Elise – Page 72

Coldplay | Trouble

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.

Dappy | No Regrets

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.

Hall + Oates | I Ain’t Gonna Take It This Time

Hall and Oates came into being during the height of the Philly Soul sound. “Daryl Hall had become friends with The Temptations as they rose to stardom from the streets of Philadelphia,” reports SoulCountry. “‘They were an outrageous influence on me,’ Hall said. He joined them on the road some, ‘trying to be their assistant,’ picking up their suits at the cleaners and grabbing their coffee.

‘After the show, they would just go and sing gospel songs and stuff,’ Hall said. ‘I felt that was something I belonged doing. It was really a lot of interracial interaction, and it’s why I sing the kind of music that I sing,’ he continued. ‘There’s been a lot of misunderstanding over the years by people who can’t even imagine that.'”

The 1990 power ballad “I Ain’t Gonna Take It This Time,” like so much of the band’s output, straddles the lines among rock, pop, and soul. The tune starts in D minor; at 1:37, a multi-section bridge builds tension until 2:37, which brings a mammoth shift to F# major.

Neil Young | Winterlong

To quote novelist Anne Lamott: “If you don’t die of thirst, there are blessings in the desert. You can be pulled into limitlessness, which we all yearn for, or you can do the beauty of minutiae, the scrimshaw of tiny and precise. The sky is your ocean, and the crystal silence will uplift you like great gospel music, or Neil Young.”

Young, the longtime folk/rock sage and a resident of LA’s storied Laurel Canyon during its heyday as a music nexus, has penned a dozen or more well-known hits. But “Winterlong” was a concert-only rarity for the Canadian-born artist — until the track inexplicably showed up on a compilation album. Songfacts reports: “One of Neil Young’s rarities, ‘Winterlong’ finds him yearning and waiting, possibly for a woman, but that’s no sure thing. All we know is, he’s looking to find his way, and not sure how to get there. The song contains one of the more evocative lines in Young’s catalog: ‘It’s all illusion anyway.’ Fans recall hearing Young perform this song as early as 1970. It’s likely he recorded it in 1974 during the session for his album On The Beach, but ‘Winterlong’ wasn’t released until 1977, which it appeared on the Decade collection.”

Starting in C major, the chorus starts squarely in C but ends in D major at 1:18. At 1:38, C major returns. 2:21 – 2:40 brings another D major patch before the tune ends in C major.

Jonatha Brooke | Back in the Circus

A singer/songwriter since the early 90s, Jonatha Brooke has a sound which the San Francisco Chronicle describes as “catchy original melodies and thorny lyrics.” She rode the tectonic shifts of that era’s music business: “I was in the middle of a national tour when (the record label) MCA dropped me. One second you’re a princess on the throne, and the next week no one will return your phone calls.”

AllMusic reviews Brooke’s 2004 release, Back in the Circus: “(Brooke’s) perseverance has paid off. Like Aimee Mann, she’s maneuvered a broken staircase of fluctuating acceptance, band breakups, and record label shakeups with nimble feet and a consistent songwriting vision. Now, she’s arrived on the top floor landing with Back in the Circus, a typically audacious effort that showcases her singing and writing even as it flirts with new musical directions … The title track is an unbalanced and dizzying cocktail, with accordion, keys, guitar, and laptops all joining in the fray. ‘Back in the circus / But at least I know the routine / Got back-to-back matinees / Me and the drag queens.’ Is the roller coaster ride a reference to her career, or life in general?”

The tune’s spare accompaniment could indeed be mistaken for a circus pit band, keeping the lyric front and center. The Bb minor verse gives way to Ab minor on the chorus (initially at 1:03).

Tigran Hamasyan (feat. Berklee Middle Eastern Fusion Ensemble) | Drip

“With pianist/composer Tigran Hamasyan,” reports the artist’s own website, “potent jazz improvisation fuses with the rich folkloric music of his native Armenia … he’s one of the most remarkable and distinctive jazz-meets-rock pianists of his generation … Tigran’s career has included an impressive number of accolades, including top piano award at the 2013 Montreux Jazz Festival and the grand prize at the prestigious 2006 Thelonious Monk Jazz Piano Competition … he was applauded by NPR Music: ‘With startling combinations of jazz, minimalist, electronic, folk and songwriterly elements … Hamasyan and his collaborators travel musical expanses marked with heavy grooves, ethereal voices, pristine piano playing and ancient melodies.'”

Our regular contributor Carlo Migliaccio has submitted Tigran’s tune “Drip,” performed here in 2018 with the Berklee College of Music Middle Eastern Fusion Ensemble. The tune combines elements of Middle Eastern music with metal — just for starters. Carlo hasn’t taken on the huge task of charting the tune out, but sends his initial findings: “The tune starts in B minor. The first modulation is at 5:03, which seems to ascend up a major third to D#, but it quickly drops down a half step in a modal shift. The tonal center definitely moves to D on a G harmonic minor scale … so is that D harmonic minor mixolydian(?) The second modulation is at 7:08 and travels briefly down a major third to Bb minor, a half step below the starting key. A few bars later, the final modulation takes it down another half step for an ending in A minor, a whole step below the starting key … I think. My ears are playing tricks on me with this one, but I’m now on a Tigran Hamasyan kick as a result of this tune.”

