1990s – Page 11

Madonna | Vogue

“The underground — any underground — tends to find peculiar and unintended routes into the spotlight,” (Stereogum). “Madonna was always a creature of New York club culture, and it wasn’t particularly out of character for her to get interested in a particular facet of that culture, which kept evolving after she got famous. But it was pretty weird that Madonna managed to take a small slice of the deep underground and mainstream the absolute hell out of it. And it was also pretty weird that Madonna pulled this off with a would-be B-side that got stapled onto the hoochie-coochie retro-cabaret album that she’d recorded as a tie-in with her big summer-blockbuster movie … Madonna was prescient about a lot of things, but she can’t have predicted the ripple-effects of all the moves that she made. ‘Vogue’ wasn’t even supposed to be a single, but it became one of the defining smashes of a hall-of-fame career. That happens sometimes.” The single reached #1 in the spring of 1990 and remained there for three weeks.

The Guardian further describes the drag scene of the late 1980s: “Contrary to popular belief, Madonna did not invent voguing. (Her hit song) was a euphoric celebration/appropriation of a dance form that emerged from the Harlem ballroom scene in the 80s. ‘Balls are part of a broader history of black queer performance and spectacle that stretches back at least to the early days of the 20th century,’ says Madison Moore, assistant professor of gender, sexuality and women’s studies at Virginia Commonwealth University. Poet and playwright Langston Hughes described these balls in his 1940 autobiography The Big Sea as ‘spectacles in color’.”

After an intro and a verse in Ab major, the chorus shifts to Ab minor at 1:40, with a brief but dense series of syncopated compound piano chords layered over the bass, which never migrates away from the tonic throughout the entire tune. Since the melody also centers around the tonic, the harmonic variety of those compound chords is pivotal. At 1:56, verse 2 reverts to Ab major; the pattern continues from there.

Amy Grant | Baby, Baby

Amy Grant ruled the Contemporary Christian genre when she released her decidedly secular 1991 album Heart in Motion. She’d become “the Michael Jordan of Christian Pop,” according to Stereogum: “When Grant was working on ‘Baby Baby’ she’d only just become a mother. Her daughter Millie was six weeks old … Grant talks about driving around, trying to come up with lyrics, and then coming home and seeing Millie with her babysitter: ‘I sat down at the kitchen counter, and in less than 10 minutes wrote the song to her. Suddenly, all the little silly phrases fit with the music because it was all to her.’ Backstories for #1 hits don’t come much cuter than that …

‘Baby Baby’ topped Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart, as well as the Hot 100. The song also made a respectable dent in the Dance Club Songs chart, and I am really enjoying the mental image of a club DJ trying to find just the right moment to throw on ‘Baby Baby.’… Grant had already won five Grammys before ‘Baby Baby,’ but they’d all been in the gospel categories. But ‘Baby Baby’ got nominations for Song and Record of the Year, and Heart In Motion was in the Album of the Year mix, too.”

The tune starts in F# major, then bounces and sparkles its way until 1:33, when most of the groove falls away, making plenty of room for Grant to glissando her way up to G# major. 2:22 serves up a keyboard solo which feels like another upward modulation, but actually falls back to F#. A 2:52, we slide back up to G# major for the duration.

Holly Cole Trio | I Can See Clearly Now

“I Can See Clearly Now” was written and recorded by American singer Johnny Nash in 1972, and was a number-one hit in the US, the UK, Canada, and South Africa. Contrasting with Nash’s original reggae groove, the Holly Cole Trio recorded a jazz-driven cover as the lead track for their 1993 album Don’t Smoke In Bed. The tune begins in Db and, almost as if the sun is breaking through the clouds, emerges into Gb major coming out of the bridge at 3:02.

George Michael | Freedom ’90

“Freedom ’90” was the second single from George Michael’s 1990 album Listen Without Prejudice. The album attempted to accomplish the nearly impossible task of following up on Faith, Michael’s global smash 1987 album that produced multiple hit singles and was among the top 50 best-selling albums of the 1980s.

