Tag: 1980s

Donald Fagen | The Nightfly

“Donald Fagen‘s solo debut established him as a more grounded, autobiographical writer away from Steely Dan. It also launched a trilogy of albums that wouldn’t conclude for decades,” notes Ultimate Classic Rock. “The Nightfly, released on Oct. 1, 1982, uses an overnight stint by a DJ at the fictional WJAZ to transport listeners back to a moment in time from Fagen’s youth at the turn of the ’60s. ‘I used to live 50 miles outside New York City in one of those rows of prefab houses. It was a bland environment. One of my only escapes was late-night radio shows that were broadcast from Manhattan – jazz and rhythm and blues. To me, the DJs were romantic and colorful figures and the whole hipster culture of black lifestyles seemed much more vital to a kid living in the suburbs, as I was.’

Fagen was searching ‘for some alternatives to the style of life in the 50s – the political climate, the sexual repression, the fact that the technological advances of the period didn’t seem to have a guiding humanistic philosophy behind them. A lot of kids were looking for alternatives, and it’s amazing how many of us found them in jazz, in other kinds of black music, in science fiction and in the sort of hip ideas and attitudes we could pick up on the light-night radio talk shows from New York City. More and more of us started looking, until the whole thing sort of exploded and you had the 60’s.'”

The album’s jazz pedigree might have a more obvious presence on its other tracks, based solely on instrumentation or arranging (for instance, the close-harmony vocals on the ballad “Maxine,” where Fagen’s multi-tracked vocals behave like an exquisitely phrased big band saxophone section.) But the adventurous harmonies and storytelling on “The Nightfly” make it an appropriate fulcrum for this album, somehow constructing an updated niche for the treasured audio iconography of jazz. Among other impressive chart positions worldwide, the album was certified platinum in both the US and the UK.

After starting in G major, the track shifts into a high-strung bridge (beginning at 3:20 in B major, but featuring multiple short excursions just about everywhere else), then returns to G major at 4:10.

U2 | Gloria

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.

Cheryl Lynn | What’s On Your Mind

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!

The Police | Man In a Suitcase

After the success of its second album, UK/US-hybrid rock/pop/reggae trio The Police were under orders from their record label to write a hit album (Zenyatta Mondatta). This focus was quite a change from the band’s earlier goals as they were defining their sound — but also different from its later days of almost total artistic freedom as a supergroup.

In a 1982 interview with Creem excerpted on the band’s website, drummer Stewart Copeland recalls the challenges inherent in making the 1980 album: “‘We’ve got to do an album in four weeks we know we can do it, we’ve done it before. But this time it’s going to go straight to number one.’ Whilst we were in the studio, our sales figures were being discussed by people from the record company – and we hadn’t even got the thing on tape, let alone on vinyl. We were very acutely aware, that we were Creating A Product For The Market-place. The market-place was there in the studio with us. It made it a very commercial album, a very slick, clean album that showed we can do that … It’s very difficult to make an album that’s tailor-made to go straight to the top of the charts.”

The frenetic album track “Man in a Suitcase” starts in F major, but after the bridge (1:14 – 1:28) there’s a jump to G major. Many thanks to our frequent contributor JB for this submission!

for Mark

Al Jarreau | We’re In This Love Together

The first of three singles released from the 1981 album Breakin’ Away, “We’re In This Love Together” is one of Al Jarreau‘s most successful tunes. It reached the #15 spot on the Billboard Hot 100, and the #6 and #1 spots on the Adult Contemporary charts in the US and Canada respectively. Key change at 2:04.

George Jones | He Stopped Loving Her Today

“There’s an old cliché that says country music is mostly comprised of three chords and the truth,” reports American Songwriter. “There’s also a generalization that says country music is, on the whole, unremittingly sad. Needless to say, those are broad descriptions that limit the scope of a type of music that encompasses many different musical strategies and is capable of conveying the full range of the emotional spectrum. Yet there is no doubt that “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” the 1980 masterpiece by George Jones, does indeed adhere to those clichés, even as it finds a way to transcend them.

After all, the song is pretty much just three chords. (Technically, there are six, but that’s only because of the key change.) The truth can be found in Jones’ stunning performance, a vocal for the ages. And the song itself, composed by Bobby Braddock and Curly Putman, contains the sadness, which was then amplified to majestic proportions by the production of Billy Sherrill.

