JB – Page 13

The Revivalists | Celebrate (feat. Preservation Hall Jazz Band)

“The strongest bonds never bend, break, or burst. Such a bond forms the bedrock of anything worth fighting for, whether it be a family, a friendship — or a band,” (TheRevivalists.com). “The Revivalists retain this union 15 years into their impressive career as they prepare to unleash their strongest material yet. Standing together, this eight-piece rock ‘n’ roll collective has made the journey from hole-in-the-wall marathon gigs to sold-out shows at hallowed venues a la Radio City Music Hall and Red Rocks Amphitheater, multi-platinum success, numerous national television performances, and more than 800 million streams.

… ‘Art can revive and make life feel vibrant. Live music can especially do that. When we first started out, we were watching New Orleans rebuild after Katrina, and fight to keep the city’s spirit alive. In a way, that’s what we’re seeing now, except on a global scale. Everybody realizes what they almost lost, and it happens to be many of the things New Orleans is known for – being with friends, experiencing things good and bad, building fulfilling relationships, and going to concerts and restaurants. It boils down to the zest for life – that’s what our band name and music are all about.'”

Featuring the legendary Preservation Hall Jazz Band, an ensemble with roots going back 70+ years in the Crescent City, “Celebrate” is often a joyful shout chorus: just about everybody is playing at any given time. But the boisterous tradition of the shout chorus is something of a New Orleans specialty — and it’s used expertly here. At 3:08, a half-step key change appears.

Mariah Carey | Can’t Let Go

“Early on, critics griped about Mariah’s reliance on vocal acrobatics, which, they claimed, kept audiences at a remove from her actual songs,” (SlantMagazine.com). “Indeed, the title track of her sophomore effort, 1991’s Emotions, and the album’s bombastic uptempo centerpiece, ‘You’re So Cold,’ are lessons in fabulous excess, showcases for Mariah’s famous five octaves. But the album’s second single, ‘Can’t Let Go,’ is one of her most understated hits, her downcast verses floating ephemerally atop the song’s pointillistic percussion … With Emotions, she managed to strike a balance of soul and pop that’s not just technically impressive, but filled with undeniable, honest-to-god feeling.”

Co-written by Carey and Walter Afanasieff, “Can’t Let Go” was the second single from Emotions. Cashbox‘s review of the single included strong praise: “This time Carey is slowing down the pace from the first single ‘Emotions.’ In our opinion, this should have been the first single taken off the album. Her voice still has that crystal-clear sound that has hypnotized listeners of all sorts.” Although Carey’s first five American singles had reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, “Can’t Let Go” fell just short of that mark, reaching #2 and spending 17 weeks in the top 40 (Billboard).

Compared to much of the rest of her early material, where vocal fireworks were the rule, “Can’t Let Go” found Carey showing great restraint — showcasing her stratospheric whistle tone vocals only as a faint whisper during the intro (0:20 – 0:25). After several wistful verses and choruses, the bridge builds from its starting point (2:18), ascending through fluid layers of Carey’s own backing vocals to a shimmering half-step key change at 2:45. After one more chorus, the now wordless vocal of the outro cycles back to the melodic shape of the first line of the verse — suggesting that the sorrow from this unrequited love is nowhere near a resolution.

The Grass Roots | Sooner or Later

“They began as a bunch of faceless, veteran session musicians playing soulful pop, but the Grass Roots were no mere bubblegum band—they developed a mix of blue-eyed soul and big, brassy rock that would one day morph into the power-pop phenomenon,” (Liveabout).

“Formed in 1966 in Los Angeles, the Grass Roots may have made songs that are familiar to you even if you don’t know the band. ‘Let’s Live for Today’ and ‘Midnight Confessions’ remain the most likely candidates for Grass Roots songs you might have heard on radio, movies, or TV. The former was featured in Season 2 of American Horror Story, while the latter is heard in a Season 4 episode of The West Wing and on the radio in Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown.“

Full of kicks delivered by horns and organ, “Sooner or Later” (1971) is relatively repetitive, particularly in the simple lyrics of its chorus. But it somehow doesn’t feel that way due to the tune’s syncopation; every line of the chorus starts on an off-beat. At 1:47, a half-step key change kicks in unexpectedly as part of a tag at the end of a chorus.

Culture Club | Miss Me Blind

“For a time England’s biggest pop sensation, heralded in America as leaders of a second British Invasion, Culture Club capitalized on Boy George’s outrageous nightlife cross-dressing and aimed-to-shock intelligence to slip their mushy mainstream soul-pop into respectable homes the world over,” (Trouser Press). “Phenomenology aside, the foursome never sounded anywhere near as bizarre as they originally appeared …

Dropping the silly “white boy” crypto-sociology that threads through the first album, Colour by Numbers gets right to the business at hand, which is the creation of irresistible pop hits in a variety of molds. And in that regard, the album is a real success … prominently features singer Helen Terry, who provides a powerful foil to George’s smooth crooning.”

