The prechorus section in pop-rock music has received significant analytical attention in recent years. It is now well established that this formal unit, regularly appearing in songs released since the mid-1960s, serves as a structural and expressive link from a song’s verse to its chorus. Despite the many elegant efforts to classify different types of prechorus in various genres, there remains little research into how the prechorus typically functions in R&B.

This paper will demonstrate that a typical section that appears between the verses and choruses in R&B songs at least during the early 1990s "New Jack Swing" era has a markedly different function from the corresponding section in pop-rock music. Tellingly, among R&B practitioners, this section is often referred to not as the “prechorus,” but as the “bridge.” I will argue that the use of the term “bridge” for this section within R&B practice is not only a terminological difference derived by chance by speakers in different musical communities; rather, the term “bridge” is wholly appropriate given the section’s typical formal function: to provide contrast from the surrounding formal units.

In the music of some artists (Boyz II Men, Shai, and latter-day emulators like Bruno Mars, etc.), this section typically features a contrasting harmonic progression (usually more chromatic than other sections) and the most emphatic vocal melody; for others (including Bel Biv DeVoe and TLC), contrast is provided through a change in textural density (adding or removing an instrumental layer) or vocal timbre—especially a shift between singing and rapping.

An OP is the standard term for the opening song/credits of an anime series. They are accompanied with animation, highlighting the anime’s main characters, hinting at plot arcs, featuring the names of the studio staff, and showing the overall themes and tone of the show. Since OPs are typically under two-minutes in length, it can be difficult to create a tight musical-visual narrative between the song and animation, all while fulfilling the other essential elements of an introduction. As such, many OPs do not tell a complete story at all. However, there are some OPs that do, built on an intricate counterpoint between the musical and visual elements.

My paper explores this idea, using the opening to KonoSuba (S1) as an exemplar. The OP to KonoSuba not only features a clear musical-visual story, but the song’s prechorus temporarily switches meter to 3/4, creating a marked shift in both the music and visuals of the OP. As I shall argue, the musical and visual interactions in the OP to KonoSuba not only demonstrate one such way of storytelling in anime OPs, but also offer a unique perspective on structuring film introductions more broadly.

Rarely do pop stars call explicit attention to their songs’ formal design. Taylor Swift, though, often announces which song in a concert is the first with a bridge, and critics and her fans have responded to this emphasis by creating numerous websites evaluating and ranking her songs’ bridges. The choruses, too, of her songs merit analytical attention. This paper examines two recent Swift songs, “the lakes” (2020) and “You’re on your Own, Kid” (2022), each of which has been released in two versions that differ in their approaches to the chorus section. I illustrate how the alternate versions of the two songs follow the conventions of verse, prechorus, and chorus sections. I then turn to the album version of each song to demonstrate how changes in production have altered its formal implications by adding to the chorus a prechorus-like sense of intensification and drive towards a climax. Attending to how Swift signals and subverts formal organization in her choruses also offers new insight into how the songs’ formal design adds depth to the meaning of their lyrics.

With respect to its lyrics, “the lakes” is formally conventional. The so-called “original version” of the song strongly projects its verse-chorus structure by thunderously emphasizing the chorus. By contrast, in the album version the chorus maintains a texture similar to that of the verse but gradually intensifies, recasting the entire section as a prechorus. Instead, the music deflates, returning to the verse and leaving listeners with a sense of denied potential that reinforces the lyrics’ elegiac tone. The lyrics of “You’re on your Own, Kid” suggest two verse-chorus units and an extended chorus. That concluding chorus, though, is greatly extended: as it loops, it intensifying character gradually overwrites its sense of being a chorus with that of being a prechorus, before finally syncing up with the ending of the previous choruses. The formal outlines of the chorus section have been preserved, but a new mid-chorus “prechorus” has been inserted within. Swift’s solo performance of the song, by contrast, attenuates the sense of prechorus intensification, and the audience’s singing subverts the song’s message.