The verses of the song Whatchugot by Caro Emerald have a very obvious bop every 8 beats.

I'd like to find other pop songs that highlight the 1 of each 8 count, or even better the 1 of each 32-count phrase, but I don't know the terminology to describe what I'm looking for to Google.

Is there a term for this?

  • If you count this as 1&2&3&4&, the very obvious bop is on the first beat of every bar. – Tim Nov 13 '19 at 8:11

Boogie-woogie is a style often called "eight to the bar." The song sounds to me like a hybrid of boogie-woogie superimposed over a 4/4 rock backbeat.

Boogie-woogie is often swung, so to be more precise I'd this a straight boogie.


There may be other terms for this in popular music, but one related technical term in music theory is hypermeter, where measures are grouped together into larger units, so you might feel a sense of a "downbeat" every 2 bars or 4 bars or 8 bars or whatever. In the song you mention, there is a "bop" on each hypermetric downbeat.

Otherwise in pop music, there is also the notion of a "groove," which often tends to cycle and repeat every X number of beats or measures. (However, the term "groove" can also mean a lot of things, from the "feel"/style of a piece to a cyclic rhythmic pattern.) Some people also just call these a "cycle" of beats.

There's probably some other term I'm forgetting but these are a few that are related to the pattern you're noticing.

Your Answer

