In a rare excursion listening to the top 5 of the UK charts this week, I noticed that aside from the Little Mix song ‘Shout Out For My Ex’, all of the other records incorporated the same chord progression throughout the song, comprising of either 2 or 4 bar loops. I am not saying that this songwriting technique is anything new, listening to songs such as ‘Stand By Me’ or ‘Sloop John B’ would blow that theory out of the water. Nor am I saying it is anything bad! What I am asking is: is this predominance of loop based songwriting an example of technological determinism, were the technology drives the creative process, not the other way around? Listen to the examples below and see what you think