Billboard’s review of the track included some colorful prose: “Platinum pop star waxes both cynical and philosophical on this well-worded stab at his early days of fame.” From The Daily Vault: “Its catchy chorus and uptempo, jangling instrumentation, coupled with his signature soaring vocals, make this confessional a striking example of Michael’s newfound independence.” From Music and Media: “… a stirring Bo Diddley beat, a gospel approach, and a great piano riff are the main features of this addictive hit candidate.”

Completely independent of radio airplay: the focus on a pantheon of the world’s top supermodels at the height of their own careers, rather than Michael singing to the camera, sent the video into the highest strata of popularity. The fact that all of the cover art iconography of Faith — the leather jacket, the jukebox, and the blonde hollow-body guitar — ends up spectacularly reduced to ashes didn’t hurt, either.

Beginning in a slightly uptuned C major, the verse is followed by some relatively delicate syncopation of the vocal line during the C minor pre-chorus (1:46). At 2:07, C major comes roaring back for the monstrously huge sing-along chorus. 3:30 brings another minor pre-chorus; at 4:52, a minor bridge also provides a contrasting lead-up to the chorus.

Robyn | Do You Really Want Me (Show Respect)

“Robyn Is Here (1997) was a generic album in the best sense, proof that this budding newcomer could tackle a bunch of different things without making a big show of it, despite the obviously formidable acrobatics in her voice and the less obviously steeled songcraft, which is as listenable and lightly touched as anything Blige or Brandy themselves has ever done,” (Billboard). “It doesn’t feel like a great album — that smallness to it really is a double-edged sword — but there isn’t a speck of filler on it either … There are also surprising touches, like the (sampled?) Mellotron that cues up the awesome Swedish Top Ten hit ‘Do You Really Want Me (Show Respect),’ like it’s ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ or something.”

Produced by Max Martin, a fellow Swede, just as his production and writing career was breaking wide open via his work with acts such as The Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, and Westlife, “Do You Really Want Me” bears Martin’s trademark sheen, vocal-forward mix, and eminently singable choruses. In fact, the opening notes of each chorus resemble a singsong schoolyard taunt, an effect only magnified by Robyn’s girlish vocal timbre.

After a start in C major, the tune shifts up to Eb major at 3:17, jumping downward to a surprise key change into Db major at 3:36 for a last runthrough of the chorus before the fading outro. Many thanks to our regular contributor Ziyad for this submission!

Red Hot Chili Peppers | Californication

Rather like the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ highest point of popularity around the turn of the millennium, Pitchfork‘s review of the band’s 1999 album Californication was very much of its era:

“In a way, you have to be familiar with California to appreciate (lead singer Anthony) Kiedis’ lyrics. I mean, Los Angeles is shallow, sunny, fun, and tragic … Longevity in rock music is about as rare as hip-hop spellcheckers these days. The idea of albums has given way to the force-feeding of singles. Teens reposter their walls with the face-of-the-moment more frequently than undercover advertisers placard boarded-up fences and buildings in New York. Basically, the Chili Peppers are the closest thing we have to a Led Zepplin today. If you want quality, commercial, Jeep-stereo, headphone, stadium-filling, champion Rock that you can get behind, where else are you going to turn? Not to Eminem, you ain’t.”

The title track is quite a lot more reserved than “Scar Tissue,” “Get on Top,” and “Right on Time.” But there’s room for a ballad on even a rock album (or a tune that amounts to a ballad in RHCP-land) — and “Californication” fits the bill. After a start in A minor, there’s a shift to F# minor or an instrumental bridge at 3:22, then a return to the original key at 4:02.

Emilia | Big Big World

Big Big World is the title track of Swedish singer Emilia’s eponymous debut studio album, released in 1998. “Big, Big World…is gentle and arranged as a pseudo-procession tune,” wrote AllMusic editor Roxanne Branford in her review. “As if Emilia is taking her first cautious steps toward independence and adulthood.” The track was a #1 across Europe but wasn’t as successful in the United States. Emilia has gone on to record three subsequent albums.

