What do you consider a hook to be in a song?

To me, it's a any catchy musical phrase, mostly a chorus, that's repeated through out the song. It could also be a just a musical hook such as a catchy guitar intro, or guitar riff that's played during the song's verse or just a vocal phrase that's catchy, rhyming and often repeated. If I'm mistaken then let me know.

 

That’s pretty much my definition.

 

A catchy musical hook lures the ear worm to lodge itself in the brain.

 

WE BUILT THIS CITY...

WE BUILT THIS CITY ON ROCK AND ROLL

 

That's how I see it too. Not much to debate!

 

Its a musical passage so aesthetically pleasing that neural transmitters release dopamine into our pleasure centers. And yes, that is a real thing.

 

In this case, an augmented 5th piano chord:

The Crystals - "All Grown Up" (originally unissued version)

 

I really don't know how to properly explain in musical lingo what I think a hook is (or isn't), but "Man In The Moon" by The Scream has plenty of them.

For example, the bassline that jumps out at you at the 2.09-2.10 mark, the guitar "draw" at the 2.27 mark, and then bass line has plenty of them throughout the outro beginning at the 4.35 mark.

Again, I can't explain it, but that's what I'm hearing as hooks (although there more hooks in this song than I can point out before it starts getting overly-repetitive and tedious).

 

Yeah. You may not know how to describe it, but you know it when you hear it. (I mean 'you' in the general sense, not you specifically.)

 

The part you can't get out of your head all day. Like a Coke jingle, but in a good way. This is the first place my mind went. Holland-Dozier-Holland were masters of these little earworms:

"And each time we make romance,
I'll be thankful for a second chance
(Oooooh!)"

 

You could have a heart attack-ack-ack-ack-ack-ack trying to define it.

 

To me, whatever catches your ear, when listening to a song, is quite possibly "the hook". A certain chord progression, a catchy chorus, a certain instrument that plays something unusual.

When I think of a "hook", I almost always think of the following song, as I so love the slow buildup to the thunderous chorus, when Joe Vannelli just goes "full on" keyboards and the song reaches out of the speakers and pulls me in.

Gino Vannelli "Living Inside Myself"

 

One of the all-time greatest "hooks", is when Hal Blaine wings out those four classic downbeats in Herb Alpert & The TJB's "A Taste Of Honey", which took that song from great to legendary.

Hal explains how it happened here ...

 

^^^