I asked on Bluesky what the deal is with the modern convention of using “bridge” strictly to mean a section in a song, usually after the second chorus, in which there’s a change in the melody and sometimes the chords—those sections that Taylor Swift mentions a lot when she talks about her songwriting. I grew up using “bridge” to also mean the connection (i.e., the bridge) between the verse and chorus. When I was in my 20s, I started referring to a separate section that is now usually called a bridge as a “middle 8.”
To skip to the ending of this conversation to quickly answer my own basic question: I was basically just muddling US and UK conventions based on my history of UK-heavy music chat. In the US, the connecting section between a verse and a chorus is usually referred to as a “pre-chorus” and the new, separate section usually toward the end is referred to as a “bridge,” whereas in the UK the connector between verse and chorus is the “bridge” and the new section a “middle 8.”
In the course of the conversation, Franklin Bruno, who is writing a book on bridges, gave a helpful definition and a series of examples:
(1) “Middle 8” comes from the conventional 8 measure B section in 32-bar pre-rock standards in AABA form (late ‘20s-’30s): “The Man I Love,” “Blue Skies,” “Ain't Misbehavin’,” that kind of thing. U.S. songwriters called this the bridge (or, earlier, “release”); “middle 8” seems to be a coinage by UK jazz musicians; it became widely known when the Beatles used it in interviews, but as McCartney notes, they didn't know it meant eight measures, so a lot of Beatles songs have bridges of unusual lengths.
(2) Because some UK writers still use the term “middle 8,” they reserve “bridge” for what we in the U.S. call the “pre-chorus” (or “pre” or sometimes “lift”), which can be confusing if you don’t go back and check the song being discussed.
(3) Whatever terms are used, it’s important that there be two distinct terms, because one song/record can have both a pre-chorus & a bridge (or bridge & middle 8) if you like. 2 good examples are “You've Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’” and “Wrecking Ball.” In general, a pre-chorus [US] /bridge (UK) can be thought of as a subsection of the verse that precedes and sets up the chorus, while a bridge (U.S.)/middle 8 [UK] interrupts verse/chorus alternation, often after the 2nd chorus, and returns to another verse/chorus pair (e.g., [“Just Like a Woman”]), or directly to the last chorus or choruses (“Changes,” “Since U Been Gone”). There are many variations and exceptions, but these are the basic formal ideas
I think this is a good description of the conventions around pop songform going back about a century. I play a lot of American standards on the piano and am more or less comfortable with the conventions in point (1), with an A theme that repeats, followed by a B section (which historically in the US was sometimes called the “bridge”), with an occasional coda section or outro. Most pop music I’ve encountered in my life falls under the structure of (in US terminology) verse to prechorus to chorus, with a bridge sometimes happening somewhere later than those three basic parts.
But I wonder if this way of thinking about songcraft misses many ways that pop songs now function, even though the proliferation of these basic terms has made them common in chat about pop music and especially in online lyrics and analysis sites like Genius.
Frank Kogan brought up the construction of lots of post-2015 K-pop, and used MEOVV’s “Hands Up” from 2025 as an example.
Frank: My question is: What the hell is going on in Korea? I started drifting away from K-pop in 2015 and eventually lost the thread; my not-very-analyzed sense was that a song would go through the song parts and then just add several more parts.
Dave: It’s interesting that the interlocking parts help give individual members distinctive things to do. [In “Hands Up,”] the first short rapped verse is repeated again later, while there are two longer prechoruses. Genius labels that “verse” a refrain — it’s more of a chant than a rap. So you have four distinct sections given equal weight (refrain/verse/prechorus/chorus) which repeats before a bridge and then a dance break (which Genius calls an “outro”).
But it seems almost silly to break these into verse/prechorus terminology because what they really are are rap features that happen to be sung—you could just call them all verses, but in the sense of a guest verse.
