Tag: 2000s

Maria Rita | Maltratar, Não é Direito

“As the daughter of two Brazilian musical icons – legendary singer Elis Regina and acclaimed pianist Cezar Camargo Mariano – it’s no surprise that Maria Rita has followed in their footsteps to become one of her native land’s best selling artists,” (BBC). “After studying at New York University and working as a journalist, Rita didn’t release her first album until the age of 24, but over a million sales worldwide for her eponymous debut and a host of Latin Grammy awards soon established her at the pinnacle of the MPB (Música Popular Brasileira) scene.

After further success with 2005’s Segundo, Samba Meu (My Samba, 2007) sees the São Paulo-born star paying tribute to the traditional music of Brazil, featuring acoustic reinterpretations of works by some of the country’s great songwriters. Backed by some impeccably tasteful musicianship and arrangements, Rita meanders politely through 13 pleasant, yet distinctly unmemorable, tracks; her note-perfect vocals never threatening to break into anything more taxing than a breezy trill.”

Beginning in D minor, Rita’s “Maltratar, Não é Direito” (which translates approximately to “mistreating others is not right”), shifts to D major at 1:00 for its chorus. At 1:36, it returns to D minor for an interlude centering around a wordless vocal before shifting back to the next verse. The pattern continues from there, propelled by a saturated instrumentation (layered percussion and the small yet mighty cavaquinho, in particular).

Bruce Hornsby | What the Hell Happened

“Relevancy is an ambition that countless artists strive for, yet so few actually achieve,” (Glide Magazine). “Iconic pianist Bruce Hornsby can proudly count himself among those fortunate few. With a storied musical career that has spanned (50) years, the Williamsburg, VA native continues to be a prominent influence on many modern artists – from Spike Lee to Bon Iver – that seemingly encompasses nearly all aspects and genres of the music industry.

Starting in 1974 … he formed the Grateful Dead cover band Bobby Hi-Test and the Octane Kids with his older brother Bobby Hornsby … By 1980, Bruce and his younger brother John Hornsby moved to Los Angeles, where they spent the next three years writing songs together for 20th Century Fox. In 1986, Bruce, along with his newly-formed backing band The Range, released the multi-platinum album The Way It Is for RCA Records. It was that album’s eponymous chart-topping title track that propelled the group towards receiving their first Grammy Award, for Best New Artist, in 1987.”

Since then, Hornsby has continued to perform extensively — with his band The Noisemakers, touring solo, and supporing the Grateful Dead on keys and vocals. His writing style hasn’t really pivoted away from the pop-friendly sound of his days with The Range; it might be more accurate to say that his musical palette has expanded exponentially. A wonderful example of Hornsby’s relentless eclecticism is “What the Hell Happened” from 2004’s Halcyon Days. “Self-deprecating humor has always been a hallmark of Bruce’s lyrics, and the polytonal ‘What The Hell Happened’ might be his greatest example … (a) Randy Newman-esque piece.”

The tune’s intro and verse are built around Eb minor, but not without plenty of ear-bending alterations. At 0:39, the chorus shifts to Gb lydian. 0:56 brings a seams-hidden change to F major for an extended instrumental break, driven by Hornsby’s rock-solid stride technique and fluid right hand runs. At 2:41, we return to Gb lydian until near the end, when Eb minor makes another appearance. The tune’s overall feel might bring to mind one of Randy Newman’s sepia-toned tales, but the harmonic vocabulary is miles beyond — to borrow the title from another track on the album, very “Circus on the Moon.”

MGMT | The Youth

“At some point in the last decade or so, public opinion, among those who still give thought to MGMT, began quietly shifting to accommodate the notion that they are a much stranger band than their career might initially have suggested,” (Pitchfork).

“More than just one-album wonders who never recaptured the magic of their indelible early hits, or even misunderstood tinkerers who found the spotlight in a fluke accident and quickly retreated—though both descriptions are true enough—they are artists whose work addresses the very sort of glitzy mass appeal that those early hits still command. Even ‘Time to Pretend,’ one of the singles that earned them slots opening for Paul McCartney and soundtracking the season finale of Gossip Girl, was itself a grimly funny satire of rock stardom.”