All of those disparate elements and unique personalities meshed to create this one-of-a-kind recording from 1980. The accolades for the song were immediate, as it won Grammy, Academy of Country Music, and CMA awards. It continues to amass honors, including selection by the Library of Congress National Recording Preservation Board in 2009 and numerous occasions when it was named greatest country song of all time on various media lists.” 

The tune is a classic Country music ballad, but it’s certainly not a spare voice-and-guitar ditty. Rather, given its high production values, strings, and overall polish, it fits squarely in the Countrypolitan category. The modulation arrives at 0:54, early in the long list of the song’s emotional hits. The arrangement continues to escalate, accompanying Jones’ understated singing and simple yet devastating spoken word narrative.

Robbie Dupree | Steal Away

PopMatters reports “In 1987, Rick Astley positioned himself as Michael McDonald’s Mini-Me. But there was another contender who’d got there before him. If ever someone had both a voice and songwriting style reminiscent of McDonald, it was Robbie Dupree, the singer/songwriter who emerged in 1980. Perhaps that’s unfair; he was also his own man, writing or co-writing the bulk of these two soft-rock-with-a-smooth-jazz-twist albums, originally on Elektra. They’re shiny, expensive-sounding affairs, typical of the final throes of the first singer/songwriter movement. Robbie Dupree was already in his mid-30s when his self-titled debut came out. He did remarkably well to land at #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 with 1980’s frothy ‘Steal Away.'”

After starting in A major, there’s a key change to D major as the bridge hits at 1:44.

Bill Evans | Danny Boy

The New York Festival of Song reviewed jazz pianist Bill Evans‘ “Danny Boy” in 2018. The album on which it appeared, Time Remembered, was recorded in 1963 but not released for two decades — several years after his death in 1980.

“ … It marks Evans’ return to the recording studio after a year spent grieving the death of Scott LaFaro, his trio bassist, who was killed in a car accident. Evans showed up to the studio alone, played four tunes, and walked out – or so the story goes.

I share the notion with many of you that time is money, but the 11-minute price tag on this song seems like nothing if you’re willing to sit with him as he musically figures out how to breathe again. The space, sparseness, and tender hesitation of every note he plays in the beginning unravel the knots of my heart every time, and in doing so, remind me of why I do what I do.”

Unexpected modulations — which seem nothing short of inevitable after they’ve gone by — are all over this tune.

The Carpenters | (There’s No Place Like) Home for the Holidays

Other than Perry Como’s 1984 rendition, the most well-known recording of this tune was featured on The Carpenters second holiday album, An Old Fashioned Christmas, released in 1984. Karen Carpenter, who sang lead vocals on every track, died the year before the album was released. Key change at 1:59.

Rickie Lee Jones | It Must Be Love

“For her waywardness alone, Rickie Lee Jones deserves a lot of credit,” begins the New York Times‘ review of her 1984 release, The Magazine. “The pop record business is still coming to terms with self-directed female performers, and it prefers its songwriters – male or female – to be prolific, craftsmanlike and fond of the basic four-minute pop song. Ambition translates as the desire to sell more records, and eccentricity is fine as long as it’s confined to a performer’s fashion sense. That can put a strain on a musician like Miss Jones, who is determined to add some poetry to the standard-form pop song, then melt the whole thing down.”

Her #4 hit single “Chuck E’s In Love” (1979) was featured on her eponymous million-selling debut album. It seemed she could pivot in almost any direction after that release found her “evoking jazz singers, girl groups, and the strong influence of Joni Mitchell and Laura Nyro. Miss Jones clearly knew American music from Bessie Smith to Leonard Bernstein to Bruce Springsteen, and she could sing just about anything … masking control with girlish playfulness.”

That playfulness was still in full evidence on her 1984 single “It Must Be Love.” In G major overall, at the beginning of the verses the I chord is actually Gsus2; it’s only the vocal line that defines the major third. While there is no modulation per se, the tune jumps the tracks abruptly at 1:28, when a Bmin7 –> E major pair is stated and then repeated before returning to G major at 1:37. At 1:48, a sustained instrumental interlude features suspended chords as the groove moves to the back burner. This kind of subtlety cemented Jones’ status as singular songwriter and performer.