One way to think about it is K-pop figuring out how to collapse rap group structure into pop song structure. “Who gets which part of the song” is in tension with “how many bars does X get on this one”
Frank goes on to say that even when K-pop is using more conventional structure, the way that it gets from point A to point B can still sound like it flouts the structure: “what’s hitting me about it is psychological, that it feels disparate.”
I think in some ways the conventions of song structure that are entrenched on sites like Genius can hold back analysis of what’s actually happening in a lot of music right now. In one direction, you have the expansive and somewhat unpredictable breakdown of conventional pop structure in global pop, where keeping up not with “sections” but with bars—measures given to vocalists or to moments, new twists and turns—makes more sense than corralling everything into clearly demarcated sections according to classic pop songcraft.
On the other hand, a lot of American pop right now has collapsed verse, chorus, and everything in between into a long drone of words. Audrey Hobert is someone who does this in a way that I find illustrative and sometimes interesting: long, flowing, neurotic passages that occasionally land on a title phrase but don’t really have much of a chorus to speak of—or at least, not a chorus that you can immediately tell apart from the verse.
In “Bowling Alley,” there’s a clear verse that leads into a long pre-chorus that’s about as long as that first verse, and then where the chorus should go, we’re in a third verse-like section. Even though you can retroactively mark these three sections as verse, pre-chorus, and chorus, they just sound like three verses. It’s not until the song over halfway finished that you even realize that she has technically repeated the pre-chorus and chorus, and even then she makes lyrical changes the way you might in successive verses.
Like in the K-pop example, the description of the structure of the song doesn’t really give you a good guide of what you’re actually hearing, which feels like verse after verse after verse. You’re following along with bars—how the song changes on a measure by measure level. (This is how I describe Taylor Swift’s delivery on Tortured Poets Department, but I think you could also apply it to a lot of non-Taylorite pop, like Charli XCX.)
In the same way that (American) funk music or experimental formats have in the past demanded new terminology—or in some cases ad hoc or no particular formal terms—I wonder if we’re approaching a similar place in pop, where things that seem at first to be beholden to conventional structure, and are discussed by fans in terms of those structures, just don’t really fit the templates.
1. Lex Walton: Hipster Runoff
US
Lex Walton gives herself a Pitchfork 5.6 in a ‘10s-damaged music video, but Hannah Jocelyn gave it an 8.3 and the album also got an editorial Best New Music, in part for the impact of its many dead ends and trapdoors:
A lot of Walton’s music feels intentionally incomprehensible, whether you grew up on the internet and then moved to Brooklyn or not; it initially kept me, a New York-based trans person of Tumblr experience, at arm’s length with its hyperlexic musings. If ever a Bandcamp page needed a glossary, it would be Walton’s account.
The breakout track is a good example of an unconventional song structure, too—all verses and an abrupt outro. At press time, its Genius lyrics page is refreshingly unadorned with any structural groupings at all, and the words appear clumped and unlabeled, which is how they sound, too.
Part of what I was arguing in Part 3 of the A-pop series is that indie’s convergence with pop music had a huge impact not just on indie music, but on pop, too. But it might be interesting to think more formally about the overlap. I don’t know that a main stage pop star could get away with something quite this caustic, but it’s not a world removed from what I was describing with Audrey Hobert: words, words, words, end. This one happens to get there by crawling over broken glass.
2. Jorja Smith: What’s Done Is Done
UK
I do like Jorja Smith’s album, but this was the runaway keeper and has very little to do with some of the global music experimentation happening elsewhere on it. Just a straight-ahead UK garage banger.
3. Myra: Ouff
Norway
Katherine St. Asaph featured this in her Stereogum column and it rang a bell. After checking, I see that I have featured not one but two Myras, one from France and one (this one) from Norway. Neither are the Hollywood Records nonstarter from 2001 whom they planned to launch the label’s bespoke Disney pop.
4. HUGEL f. Sexyy Red, Gatano: Bad Bitch
France/US/Canada
No idea how this middling French DJ has taken over the global charts this year. He’s eating Ella Langley’s lunch on the GXU! Anyway, this is the only song I’ve heard from him so far that interested me, mostly from a decent if somewhat phoned-in Sexyy Red feature.