One of the band’s most successful singles was 1984’s “Miss Me Blind,” a soul-inflected, danceable pop hit. With songwriting credits split among all four members of the band, the track hit #5 on the US Hot 100 and #6 on the Canadian pop charts. Built in G minor overall, the early bridge (2:14 – 2:30) shifts to E minor before returning to the original key. Culture Club seemed to largely avoid over-indulgence in synthesized textures, instead maintaining a focus on the human voice (both George’s and Terry’s). As a result, many of the band’s tunes seem a bit less dated than others of the same vintage.

Commodores | Sweet Love

“R&B purists have often argued that the Commodores did their most essential work before 1977,” (AllMusic). “It was in 1977 that they crossed over to the pop/adult contemporary audience in a major way with ‘Easy,’ and subsequent hits like 1978’s ‘Three Times a Lady’ and 1979’s ‘Still’ (both of which reached number one on Billboard’s pop singles charts) certainly weren’t the work of R&B snobs.

… the song that 1975’s Movin’ On is best remembered for is the laid-back, gospel-drenched hit ‘Sweet Love.’ Written by Richie, ‘Sweet Love’ is one of those secular soul tunes that isn’t really gospel but borders on it; when Richie belts out the lyrics, ‘You got to keep on searching/harder/day by day,’ you feel like you’re in the front row during an AME church service. And even though Movin’ On is an LP that R&B purists rave about (rightly so), you can’t say that it was ignored by pop audiences — ‘Sweet Love’ was a number two R&B hit, but it also reached number five on Billboard’s pop singles chart.”

The mid-tempo track features soft, shimmeringly delicate sections — but also passages with the saturated sound of a full compliment of horns and strings joining the band’s regular instrumentation. A powerhouse whole-step key change hits at 3:49.

“I’m a Barbie Girl” again, but in the Style of Six Classical Composers | Josep Castanyer Alonso

“If you were alive and anywhere near a radio or MTV in the late ’90s, you heard ‘Barbie Girl,'” (Slate). “Its mercilessly chirpy Europop lyrics (‘I’m a Barbie girl in the Barbie world / Life in plastic, it’s fantastic’) were set against a relentless post–Spice Girls beat. Norwegian lead singer Lene Nystrøm playacted as Barbie and Danish singer-rapper René Dif played Ken. Dif’s gruff ‘Come on, Barbie, let’s go party’ is one of the song’s most unkillable earworms.

… whatever rock snobs think of ‘Barbie Girl,’ the song is now so durable that, earlier this week, no less a rock star than (Coldplay’s) Chris Martin was asked by two fans to sing it live onstage. Though it’s been 26 years since Aqua’s infamous anthem was first unleashed, Martin still remembered the melody.”

Against this backdrop of pop ubiquity and this summer’s cinematic extension of the Barbie franchise, cellist Josep Castanyer Alonso has produced his take on how six different classical composers might have approached the “Barbie” theme. Belying his top-drawer resumé, Alonso’s YouTube bio simply reads, “I am a cellist in the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. I also play the piano a bit …” There are key changes between the various variations, but also a few modulations within a given variation (each carefully labeled); 1:16 is just one example.

Staying within just one era/style, here’s a shorter fugue by Alonso as well:

Margie Joseph | Show Me

” … Margie Joseph’s legacy has been nearly buried by the inaccessibility of her music,” (PopMatters). “For far too many years, finding her music has been the wont of voracious crate-diggers. Only the most dedicated listener would pony up for pricey import re-issues or seek out the few rare compilations that currently exist.

(Producer) Arif Mardin treated Joseph like a soul queen on her eponymous debut for Atlantic in 1973, earning her inevitable comparisons to label mate Aretha Franklin.” Al Green liked one of Joseph’s tunes so much that he asked her to tour with him; she also received praise from Paul McCartney. Of her collaboration with Mardin, Joseph said “’I would just hear these melodies. Arif was so patient. He’d sit there and listen to me sing a line of a song out of the blue, and he’d create something out of it.’ … The signature Margie Joseph sound … strength and sensitivity intertwined in one powerhouse set of pipes.” Joseph also went on to work with Lamont Dozier and Narada Michael Walden.

Starting in C major, the off-kilter intro/verse 1 junction of 1968’s “Show Me” features an odd meter just before the lead vocal’s entrance, warning us from the get-go not to get too comfortable. 1:26 brings an upward half-step shift, followed by another leading into the fading outro at 2:07. This horn-driven knockout punch weighs in at only just over 2.5 minutes, but is nothing short of a lyrical mic drop throughout.

