German composer Hans Zimmer has scored more than 150 films since 1980, including The Lion King, the Pirates of the Carribean series, and The Dark Knight trilogy. Widely considered to be one of the most best in his field, Zimmer has been recognized with four Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes and an Academy Award. In 2002, he collaborated with Canadian singer/songwriter Bryan Adams on the music for the DreamWorks picture Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron. “Homeland,” the main title theme, helps establish the American West ethos of the score and features the trademark orchestral swells Zimmer is known for. The cue begins in C major and shifts to Eb at 2:45.
Tag: 2000s
Boys Like Girls | Love Drunk
“A shimmering, textured guitar line gives way immediately to huge gang vocals,” reports the Alternative Press in its review of Boys Like Girls‘ 2009 release Love Drunk. The Boston-based band’s ” … slick production values, airtight harmonies, charging disco-rock beats and crowd sing-along prompts (a trick they resort to throughout) prove the band are capable of condensing the recognizable signifiers of recent modern-rock history into sugary pop adrenaline … if (the) overall enthusiasm and high-energy pop doesn’t win over even the snarkiest of reviewers after a few listens, then they probably don’t have a heart. Everyone else will love it anyway. Pop-rock like this is popular for a reason.”
Unfolding like a CliffsNotes version of a contemporary pop songwriting textbook, the tune delivers a whole-step modulation at 2:38.
Alice Coltrane | Walk With Me
Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda was a versatile musician and composer. An adept harpist, pianist, organist and vocalist, she had an extraordinary career spanning many genres and six decades. According to the biography on her official website, “Her interest in music blossomed in early childhood. By the age of nine, she played organ during services at Mount Olive Baptist Church.” She collaborated with the likes of Carlos Santana, Charlie Haden, and John Coltrane, the last of whom she married in 1965.
After her husband’s death in 1967, she embarked on a solo musical career, which merged with her quest for spiritual enlightenment. Her religious exploration took her to India, whose musical influences manifest in much of her work. Her albums display her virtuosity, and a mastery of a wide array of musical genres. Coltrane’s biography on AllMusic – authored by Chris Kelsey – remarks that her first seven albums “wove together the strains of her musical thinking: modal jazz, gospel hymns, blues, Hindi devotional music, and 20th century classical sonorities.”
From the late 70s to the early 2000s, Alice Coltrane stepped back from music, focusing instead on the creation and operation of the Vedantic Center outside of Los Angeles, though her biography states that she continued to play music regularly for services at the Center. She died in 2007 after returning to the recording studio for her final album in 2004. That album, entitled Translinear Light, features the tune “Walk With Me.” Coltrane displays her talent for arrangement as she weaves the melody of a gospel hymn (“I Want Jesus to Walk With Me”) throughout. The piece begins with some brief noodling around Bb minor before the hymn’s theme emerges at 0:30. She then explores the primary melody, pausing momentarily to meditate on a few motifs and ideas. The first modulation occurs at 2:14, launching into a joyful bridge, firmly rooted in the relative major. Coltrane’s soaring improvisations move effortlessly between gospel and jazz, evoking feelings of praise and spiritual elation. She brings it back home to Bb minor with a modulation beginning at 4:55, after which she weaves the original melody around meditative contemplation once again, through to the piece’s end.
Jonas Brothers | Fly with Me
“Fly with Me” is featured on the Jonas Brothers‘ 2009 album Lines, Vines, and Trying Times, their last record before a three-year hiatus. The track served as the closing credits music for 2009 film Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, and appeared briefly on the Billboard Hot 100 chart upon its release.
The song begins in C and modulates to D major at 2:51, where it remains until the end.
Coldplay | Trouble
From Pitchfork’s review of Coldplay‘s debut album Parachutes (2000): “… Coldplay’s secret deadly weapon is vocalist Chris Martin. With the ability to mimic a Brit-accented Dave Matthews one minute, Jeff Buckley revived from the dead the next, and sometimes even a young Peter Gabriel, Martin’s heartfelt delivery seems to be what’s winning the hearts, wallets and alternative radio request lines of Americans young and old.”