5. YKNIECE: Lil Mama
US
Another day, another viral rap hit from a woman who will not be included in hand-wringing thinkpieces about the decline of rap.
6. Kinck: Bet (Queen of Clubs)
Denmark
This is easily the most annoying whistle hook I’ve heard in a song this year that I actually liked (the most annoying whistle hook I’ve heard in a song that I don’t like is from the Gorillaz song “Orange County”). I can listen to an hour of tuin in Brazilian funk even without doing whatever drugs are suggested to make this pleasurable, but two minutes of this is about all I can stand.
7. Kiismet: Give Me More
Thailand
8. QVINT: รินรดา (Rinrada)
Thailand
9. Thoại Nghi, Trung Đức, ICM: Về Nhà Em Nhé
Vietnam
Southeast Asian pop block! The first is a bold Britney-quoting debut from a girl group I liked better before I saw their uncanny valley video, the second a dependable disco-pop banger from a group I’ve featured before, and the final a dopey mid-tempo Vietnamese pop track whose melody snared me, somewhat against my will.
10. Keina Suda: Black
Japan
The vocaloid auteur behind Balloon has a pop career that features his own vocals—was surprised to learn it had any relation to this Balloon song that sent me into a bit of a vocaloid rabbit hole a few years ago but I maybe I heard something in the production.
11. ØTTA, Bibi Babydoll: 4x4
Portugal-UK/Brazil
Bibi Babydoll expands her sonic palette into EDM party rock territory, sounds a bit buttoned up.
12. Danpapa GTA, King Dr. Saheed Osupa: Dance with Me
Nigeria
Another good one from previous Lokpo recommendation Danpapa GTA, who is carving his own path in a Naija pop that still seems like it’s in a post-Afrobeats wilderness.
13. Kea Mandela: Run Jozi
South Africa
Gqom-inspired South African rapper, has an EP I should probably check out before the next monthly round-up.
14. MODELKI, Vłodarski: aż nie chce się wracać
Poland
Polish pop group MODELKI has at least one success at a vaguely Afrobeats global pop sound, though from what I sampled the rest of the album doesn’t really maintain my interest.
15. Victony f. Young Jonn: Armed & Dangerous
Nigeria
Occasionally I’ll hit unexpected vocal grain in Naija pop—Victony reminds me a little of Zinoleesky in his lightly damaged vocal fry.
16. Lune: Nur mit dir.
Germany
Wouldn’t have guessed this lilting clave pop from Germany is in the top five most popular songs this week in terms of YouTube views.
17. Marilina Bertoldi, Lula Bertoldi: Momentismo Absoluto
Argentina
Dependable return of Argentine rocker Marilina Bertoldi, whose 2025 album I really liked, this time alongside her older sister, a member of rock trio Eruca Sativa.
18. Mustangs: Ya Mar [1972]
Bahamas
A decent take on the more raucous Cyril Ferguson (Dry Bread) original, from ‘70s Bahamanian group the Mustangs—I first heard in the original in People’s Pop, but apparently it’s a huge live song for Phish.
19. Ok Cowgirl: Rhinestone Cowgirl
US
Another strong entry in an overcrowded alt-country field—curious when one of these might cross over to 1/1000th of a “Choosin’ Texas” run at the charts? Along with the mosquitoes of this week’s title, I also like the shout-out to Ethel Cain and a childhood spent in a plastic bag like a goldfish.
20. Paulina Przybysz f. Marek Pędziwatr, Wiktoria Jakubowska, Tymon Kosma, Max Mucha: Mama’s Car
Poland
Dorky Polish jazz rap charmed me, what can I say. “My kids just kidnapped my Bluetooth”—yeah! Lately they’ve been playing the Undertale soundtrack a lot.
That’s it! Until next time, if your kids kidnap your Bluetooth let me know what they’re listening to on it.
—Dave Moore (the other one)
Title from Ok Cowgirl: Rhinestone Cowgirl