Here we go with a banger for your year-end parties, goodbyes, etc. Or a few bangers! Things have changed significantly everywhere since 2021, but handclaps persist (especially in Dua Lipa songs, and I love her a lot, so no shade intended). I’m going to stick with the original list I made.
Janelle Monae — “Take a Byte” (2018)
Genre: R&B, Pop
Peak Chart Position: n/a (album Dirty Computer charted at #6)
Handclaps First Heard: at 0:04 in above video
Handclap Pattern: first heard on beat 4, then on + 4 two measures later. Pattern continues through most of the song (usually except where guitar is heard).
Commentary: Dirty Computer is one of my probably top 5 favorite albums, and upon first listen, this song was my favorite. The handclaps are helpful, but good lord I am on the brink of doing a full modal & harmonic analysis and WHEW. WHEW. Janelle all day every single day.
Solange — “I Decided, Part 1” (2009)
Genre: R&B
Peak Chart Position: #1 on Billboard Hot Singles Sales & Dance Club Songs
Handclaps First Heard: at :00, very beginning of song
Handclap Pattern: 1 2 3 4, throughout the entire song.
Commentary: There is so much going on in this song, and in this video. Maybe it was just indicative of 2008? Solange was doing the opposite of her sister, who did the most by doing the least in what has become possibly her signature song & video. Pharrell produced this song, and while it is a huge nod to The Supremes, there is a lot going on. A handclap on every single beat is a lot (TBH I feel the same way about “Bang Bang” from the vol. 1 list, as well). However, since learning more about this song, I have used it to teach 4/4 time in older elementary school classes.
Hall & Oates — “Private Eyes” (1981)
Genre: Pop
Peak Chart Position: #1 on Billboard Hot 100, remained for six weeks
Handclaps First Heard: at 0:43 here, made VERY OBVIOUS by the keyboardist
Handclap Pattern: starting in chorus, on beat 2 and then + 2
Commentary: dark & insidious subject matter, but sweet mother of Mary this is a perfect pop song. It makes me angry that it’s so perfect. Just, angry. It also makes me sad that these guys are having a hard time with each other. Some of these 80s bands, y’all…
Rilo Kiley — “Silver Lining” (2007)
Genre: Indie rock
Peak Chart Performance: n/a (album Under the Blacklight reached #5 & #6 on US Top Alternative & Top Rock Albums, respectively, and #22 on Top 200)
Handclaps First Heard: very start of song, between :00-:01
Handclap Pattern: on beats 2 & 4 heard through most of the song, particularly prominent in the choruses. Overtaken in verse 3 by an excellent triangle riff!
Commentary: In the late 80s and up through the mid-90s, I was an overly enthusiastic Girl Scout. The Girl Scout song is about making new friends, “one is silver and the others gold.” Then, in my mid-20s the lead scout from my former favorite movie Troop Beverly Hills sings to me about being someone’s silver lining, “but now I’m gold.” I can’t tell you how much that has always messed with me. But honestly, Rilo Kiley has been one of my favorite bands since I was in college, and I still love Jenny Lewis a lot. I was cleaning my house to Rilo Kiley the other day and had a deep & abiding realization that I’d had a crush on Blake Sennett for a good 30 years. Yeesh.
Chic — “Good Times” (1979)
Genre: Disco, R&B
Peak Chart Performance: #1 Billboard Hot 100 single, topped Canadian Disco charts and sat at #2 on Canada’s RPM Singles chart
Handclaps First Heard: in the above video, the first clap is clapped at :05, as Doc Severinson shakes a tailfeather, but the handclaps are more prominent after the bass intro in other recordings of the song
Handclap Pattern: all on beats 2 and 4, all the way through
Commentary: I think something in me thought that there were more handclaps in this song, but no? It’s just 2 and 4, all the way through. Anyway. So this song laid the groundwork for hip-hop, among many other things. Let’s be sure to give Nile Rodgers his due before he leaves our earthly realm, because he’s possibly the most consequential popular musician we still have among us.