Parachutes produced four singles, the most prominent being “Yellow,” and enjoyed popularity in the UK and US. Billboard reports that the third single was “Trouble,” which reached number 10 in the UK charts. It was released more than a year later in the US, reaching #28 on the US Alternative Songs chart. Martin has claimed that the single had saved them from being a “one-hit wonder” band, notes MTV. The band incorrectly guessed that the single wouldn’t perform well in the United States.
After starting in G major, the tune progresses through a hook-centric instrumental intro, a verse, an interlude which mirrors the intro, and another verse before shifting to A major for the chorus at 1:31; the key then reverts to G major at 1:57. The choruses grow in intensity, fueled by a compelling chord progression that seesaws between I major and a distinctive v minor.
Bill Charlap | It’s Love
“It’s Love” is from the 1953 Broadway musical Wonderful Town, featuring a score by Leonard Bernstein and lyricists Betty Comden and Adolph Green. The tune, a popular call for jazz combos, is included on jazz pianist Bill Charlap‘s 2003 album Somewhere: The Music of Leonard Bernstein. Charlap is joined on the record by bassist Peter Washington and drummer Kenny Washington. The track starts in D, and following a drum solo, modulates to Gb at 4:46.
Jonatha Brooke | Back in the Circus
A singer/songwriter since the early 90s, Jonatha Brooke has a sound which the San Francisco Chronicle describes as “catchy original melodies and thorny lyrics.” She rode the tectonic shifts of that era’s music business: “I was in the middle of a national tour when (the record label) MCA dropped me. One second you’re a princess on the throne, and the next week no one will return your phone calls.”
AllMusic reviews Brooke’s 2004 release, Back in the Circus: “(Brooke’s) perseverance has paid off. Like Aimee Mann, she’s maneuvered a broken staircase of fluctuating acceptance, band breakups, and record label shakeups with nimble feet and a consistent songwriting vision. Now, she’s arrived on the top floor landing with Back in the Circus, a typically audacious effort that showcases her singing and writing even as it flirts with new musical directions … The title track is an unbalanced and dizzying cocktail, with accordion, keys, guitar, and laptops all joining in the fray. ‘Back in the circus / But at least I know the routine / Got back-to-back matinees / Me and the drag queens.’ Is the roller coaster ride a reference to her career, or life in general?”
The tune’s spare accompaniment could indeed be mistaken for a circus pit band, keeping the lyric front and center. The Bb minor verse gives way to Ab minor on the chorus (initially at 1:03).
Michael McDonald | On Christmas Morning
*We originally featured this song in 2018, and are bringing it back this year.
Michael McDonald’s “On Christmas Morning” was featured on his first Christmas album, In The Spirit, released in 2001. Co-written by David Foster and Kenny Loggins, the track modulates at 2:46.
Idina Menzel | Brave
While she is best-known for her starring roles in the Broadway productions of Rent, Wicked, and If/Then, as well as for voicing Elsa in the Disney animated feature Frozen, Idina Menzel has released six studio albums as well. “Brave” was the second single released from I Stand (2008), and reached the #19 spot on the Adult Contemporary Billboard Chart. Key change at 3:21.
The Hold Steady | Massive Nights
The Hold Steady is “an acclaimed and respected Minneapolis-bred indie rockers who boast a melodic, contemporary take on mid-’70s classic rock,” reports AllMusic. “Craig Finn and Tad Kubler — two N.Y.C. transplants from Minneapolis — decided to blend their punk roots with album-oriented classicism and a frenetic literary sense, winding up with a careening, open-hearted rock & roll that seemed to exist just outside of time.”
The AV Club reviews 2006’s “Massive Nights” as “a hard-partying prom theme … one of The Hold Steady’s fastest and most celebratory-sounding songs … Both in the studio and in concert, that chorus gets an extra reprise with a frenzied key change in the final stretch … though the key changes generally aren’t go-to moves in The Hold Steady’s arsenal … a key change is basically the only thing it can do to kick itself into higher gear before its three minutes are up.”
Careen is exactly what this uptempo 12/8 rocker does, propelled by backing vocals that sound like a hyped-up live crowd proclaiming the hook — even on the studio track. A whole-step key change hits at 2:24.
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