Conference Agenda

This paper interrogates the formal role and constituent composition of the bridge unit in recent popular music through an examination of the songs that contain a bridge on the Billboard Year-End Hot 100 singles charts of 2022, 2023 and 2024—approximately half of the songs in each year’s chart. In recent scholarship on popular music, the bridge is defined as a formal unit that “transition[s] the listener from the main body of the song to the final part of the song” (de Clercq 2025, 24), “connects” two sections (Stephenson 2002, 137), or sets up “a climactic return to the main material” (Nobile 2020, 107). Many scholars define the bridge as featuring contrast (Covach 2005, 71 and Temperley 2018, 153) or instability (Nobile 2020, 94) primarily brought about through harmonic criteria (Everett 2009, 148). I argue instead that the contrasting role of the bridge in recent popular music arises primarily through modifications in texture, instrumentation, and dynamic intensity, in addition to formal blending (de Clercq 2017) with anterior (i.e. “previously heard”) units. The modified incorporation of anterior material, rather than entirely novel (i.e. “new”) harmonic and/or melodic material, positions the bridge as a formal unit in recent popular songs as very different from the historical notion of the bridge in 32-bar AABA form.

The bridge can be divided based on a syntactical arrangement of novel and/or anterior material into a 1- 2- or 3-part structure, which occur at roughly a 50-40-10 percentage distribution respectively. The ends of multipart bridges typically feature a formal blend between bridge function and anterior material (e.g. bridge/chorus blend) through a perceptible reduction in texture and dynamic intensity. Indeed, I argue that even 1-part bridges with only anterior material should still be considered as bridges due to textural and dynamic contrast. This paper will show the possible syntactical arrangements of 1-, 2- and 3-part bridges, and also illustrate how texture and dynamic intensity contribute primarily to the contrast inherent to bridges in recent popular music. It will conclude by examining bridges that resist straightforward categorization or that have an anomalous internal distribution of anterior and novel material.

Meshuggah’s extreme metal songs often have disorienting forms, which eschew conventional verse-chorus teleology (Nobile 2022), instead staging a progression of static sections, creating seemingly intractable expanses of time. And yet, their audiences all seem to know when to start moshing, and when their song forms are written down, their proportions often strongly resemble metal’s normative song form, compound AABA (Hudson 2021). How is it that song forms which look so conventional on paper can feel so disorienting in listening?

To answer this question, I build on theories of metal drumming and song form—which often foreground affordances for physical participation. Traditional theories of pop song form focus on section types determined by lyrics (“verse,” “chorus,” etc.) but metal fans also experience form implicitly through embodied feeling and active motion, such as headbanging and moshing. Metal’s riff-based version of compound AABA can structure this participatory listening by offering fans both specific formal cues (especially drum patterns, see Kozak 2021; Garza 2021; Hudson 2022), and familiar patterns of song form that organize physical engagement (especially buildup intros, verse-chorus “energy cycles,” "transforming or transporting bridges," and half-time "breakdowns"; see Pillsbury 2006, Hudson 2023, Gamble 2019). In this way metal song forms create "ritual spaces" for heaviness, implicitly cueing participatory dance to create shared moments of physical impact and extremity (Hudson, forthcoming book).

I use this conventional framework to analyze Meshuggah’s unconventional song forms, showing how they retain some familiar cues and patterns while also departing from metal's norms. Several of Meshuggah’s most well-known songs follow a pattern of two verse cycles followed by a bridge, with a guitar solo occurring roughly two-thirds of the way through the song’s duration—just like compound AABA (Example 1). However, most of Meshuggah’s songs do not have the conventional teleology of a quieter verse leading up to a louder chorus; instead they alternate, without a sense of directionality or hierarchy, between verses and what I call “pseudo-choruses.” I show how even Meshuggah’s most experimental songs often retain some conventional formal cues (especially drum pattern shifts and guitar solos) which guide listeners’ participatory movement, shaping shared experiences of heaviness.

The vast majority of pop songs today are known to be in verse-chorus form, often including the formal units verse, pre-chorus, chorus, post-chorus, and bridge, though not all songs feature each of these sections. Generally, listeners expect the chorus to serve as the climax, providing a consistent, memorable, and "singable" moment. While scholars have defined certain sections other than the chorus to function as the climax, such as the dance chorus (Barna 2020) and the anthem-type post-chorus (Stroud 2022), the bridge is a transitory and contrasting formal section which is rarely recognized as the song’s primary climax. However, bridges are increasingly moving into the climactic spotlight of pop music. In this paper, I will define and explore the “anthem bridge”, a new subtype of bridge in modern pop which functions as the emotional climax and is the song’s most distinctive, memorable moment, inviting audience participation through singing.