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“It would have been hard for any group to release a more appropriately-titled single in late 1977 than the Commodores did with ‘Too Hot Ta Trot.'” (UDiscoverMusic). “After an appropriate period of dues-paying, the Alabama collective were now in the form of their lives. Two of the Motown group’s previous four singles, ‘Easy’ and ‘Just to Be Close To You,’ had topped the Billboard R&B charts. With Lionel Richie’s ballads as a counterpoint to their funk origins, they were masters of any tempo. The irresistible ballad ‘Easy’ had been followed by another Top 5 hit in both soul and pop formats with the slinky ‘Brick House,’ and now came another winning floor-filler.

In the group’s democratic way, the songwriting credit for “Too Hot Ta Trot” went to them all, listing Richie, Milan Williams, Ronald LaPread, Thomas McClary, Walter “Clyde” Orange and William King. It originated as the closing studio cut on their then-new Live! set, which was predicted by Billboard to be a “hot holiday item with both pop and soul crowds.” It entered Hot Soul Singles at a bold #51 on the December 24, 1977 chart, and rose swiftly to spend a week at the top of that countdown in February 1978. The Commodores had their fourth R&B #1, with another around the corner in ‘Three Times a Lady,’ and another again in 1979 with ‘Still.’ With disco fever at its height, ‘Too Hot Ta Trot’ was a natural for the soundtrack of the movie Thank God It’s Friday, which appeared the following spring.”

From 1:03 – 1:20, E major flips over into its C# relative minor for a brief section (not sure what to call it, as the song’s form is a little bit atypical!). The section is repeated later in the form.

The US-based brother act Sparks, founded by Ron and Russell Mael, “are the epitome of the genre-defying act,” (Nialler9). “Over the course of a career spanning four decades they’ve released 23 albums and undergone several major metamorphoses … their stylized sound and sensibility varies radically from album to album … Yet while there are chapters of the Sparks saga that aren’t to everyone’s taste, these chameleonic fluctuations should be seen as symptomatic of a determination to constantly evolve.

While there is frivolity in some of Sparks’ songs, there’s nothing frivolous about the audacious aesthetic decisions they’ve made in their attempts to find new ways of presenting their work … While a tendency toward radical change characterizes the music of Sparks, there are also elements that have remained consistent throughout. It is these facets that make Sparks so special … never willing to sacrifice aesthetic convictions for the sake of mass success, their integrity and resolute sense of adventure remains intact … This is why numerous bands from New Order to Nirvana have lauded them and why they continue to be contemporary and significant.”

“Amateur Hour,” a track from 1974’s Kimono My House, features a rhythmic concept known as a hemiola in classical music terminology; it isn’t very common in pop music! A hemiola occurs when a short phrase is repeated, but doesn’t fit perfectly with the meter of a piece — so it’s slightly rhythmically displaced each time it’s consecutively repeated. For this track, the concept is most clearly stated in the opening bars, by the guitar: the four-note upward step-wise melody is repeated multiple times, but begins both on and off the beat due to the displacement. It’s repeated later in the vocals during the choruses … a lot. At 2:08, the track shifts up a full step from Bb major to C major.