Pitchfork reports: “In the early 1980s, U2 had earned critical respect and a swelling fanbase but, despite a UK #1 album, were far from superstardom … U2 weren’t yet an arena band but they carried themselves like one. What’s more, they actually sounded better the bigger and brasher and bolder their music got.”
Released just months after the game-changing debut of MTV, the video for 1981’s “Gloria” combines a vast outdoor location, sweeping cinematography, and the happy involvement of the band’s fans from the margins. AllMusic describes the tune as a clear point in the band’s development, “marry(ing) the message, melody, and sound together.”
Starting in Eb minor, there’s a big shift at the outro (3:06) to Bb major.
“Back at One,” featured on Brian McKnight‘s eponymously named 1999 studio album, is one of the 16-time Grammy-nominated singer’s most successful singles. A Top 10 hit in New Zealand and Canada, the track reached the #2 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US, and also placed on the Adult Contemporary and Hot R&B/Hip-Hop charts. Key change at 3:00.
“There isn’t a lot in contemporary music that Labrinth can’t do,” declares AllMusic. “The London-based artist is a singer, rapper, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and producer who has enjoyed success as a solo artist while also working alongside such stars as the Weeknd, Ed Sheeran, and Sia. Although he has released only two solo albums,Electronic Earth (2012) and Imagination & the Misfit Kid (2019), he has regularly appeared near or at the top of the U.K. singles chart since the dawn of the 2010s.”
In 2014’s “Jealous,” C major is challenged by its relative minor over the first verses and choruses, but there’s a huge shift at the bridge (3:20) as the protagonist’s hopelessness becomes ever more clear. Focusing on that bridge, pianist / composer / music educator Mark Shilansky writes:
“The Gbo (3:20) sounds like a pivot chord. It’s like a #VIo chord in A minor, but then it vacillates back and forth with F7b9 and Gbo again, so it sounds like it’s V7/V in the key of Eb, the V of Bb.” Paraphrasing a comment from one of his Berklee faculty colleagues: “a dim7 chord can resolve four different ways; it’s usually best analyzed in relation to the chord it resolves to.”
Mark continues: “Then it kind of abandons function and jumps to Ab (3:30), the IV in the key of Eb. There is some voice leading to which you could attribute this progression: A moving to Ab; the C and Eb staying the same; the Gb moving to G (even though some of this movement is octave-displaced). And then he’s pretty firmly in Eb for the rest of the tune. It’s a pretty risky modulation and it barely works, but if it does I think it’s because of the voice-leading. I’ve never seen a modulation like it. I would have resolved the Gbo7 to something else before I tiptoed into Eb. But maybe because it’s so ambiguous, it forms prosody with the desperation of the lyrics — like the narrator himself is lost.”
1981 saw the release of the album In the Night by disco royalty Cheryl Lynn.The Second Disc notes that ” … with Latin-tinged, layered percussion and melodic bass runs from Miller supporting Lynn’s stratospheric range, it’s a fast-paced and ever-danceable Lynn/George Dream original with vocal acrobatics reminiscent of ‘Got To Be Real.'” The aforementioned Miller is Marcus, the legendary jazz and funk bassist who’s gone on to build one of the most multi-faceted resumes in contemporary music.
The dance genre known as Post-Disco was heavily influenced by funk. Mixmag reports: ” … the term Disco has morphed into a catch-all term for dance music before House … but there was a very important bridge that connected the dots between US and Europe, man and machine. In 1979, disco (had filtered) its way into TV, advertising, comics and even music from Ethel Merman. The backlash was quick and punishing; the implicitly homophobic and racist ‘Disco Sucks’ rally at Chicago’s Comiskey Park that year all but killed the sound in mainstream America. Disco was forced back underground … a period where there were no rules and music was open to all sorts of influences.”
While the tune begins and ends in E minor, there are shifts in tonality throughout:
0:00 Intro and Chorus
0:32 Verse
1:05 Chorus
1:21 Verse
1:55 Transition/Bridge Section A; 2:09, Section B; 2:18, Section C
2:26 Chorus, Break, Chorus …
Many thanks to our resolute stringer JB for yet another great submission!
Longtime collaborators Chick Corea and Gary Burton, pianist and vibraphonist respectively, released their jazz duo album Crystal Silence in 1972. (A follow-up album, New Crystal Silence, was released in 2008.) Allmusic called the record “a sublime indication of what two master improvisers can do given quality raw material… Improvised music is rarely this coherent and melodic.”
Corea, a titanic pianist in the history of jazz music, is known for helping introduce the jazz fusion genre as a member of Miles Davis’s band in the 1960s. A 60-time Grammy nominated performer and 23-time winner, the 79 year old Corea passed away on February 11, 2021 from a rare form of cancer.