Please also note the excessive messiness of the Grammys, here indicated by the fact that Nile Rodgers only has three to his name, and and it looks like all were for work on Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories.
stevie wonder — “Living for the city” (1973)
Genre: R&B, Pop
Peak Chart Position: #1 on Billboard R&B chart, #8 on Billboard Hot 100
Handclaps First Heard: at 2:43 here
Handclap Pattern: starting after two full verses and two choruses (and an epic post-chorus full of changing meter!) in this epic song; pattern of 2 + , 4
Commentary: This is genuinely an epic song, a ballad and meditation on Black lives. I really wish it were not relevant anymore. This song is also mirrored in The Roots’ “The Return to Innocence Lost” off of their 1999 album Things Fall Apart.
Donna summer — “fairy tale high” (1977)
Genre: Disco, R&B
Peak Chart Position: n/a, album charted at #26 on Billboard Albums chart
Handclaps First Heard: very start of the song here
Handclap Pattern: a pattern of 2 , + 4; this pattern is heard exactly the same until about :32, at the end of the intro, where there are more claps. The main pattern is heard throughout the song, until 1:38, where the claps move to every beat (1 2 3 4) in the instrumental bridge, also featuring a lot of electronics. It switches at 2:34 and continues to the end of the song.
Commentary: I always feel that the musicianship of disco players is underrated. There was so much racism & homophobia hurled at disco musicians. While 1977, the year this song came out, was maybe indeed The Coolest Year in Hell, and saw punk rock and hip-hop come into prominence I still love this song, its completely unnecessary modulation at 2:44, its horns, its strings, its electronics, and its general doing of the most, in the best way.
The Romantics — “What I like about you” (1980)
Genre: Rock
Peak Chart Position: #2 on Australian charts, #49 on Billboard Hot 100
Handclaps First Heard: at :11 seconds here
Handclap Pattern: sort of an accent clap, + 4 + 1 across two measures.
Commentary: Today I learned that the drummer is the lead singer of the band. Only after hearing this song in commercials for my entire life.
Stealers Wheel — “Stuck in the Middle” (1972)
Genre: Rock
Peak Chart Position: #6 on Billboard Hot 100, #8 in the
Handclaps First Heard: at :09, after a brief intro
Handclap Pattern: clapping on 2 4 +, continues throughout the song, after a brief cowbell interlude post-bridge.
Commentary: Made especially famous by Quentin Tarantino, it did hit platinum upon its release in the 1970s. Songwriter & singer Gerry Rafferty went on to a successful solo career after this Bob Dylan parody took off.
The Supremes — “where did our love go” (1964)
Genre: Pop, Soul, Motown
Peak Chart Position: #1 on Billboard Hot 100, R&B & Soul, CashBox, RecordWorld 100 Top Pops, also #1 in Canada and New Zealand; #10 for 1964 Billboard Year-End, and an entry on Billboard all-time charts
Handclaps First Heard: at the very beginning, after a brief intro
Handclap Pattern: every beat, 1 2 3 4
Commentary: Can we get a campaign going to make this song #1 in the streaming era now? If you can do it for the red-headed dude from Virginia and annually for Mariah Carey, this song deserves its modern flowers. Definitively iconic. I listened to it 4-5 times in a row while writing this.
The Beatles — “eight days a week” (1964)
Genre: Rock, Pop
Peak Chart Position:
Handclaps First Heard: at the very beginning, after a brief intro
Handclap Pattern: 2 4
Commentary: Honestly, as an adult, I cannot stand early era Beatles. Most of it just grates on me incredibly so, and I have so many issues, as mentioned above when praising Janelle Monae. But this song is not so bad.
Billy joel — “only the good die young” (1977)
Genre: Rock, Pop
Peak Chart Position: #24 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts
Handclaps First Heard: after piano intro, at :15
Handclap Pattern: 2 4
Commentary: Even piano geeks write songs about teenage lust. As a Catholic kid whose parents were both from Long Island (not that a suburban background is something to brag about, but my dad also grew up in Levittown, where Joel was from), I grew up on this song and so many others. I can tell you honestly that while 1977 may have indeed been the coolest year in hell, as mentioned above, out on the Island, everyone had bad haircuts, went into the city only for sports games, and was rocking out to The Stranger on the drive down the Long Island Expressway.
One important note from Joel regarding this song: in the end, Virginia rejects him. Honestly, I have long loved this song but now want to hang out with Virginia (who is actually a real person). I bet she’s cool & my mom would love to talk to her about Nassau County.