When did the Axis chord progression become so popular?

The famous four chords, the "axis" progression, the classic and infamous pop song chord progression. It is considered utterly ubiquitous but when did songwriters actually start using it, and has it now finally fallen out of style?

📌 SMALL REVISION: 8:08 "Treacherous" by Taylor Swift doesn't actually use the Axis progression, my mistake! However, I've now found two more Taylor song that I had missed that DO use the Axis progression... "Christmas Must Be Something More" and "Crazier", so Taylor has actually used the progression at least 20 times! 😅😅

📌 I was going to put the list of all of the songs I gathered here in the description but it actually exceeds the character limit, so I've put it on this public Patreon post:   / 74410753  

Axis of Awesome comedy skit:    • Axis of Awesome - 4 Four Chord Song (with ...  

And, an extra special thanks goes to Douglas Lind, Vidad Flowers, Ivan Pang, Waylon Fairbanks, Jon Dye, Austin Russell, Christopher Ryan, Yu Kyung Chung, Toot & Paul Peijzel, the channel’s Patreon saints! 😇

SUPPORT ME ON PATREON:   / davidbennettpiano  


0:00 Introduction
0:55 the earliest songs to use the Axis progression
2:45 the 1970s
3:38 the 1980s
4:17 the 1990s
5:08 the 2000s
6:26 the 2010s
7:25 which artist has used it the most?
8:08 the Axis progression in 2022
9:06 piano outro