The band, whose core members met while attending Wesleyan University in Connecticut, released its debut album Oracular Spectacular in 2007. “The Youth,” a track from the album, spends most of its 3:45 length in F major. But at 2:35, there’s an unprepared trapdoor shift downward into E major — certainly as compelling as any half-step key change, but in this case, perhaps moreso before of its direction.

Juanita Bynum | I Don’t Mind Waiting

“Juanita Bynum and Jonathan Butler … took the stage to bring fans Gospel Goes Classical (2007), an event of praise, inspiration and encouragement,” (CrossRhythms). “Anointed minister, author, and singer Bynum was joined by contemporary jazz and gospel artist Butler to share new songs and fan favorites in classical music splendour.

The orchestra and choir were led by renowned arranger/conductor Dr. Henry Panion III (Stevie Wonder, Dionne Warwick, Aretha Franklin, The Winans). The extraordinary live performances of Bynum’s ‘One Night with the King’ and ‘Holy Lamb,’ and Butler’s ‘Falling In Love with Jesus’ and ‘Don’t You Worry’ were capped off with a very special duet … ‘I Don’t Mind Waiting.'”

Starting with a gentle, straightforward statement of the melody from Bynum, the arrangement grows in intensity throughout. Half a dozen half-step key changes cascade past us before all is said and done.

Frank Ticheli | Earth Song (Young New Yorkers Chorus)

American composer Frank Ticheli on his 2004 work, Earth Song: “‘ … the music … first appeared in a work called Sanctuary, for wind ensemble,'” (FredBock.com). “‘As I worked on that piece, I just kept thinking this music is just begging to be sung by a chorus. The music is so vocal in and of itself. It was also written during a time when we were sort of stuck in the Iraq War when everyone – regardless of what political side they were on – was tired of that war, and so Earth Song was written to be very pro-peace. I guess you could also say anti-war and anti-violence. It was a cry and a prayer for peace.

Earth Song means different things to different people. I know for me, it sprang out of an intense weariness of war and a wish for peace. The second half of the poem talks about music as a comforting force and a refuge. When I was bullied as a kid, music was my refuge. I often thought about bullies in relation to this piece as well, because that’s where violence starts. But music is a place where people can find acceptance and love – and it can often be their saving grace. And it’s not just choir that people can find that comfort – it’s band, it’s orchestra… it’s just people coming together to make music.'”

This 2025 performance by the Young New Yorkers Chorus was conducted by Justin Duckworth. Earth Song is built primarily in F major. But at 2:50, a soft-spoken but profound G major chord breaks the spell; a repeated E major chord then upends the tonality yet again as the piece draws to an end.

Many thanks to longtime contributor Mark B. for this beautiful piece — his fourth submission to MotD!

Sing, Be, Live, See.
This dark stormy hour,
The wind, it stirs.
The scorched earth
Cries out in vain:
O war and power,
You blind and blur,
The torn heart
Cries out in pain.
But music and singing
Have been my refuge,
And music and singing
Shall be my light.
A light of song
Shining Strong: Alleluia!
Through darkness, pain, and strife, I’ll
Sing, Be, Live, See…
Peace.

21 Guns (from “American Idiot”)

“When young dirtbag punk trio Green Day signed to a major label in 1994, their first album, Dookie, captured the small pleasures of a disconnected working-class youth that was fast running out of options,” (The Guardian). “Their songs about getting high, jerking off and defiantly refusing to participate in the system were relatable and catchy – pleasingly melodic with 1950s doo-wop influences, coupled with California punk-style bass and drums. Pop-punk would later explode as a genre, in part to emulate Green Day’s singable raucousness.