The tune starts in C and modulates up to D at 2:29.

Cole Fortier | Such Unlikely Lovers (Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach)

Here’s a first: a submission which not only includes an exacting level of theory detail, but is a live performance by the contributor, leading a quartet! Cole Fortier is an undergrad at the SUNY’s Crane School of Music. Thank you for such a detailed description of this genius tune’s structure, Cole!

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From Burt Bacharach and Elvis Costello’s masterwork album, Painted from Memory (1998), comes the track “Such Unlikely Lovers.” It’s a truly unique and incredible song for many reasons.

First, it seems to be the one lyric on the album where everything goes right for the main character! While this album is an epic and stunning meditation on heartbreak, the upbeat and colorful narrative of this song brings the variation of levity and charm to the ordeal. Costello said that he heard the music that Bacharach presented to him for this track and immediately envisioned a lyric based around a chance romantic encounter on the street. The sense of spontaneity, optimism, and energy in the lyric is reflected so excitingly in the music. This song grooves so hard — more than almost any other song on the album. The constantly shifting tonality and subtle meter changes (a Bacharach trademark) truly embody the spontaneous spirit that drives the song.

As the song begins, it’s difficult to discern the key; the riff essentially vamps between a Gsus chord and an Fsus chord (Eb/F to be specific). The vocal then enters on a C minor chord, which contextualizes the previous Eb/F chord as being a part of the key signature of C minor. More specifically, this section of the song can be interpreted as C Dorian with the raised sixth scale degree of the A natural. The most intriguing harmonic shift happens very quickly though as an F#min7 chord occurs on the word “gray” (0:24) and subsequently resolves to a Bmin9 chord. This modulation from C minor to B minor is masterfully handled through carrying over the common tone of the A natural from the C Dorian mode to the F#min7 chord. The entire modulatory sequence repeats again at the lyrics “when you look how you feel” (0:30) — but this time, the song continues on in a tonality much more closely associated with B minor than C minor (starting at “Listen now”, 0:40). After the chorus, the opening riff returns at 1:17. Weirdly enough though, the opening riff is played 2.5 steps down and is never played in its original tonality again.

The smooth and nuanced modulation patterns in “Such Unlikely Lovers” through the use of common tones really show the genius of Bacharach’s writing while also supporting the energized and spontaneous lyric that Costello wrote.

Richard Smallwood + United Voices | I Will Sing Praises

“World-class composer, pianist, and arranger Richard Smallwood has clearly and solidly changed the face of gospel music,” (KennedyCenter.org). “He can impeccably blend classical movements with traditional gospel, and arrive at a mix that is invariably Smallwood’s alone. A diverse and innovative artist, Richard Smallwood has achieved many honors; Dove Awards and a Grammy also attest to his talents … Richard began his recording career in the late seventies with an album simply titled The Richard Smallwood Singers. The debut project spent 87 weeks on Billboard’s Gospel chart … His song “I Love The Lord” crossed onto the big screen when Whitney Houston sang it in the film The Preacher’s Wife.”

“I Will Sing Praises” (1996) was both written and arranged by Smallwood. Starting at 3:05, multiple half-step modulations arrive, with the intensity only further magnified by the choir’s brief jump to a cappella at 4:47.

Can You Feel The Love Tonight? (from “The Lion King”)

Featured in the classic 1994 Disney film The Lion King, Elton John and Tim Rice’s “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” won the Academy Award for Best Original Song and peaked at number 4 on the Billboard Top 100. According to a survey conducted in 2020, nearly 80% of couples who chose the tune as the first dance song at their wedding ended up staying together.

The track begins in F and modulates up a step to G at 1:51.

Thanks to first-time contributor Joya Migliaccio for this submission!