While this performance by Corea and Burton doesn’t directly modulate, the interplay and improvisation between the two push at the boundaries of the A minor tonality throughout, reflecting the innovative spirit Corea championed throughout his career.
Spain’s 1973 Eurovision entry, Mocedades’ “Eres Tu” (It’s You), was voted by Spanish fans as the nation’s all-time favorite. Its win was in spite of the song’s having secured only the silver medal at the global competition that year, according to Wiwibloggs, a site devoted to Eurovision.
Billboard details that the tune peaked at #9 in the Hot 100 chart and also reached the top 10 on the Adult Contemporary chart. With “Eres Tú”, Mocedades are one of the five musical acts from Spain to have scored a top ten hit in the United States (including Los Bravos, Julio Iglesias, Enrique Iglesias, andLos del Río with “Macarena”). It was also the only song to become a top ten hit sung entirely in Spanish. The song was inducted into the Latin Grammy Hall of Fame in 2013. In 2015, it ranked #47 on Billboard’s 50 Greatest Latin Songs of All Time.
The half-step modulation hits at 2:24. Many thanks to Christopher Larkosh for submitting this tune to MotD months back, and for the many other modulations he sent us over the past several years. MotD will never forget you!
“Lonely Call” is featured on WildHorse, the 2017 debut album of American country singer/songwriter RaeLynn. The song depicts RaeLynn’s breakup with boyfriend Josh when she was 18 (they would subsequently get back together and eventually get married.) “‘Lonely Call’ is a confessional,” RaeLynn said in an interview with Rolling Stone. “My WildHorse record is like my diary. It’s so funny to listen back because I was so sad when we broke up, when I hear those lyrics I’m like, ‘That’s exactly how it felt, that’s exactly how it was.’”
Writing for the radio network Taste of Country, critic Sterling Whitaker described the track as “an amalgam of sweet pop-country melodicism and some surprisingly traditional instruments, with a reverb-drenched banjo and simple acoustic guitars framing the gentle, moody verse before stacked guitars lift the song up into a sweeping chorus. RaeLynn’s uniquely smoky vocal tone is perfectly suited to the aching, regretful subject matter that she’s delivering, and the result is a track that is so universally identifiable that it could very well carry her career to new heights at country radio.”
From Pitchfork’s review of Coldplay‘s debut album Parachutes (2000): “… Coldplay’s secret deadly weapon is vocalist Chris Martin. With the ability to mimic a Brit-accented Dave Matthews one minute, Jeff Buckley revived from the dead the next, and sometimes even a young Peter Gabriel, Martin’s heartfelt delivery seems to be what’s winning the hearts, wallets and alternative radio request lines of Americans young and old.”
Parachutes produced four singles, the most prominent being “Yellow,” and enjoyed popularity in the UK and US. Billboard reports that the third single was “Trouble,” which reached number 10 in the UK charts. It was released more than a year later in the US, reaching #28 on the US Alternative Songs chart. Martin has claimed that the single had saved them from being a “one-hit wonder” band, notes MTV. The band incorrectly guessed that the single wouldn’t perform well in the United States.
After starting in G major, the tune progresses through a hook-centric instrumental intro, a verse, an interlude which mirrors the intro, and another verse before shifting to A major for the chorus at 1:31; the key then reverts to G major at 1:57. The choruses grow in intensity, fueled by a compelling chord progression that seesaws between I major and a distinctive v minor.
North London MC/vocalist Dappy, born Costadinos Contostavlos, most prominently worked with the trio N-Dubz before going solo, reports AllMusic. “After several years of plugging away on the pirate radio scene … they went on to score a number one single alongside Tinchy Stryder (‘Number 1’), several MOBO Awards, and three Top 20 albums … “
In 2011, Dappy went on to release his debut solo single, “No Regrets.” The lyrics are about moving on from the past — perhaps not surprising, given the artist’s penchant for controversy in the UK tabloids. Songfacts notes that “the song’s elevation to pole position was the eleventh successive UK #1 by a British artist. This beat the all-time record set between January and July 1963, when there were 10 consecutive chart-toppers by a domestic act.”
Fusing elements of pop and hiphop, the tune shifts up a half-step at 3:14. A complete disappearance of the groove telegraphs the modulation’s arrival.
Chopin’s “Prelude in F# Minor” is the 8th in his Op. 28, a collection of 24 preludes for piano — one set in each major and minor key. More virtuosic and demanding of the pianist than the others, the piece features a continuous string of rapid thirty-second-note figurations in the right hand set against a sixteenth-note triplet polyrhythm in the left hand.
Chopin pushes the boundaries of the home key throughout the brief work, but clearly emerges into F# major towards the end before ultimately resolving to the original minor on the final chord. Performed here by acclaimed Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov.
modulationoftheday.home.blog 