Comedy trio the Axis of Awesome made it big with this brilliantly constructed song, which poses as an exposé of the simple formula behind commercial hits but is actually a celebration of infinite variety. Built around those four heart-pleasing chords, it stitches together over 30 popular songs in a medley that demonstrates how many different moods, styles and melodies can be wrung from the basic structure.

The Sydney band trod a familiar mid-2000s path from a Moosehead Award at the Melbourne Comedy Festival to success at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, but after ‘Four Chords’ was played on BBC radio, they took off on the internet. Their YouTube video version used more international songs, but this earlier recording is heavy on Australian artists: ‘Horses’, ‘Fall at Your Feet’, ‘Torn’, ‘Down Under’ and even ‘Waltzing Matilda’ all feature in a whirl of interlocking phrases that get faster and faster as the song progresses.

But no matter the version, the song always finishes with Missy Higgins’ ‘Scar’ – a tribute to the trio’s Australian roots.