Pabllo Vittar’s “K.O.” and “Corpo sensual” — are pre-choruses and bridges about to disappear?

I’m a K-pop fan, so it’s not like I’m conservative with song structures. I have no problems with songs that don’t follow the verse/pre-chorus/chorus pattern; I don’t care if the song has 2 different kind of bridges or even if doesn’t have a chorus at all, as long as it sounds cool.

Well, even if you’re not familiar K-pop, if you’ve been keeping up with mainstream pop music for the last 5 or 6 years, you probably must have noticed that traditional song structures are really dying. Intros are getting smaller, chorus are presented right in the beginning of the song (“Don’t bore us, get to the chorus!” Berry Gordy once joked, understanding that this is what listeners truly gather around).

In the context of Brazilian pop, the songs of Pabllo Vittar are a good example of music’s recent obsession with getting straight to the point. Her two singles so far released, “K.O.” and “Corpo sensual” (featuring Mateus Carrilho), have a very simplified structure, with no pre-choruses or bridges.

Accurately, “K.O.” has a little melodic shift in the two lines that precede the chorus that could play the role of preparation for the chorus. It’s not a pre-chorus, though.

“Corpo sensual” is even leaner: a 2-seconds intro, no chorus in the beginning, and all the lines of the verse follow the same melodic pattern. Even though it has a feature, the other artist sings accordingly to the same structure.

The melodies of both songs were smartly composed, with lots of note extensions in the right places; and we also cannot ignore the contagious instrumental based on forró (a Brazilian regional rhythm). All of this, along with the charisma of Vittar, make “K.O.” and “Corpo sensual” the perfect candidates for being huge hits — and, indeed, they were some of the most played songs in Brazil in 2017.

However, it wouldn’t be a stretch to state that their super simple structures play a role in their success too. The absence of needless sections make them easy to memorise and to sing along.

It also makes us think about the role of song sections in the modern world. The pre-chorus, for example, is meant to prepare the listener for the chorus — but, in 2017, do we really need such preparation? In an era in which streaming services data can tell how many seconds it takes for us to decide if a song is worth listening or not, it seems pointless to use such a storytelling approach of composition. People do not bother to hear the whole story anymore, they want you to give them the highlights right away.

Which leads us to another interesting thing about Pabllo Vittar’s music. Everything about “K.O.” and “Corpo sensual” is intense, there ain’t no waste of line when it comes to pop-tailored melodies. I remember that when I first heard “Corpo sensual”, in the verse I thought: this verse alone could be a chorus in a forró or brega song — and I’m sure I’ve heard songs from such genres before whose choruses sounded a lot like that verse.

Time will tell how music will sound like if we continue to get things as direct and intense as possible — and I’m not mumbling. Being open to such changes is what will guarantee that we won’t miss irresistibly catchy tunes such as Pabllo Vittar’s.