'Gen Alpha Melody' Is Everywhere, Once You Hear It

When Danish music student Carl Martin sat down to write a song of his own in 2019, he thought he'd struck upon a brilliant original melody. Turns out, he had instead tapped into the hook of a generation, reports the Washington Post. After writing his piece, he began to notice the same four-note melody in all kinds of modern songs. The more he dug, the more he heard it all over the world, from Rosé and Bruno Mars, to K-pop acts, and indie bands. "I was pretty sure at the time it was not just a chord progression," he tells the Post. "It was an exact melody being copied." Given its surge after 2010, Martin dubbed it the "Gen Alpha Melody" and put out a 14-minute video on YouTube with examples and an explanation that now has more than 3 million views.

In his video, Martin says the looping melody has a bittersweet feel to it, and is usually paired with lyrics that explore heartbreak and melancholy, notes the New York Post. USC musicologist Nate Sloan is impressed with the "pretty stunning" examples laid out in the video and suggests a theory for its popularity: "It's very cyclical," he tells the Washington Post. "It sort of circles around. It's like a merry-go-ground or a carousel"—perhaps like the "endless scroll" young people are so familiar with thanks to social media.