I just wanted to suggest "How Music Works with Howard Goodall", it's a great documentary for anyone who want to start looking into music theory (and to anyone else who is just curious, really). Didn't find a better place than this to put it to.

 

I remember watching it on youtube and then downloading DVD and watching it again.

 

I had very little knowledge from childhood, little knowledge from ~5 years back when I started and it really paints a good overall picture about building blocks of contemporary western music (including my favourite - syncopation). I don't think I need to convince any of you to watch it...

 

Parts:

[*]Melody

[*]Rhythm

[*]Harmony

[*]Bass

 

 

 

I think above has audio disabled on copyright grounds, here's at least first part which works:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myNHc6EmjbU

On a simiilar note, here's a really interesting article where the author discusses why a Katy Perry song is so effective:

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2014/03/katy_perry_s_teenage_dream_explaining_the_hit_using_music_theory.html

 

He does a followup article on Daft Punk's Get Lucky too.