Their ideas back then were scattershot, more informed by feeling than sociopolitical thought. But 10 years later, the band found their political voice and released their manifesto: American Idiot. Billed as a “rock opera”, the album was a sophisticated, horrified portrait of America in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the conservative Bush presidency, and rapidly disappearing opportunities for those living close to America’s poverty line. American Idiot was a smash, selling 15 million records – and in 2010, a stage adaptation landed on Broadway. The album’s driving rock structure was coupled with songs from Green Day’s next album, 21st Century Breakdown, and caressed into soaring, edgy vocal arrangements and new orchestrations by the band and composer Tom Kitt, whose musical Next to Normal picked up a Pulitzer prize that same year.”

The original “21 Guns,” released on 2009’s 21st Century Breakdown, was written in one key throughout. But the Broadway version, while built around the same repeating melodic phrases and lyrics-forward delivery, features several changes in tonality. Starting in G minor, the tune shifts (after two verses and a chorus in the relative Bb major performed by female vocalists) to D minor as Green Day’s lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong takes the reins. For the second chorus, the key flips over to the relative F major at 2:34. More key changes follow throghout.

The original video by the band is included after the cast version from the 2010 stage producion, below.

OK Go | Here It Goes Again

“Dancing in a beautiful synchronicity has long been part of OK Go singer Damian Kulash’s life,” (The Guardian). ” … he recalls his formative years in Kulash Alarm System, with big sister (and current choreographer and video director) Trish Sie. ‘I was seven and Trish must have been 11,’ he says, ‘and every morning when we’d wait for the school bus, we’d do this heavily thought-out dance routine outside our house, shouting, KULASH! ALARM! SYSTEM! like Kraftwerky robots.’

2006’s ‘Here It Goes Again’ has been viewed a staggering (68 million) times. ‘We saw that by dropping our instruments in the middle of the show and breaking into dance, it completely broke that fourth wall of expectations in a rock show … I love cultural products where you can see the effort people have put in to make something weird and unlikely.’ … Kulash points out that the ‘one take’ operates in a unique position in the current climate. ‘In the hypermediated world that we live in, we immediately go into ‘suspension of disbelief mode’. Like we see so much impossible shit in commercials, on films, in music. We assume artifice in everything we consume.'”

“Here It Goes Again,” a tune whose popularity is driven by a video that is arguably the band’s best known, was the fifth single from the 2005 album Oh No. The tune is built primarily in C major and C mixolydian, but during the nearly wordless bridge (1:40 – 1:59), there’s a shift to Eb major before a return to the original key. Eb also makes another appearance for the closing chord.

Michael Brecker | The Nearness of You (feat. James Taylor)

“Listening to a note perfect song is one of the many small joys afforded us by life. Of course, it’s an entirely subjective experience because music comes in all different flavors and we listeners have a wide variety of palates,’ (HistoricAmerica.org). “Be that as it may, I would argue that the Great American Songbook ranks among this nation’s greatest gifts to the world, and within this wealth of tunes there’s an absolute abundance of musical perfection.  

… Hoagy Carmichael was a multi-talented man. A bandleader, singer and actor, Carmichael was best known as a pianist and composer. Originally from Indiana, he’s responsible for memorable songs like ‘Heart & Soul,’ ‘Georgia on My Mind,’ and ‘Stardust.’ For ‘The Nearness of You’ Carmichael wrote the music while the words were work of lyricist Ned Washington, who also gave us ‘When You Wish Upon a Star,’ ‘Wild is the Wind’ and ‘Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darlin” (the theme song from High Noon).  Originally, the song was intended to be featured in a film version of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream but the production fell through and the song didn’t find wide release until it was picked up and popularized by the Glenn Miller Orchestra in the 1940s.” 

James Taylor did an admirable job as a guest among the stellar jazz quintet convened by the late tenor saxophone legend Michael Brecker for the 2001 album Nearness of You: The Ballad Book. The band: Pat Metheny (guitar), Herbie Hancock (piano), Charlie Haden (double bass), and Jack DeJohnette (drums). Starting in F major, the AABA-form tune shifts up to G major at 1:56 for a partial instrumental verse featuring Brecker, leading to Taylor’s return for the B section. But the last A section doesn’t quite arrive, at least not as expected: it leads instead to a slightly rubato feature for Brecker at 2:54, then a downward shift to Eb major — and a delayed final A section leading to an outro — starting at 3:04.