Maxime Cholley, a French drummer and Berklee alum now based in New York City, has long been a proponent of Tigran’s work. Maxime performed on this track and recounts the session: “Working with Tigran Hamasyan was an incredible experience. He was very humble, patient, and thrilled to play with us and try new ideas on his own songs. At the end of a rehearsal, Tigran was working on a part and I joined him while the rest of the band packed up. As we played together, I clearly felt something that could be described as his ‘musical aura.’ His playing enhanced mine and both our sounds merged in the most satisfying way — as if each of his notes had some kind of sonic glue on it. His presence was absolutely mind blowing!”

New York Rock + Soul Revue | Lonely Teardrops

“At a time when rock concerts are putting an increasing emphasis on spectacle and choreography, it is refreshing to attend a show at which genuine interplay among musicians is the main attraction,” notes a New York Times review of a 1990 concert by the New York Rock & Soul Revue. “… Seasoned pop veterans working together in an unusually flexible and informal setting … a loosely-structured round-robin format.” According to AllMusic, the concert lineup included the organizer of the short series of shows, Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen, as well as Phoebe Snow, Charles Brown, Michael McDonald, Eddie and David Brigati (the Rascals), and Boz Scaggs. In the liner notes, Fagen called the selected tunes “durable music.”

Songfacts reports that “Lonely Teardrops,” made famous in 1959 by Jackie Wilson, was “written by Tyran Carlo (the pen name of Wilson’s cousin Roquel Davis) and a pre-Motown Berry Gordy Jr., who co-wrote eight other songs for Wilson. This song gave Gordy him the confidence to rent a building in Detroit and start the Tamla label, which would become Motown.” The tune was a #1 R&B hit, also reaching top 10 on the Pop charts.

Unlike the single-key original, the NYR+SR version has a quick key-of-the-moment lift from 2:19 to 2:26, but it’s a fake out that returns us to the original key almost immediately; 2:59 brings a real key change.

Jackie Wilson’s original:

Jennifer Lopez | This Land Is Your Land / America the Beautiful

At today’s Biden/Harris Inaugural, pop diva Jennifer Lopez performed a medley of the populist folk anthem “This Land is Your Land” and “America The Beautiful” for a small in-person audience on the Capitol steps, while tens of millions watched worldwide.

The Los Angeles Times reports that JLo “linked the first two verses of Woody Guthrie’s ‘This Land Is Your Land’ with ‘America the Beautiful’ — and threw in a line from her own ‘Let’s Get Loud’ just for good measure … Lopez remade the two American standards — the first a famously fought-over piece of U.S. history.

And she didn’t pass up the opportunity to try to cleanse the spot where insurgents soiled the American dream two weeks ago: Building up to her big finish, Lopez paused to recite the last line of the Pledge of Allegiance — in Spanish. ‘Una nación, bajo Dios, indivisible, con libertad y justicia para todos!‘ she said, her eyes sparkling with pride — ‘One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.'”

As the arrangement returns to “This Land Is Your Land” after “America the Beautiful” (3:00), the key is a half-step lower than the opening rendition of the same tune. The music begins at the 0:40 mark.

The Walker Brothers | I Can’t Let It Happen to You

“They weren’t British, they weren’t brothers, and their real names weren’t Walker, but Californians Scott Engel, John Maus, and Gary Leeds were briefly huge stars in England (and small ones in their native land) at the peak of the British Invasion,” reports AllMusic. “…They favored orchestrated ballads that were a studied attempt to emulate the success of another brother act who weren’t really brothers: the Righteous Brothers.”

The tune appeared in the recent TV series Master of None in 2017, part of a soundtrack that was nothing if not eclectic. “I Can’t Let it Happen to You” wasn’t a single for the Walker Brothers, but the album track, released in 1967, fit the quirky series perfectly. Pitchfork quotes the show’s music supervisor, Zach Cowie, speaking about the series’ star and co-writer, Aziz Ansari: “‘We’re both record collectors that are kind of always looking for crate-digging kind of deeper stuff. That sort of becomes a sound that unifies the whole series. A lot of it is just mixed up sort of records, and it does fit well with the character.'”

The Righteous Brothers’ influence is strong on this track, complete with a leisurely, behind-the-beat delivery, the lead vocal’s casual approach to pitch, and the spacious, reverb-soaked production. Starting in E major, the tune shifts to F major at 1:55 at the start of a brief instrumental bridge.

Fresh Prince: Google Translated

In 2013, Mother Jones magazine asked “what happens when highly trained musicians and actors do Broadway and pop culture with a meta twist?” The answer is CDZA, short for Collective Cadenza. CDZA creates “viral videos starring Juilliard-trained musicians, local rock and jazz artists, Broadway singers, and sketch comedians — done in a single Steadicam shot. ‘Our creative process looks like us sitting in an apartment, saying, this would be funny, this would be cool — and then we begin to divide and conquer.’”

The process for 2013’s “Fresh Prince: Google Translated,” according to Joe Sabia, the group’s lead “conceptor”/director: “’One of our main things is producing videos that also serve as a commentary on American culture. Google Translate is something everyone uses, so we put together a song everyone knows and a device everyone knows.’”

This expanded version of the tune is built on the theme from the wildly popular 1990s sitcom Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Featuring a much stronger accompaniment than the original, the entire tune centers around a I minor –> bVII major/I vamp. As the lyrics grow progressively more inane with each pass through Google Translate, the key ascends a half-step at 2:02, 2:27, and 3:09.