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The Ice Cream Changes

2011-03-30 · Hank · watch on YouTube · Pop culture · curiosity idea

Lower-confidence wave

2011 videos did not pass the QA gate (17 %); their analysis is shown but less reliable.

Hank shares the '50s progression, which he prefers to call the Ice Cream Changes, and sings snippets of songs from the 1950s to 2011, from Earth Angel to Slipknot, a private person, his own I'm Not Edward Cullen and a private person's Friday, to show how widely it is used; he does not know why our brains like it.

What is said

00:00:00 — Hank's discovery, made while looking for guitar songs, not on Reddit: the 50s progression; 1950s examples

  • ★★★ Hank shares something fascinating he recently discovered while searching for songs to play on guitar, not on Reddit: the '50s progression. — 00:00:00 · Reddit
  • ★★ Hank writes that the video has no cuts, a viewer's challenge he silently accepted, and that viewers should keep challenging him because he likes it. — 00:00:00
  • ★★ Hank says the progression was popular in the 1950s, in songs like Earth Angel, Donna and A Teenager in Love, but also before and after. — 00:00:13

00:00:29 — Popular before and after the 50s; Hank's preferred name, the Ice Cream Changes

  • ★★ Hank prefers the alternate name the Ice Cream Changes: smooth and sweet like ice cream and liked by everybody, except lactose-intolerant people. (playful) — 00:00:37

00:00:53 — 1960s, 1970s and 1980s examples; Every Breath You Take changes the beats per chord

  • ★★ Hank says it continued into the 1960s with Duke of Earl, Where Have All the Flowers Gone? and Octopus's Garden. — 00:00:53
  • ★★ Hank says it kept going in the 1970s with a song actually designed to sound like it was from the 1950s. — 00:01:20
  • ★★ Hank says it continued into the 1980s with Every Breath You Take, the first time the number of beats per chord was changed. — 00:01:37

00:01:56 — 1990s: one beat per chord; Hank's own Edward Cullen song uses it too; the 'Bieber flip'

  • ★★ Hank says in the 1990s it went from two or four beats per chord change to one, as in She Has a Girlfriend Now. — 00:01:56
  • ★★ Hank says no one is exempt: his own song I'm Not Edward Cullen uses the Ice Cream Changes too. (playful) — 00:02:12

00:02:34 — 2000s: a private person's Baby, Slipknot, and the recent 'Friday'

  • ★★ Hank says it was sweetened up for the 2000s for 'our little friends', as in a private person's Baby. (playful) — 00:02:34
  • ★★ Hank says it is not only happy songs: Slipknot uses the same chords as a private person. — 00:02:49
  • ★★ Hank says the progression is in a very recent song, the most popular of the year depending on one's definitions of popular, year and song: Friday. (playful) (hedged) — 00:03:09

00:03:40 — Hank doesn't know why our brains like it; sign-off

  • ★★★ Hank says he doesn't know why our brains like these progressions, but they obviously do. — 00:03:40

Humor (significant)

  • Hank says he likes the name Ice Cream Changes because everybody likes it, like ice cream. — 00:00:42 > «Except for lactose intolerant people, who hate this chord progression.»
  • Hank's glasses start falling off mid-song and he flicks them back with his hair. — 00:02:27 > «I did the Bieber flip, I Bieber-flipped them back on!»
  • After singing Slipknot's angry lyrics and greeting any Slipknot fans watching, Hank lands the comparison. — 00:03:07 > «They used the same chords as a private person.»
  • Hank introduces Friday as the most popular song of the year, depending on your definition of popular and of year… — 00:03:09 > «and also on your definition of song»

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