Climax | Precious and Few

Vocalist Sonny Geraci, a Cleveland native, didn’t become a household name in his own right, but he was at the helm of two very different but prominent pop hits with two different bands. “’Time Won’t Let Me,’ (The Outsiders), a frenetic dancefloor rocker … incorporated popular soul music elements and was consistent with the garage-band trend of the mid-’60s, (BestClassicBands). ‘Mersey meets Motown,’ was how Geraci once described it.”

Geraci “resurfaced in 1972 fronting the Los Angeles-based Climax … their ballad ‘Precious and Few’ became one of the biggest hits of that year, but they were only able to follow it with one more chart single, “Life and Breath,” which topped out at #52. Their first and only album, simply titled Climax, fizzled at #177 and the group disbanded in 1975.”

The power ballad pulls out all of the stops, featuring layers of orchestral instrumentation and extra backing vocals in addition to the sound of the band itself. Starting in A major, the track makes a stop in Bb major at 1:30, then drops a hearty rubato into the mix during the transition to B major at 1:59.

Junior Senior | Take My Time

“Junior Senior were a Danish pop duo. The duo consisted of Jesper ‘Junior’ Mortensen and Jeppe ‘Senior’ Laursen,” (Discogs). “They were well known for their 2002 single ‘Move Your Feet,’ which gained worldwide success in 2003, most notably in the United Kingdom.” The track barely made a scratch in the US, peaking at #45 on the US Dance chart — the band’s most prominent release in the States. But the tune reached #4 in Denmark, #20 in Australia, #11 in France, and #3 in the UK.

The duo’s 2005 release “Take My Time,” from the album Hey Hey My My Yo Yo, sounds like an update on the sound of the US-based band B-52s because … it is: B-52s vocalists Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson are both featured on the track.

Sounding for all the world like a late ’80s/early ’90s B-52s hit with a bit less frenetic energy, a lot less intra-band banter, and a broader harmonic vocabulary, “Take My Time” is a pop/funk fête delivered by a band that brings “joyful energy … mix(ing) all kinds of genres in a melting funky pot with a big smile on their faces,” (MTV). The track features half-step modulations at 2:48 (with an uninterrupted groove) and 3:14 (after what seems like a false ending — until the decrescendo shifts into reverse and the groove returns).

Hall + Oates | She’s Gone

In an interview with American Songwriter, John Oates, songwriter/guitarist/vocalist for Hall and Oates, spoke about “She’s Gone,” from the band’s 1973 album Abandoned Luncheonette (re-released to larger acclaim in 1976): “I don’t know if it’s the best song we’ve ever written, but it’s certainly one of the most enduring songs. I think it’s a song that is certainly emblematic of our collaborative relationship … We knew it was a good song. We knew it was unique. But really that song – don’t confuse that song with the record. The song was the thing that happened in our living room with him on the piano and me on the acoustic guitar. The record is what happened when we went into Atlantic studios with the legendary producer, Arif Mardin, and this incredible collection of musicians who he surrounded us with and his string arrangement and the chemistry. I call it the perfect storm of creativity. It turned that song into a classic record that has really stood the test.”

From Songfacts: “This is one of the duo’s favorite Hall & Oates songs. Daryl Hall told Entertainment Weekly: ‘It’s very autobiographical. What we wrote about was real, even though it was two different situations. And it’s very thematic with us: this soaring melody and uplifting chord progression, but about a very sad thing.'” In Songfacts‘ 2011 interview with John Oates, he explained: “‘We started out as songwriters. And both Daryl and myself, individually and collectively, have a wide variety of musical tastes. Just because the music we made may have fallen into a certain category doesn’t mean we weren’t aware of and interested in other kinds of music. When Hall & Oates got together, I brought a traditional American folk-y approach, and it was something Daryl wasn’t really even aware of. And Daryl brought a lot more of the urban R&B side. And when we blended those together, we eventually created a sound.'”

In what might be a high water mark for the duo’s vocals, lead vocal duties are shared and harmonies alternate with octave unisons. Although the single peaked at only #7 on the Billboard Hot 100, it also placed in the top 10 on the Canada Top Singles chart and both the US and Canadian Adult Contemporary charts. It only reached #93 on the US R&B chart. Though the duo’s unprecedented run of early-80s hits almost entirely arose from the pop genre, this earlier outing was textbook blue-eyed soul. Between 4:08 – 4:34, a late instrumental bridge brings three half-step modulations, ushered in with a IV/V compound chord in each new key.