like Morris Day and the Time's 'Jungle Love' and Baltimora's 'Tarzan Boy' containing the melodic sequence. The sequence of notes for musical effect also go back as far as classical composers such as Beethoven, but it's only included the quite horrific whoop in more recent times.
But when will it end? Well, it's likely to get shelved as soon as people stop buy the records, so here's what I am proposing:
1) If you're considering buying a record containing the whoop... Don't.
2) If you know someone considering buying one of those records... Stop them.
3) And if you're at a house party with somebody starts 'whooping' track... Do the following.
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Go over the to host, don't interrupt if they're mid-conversation - be courteous and wait your turn. Then politely ask to use the host's laptop. Go over to the laptop and load up their iTunes. Have a flick through the playlist, scanning through to check how many whooping tracks are queued up. And then, as politely as you can... take a fucking hammer to the laptop.
#WhoopWhoop - that will teach them.
Featured image credit: Instagram
Featured Image Credit:Topics: Katy Perry