“Friends Kiss Too” is a 2019 single released by Danny and Alex, a pop duo based in St. Petersburg, Florida. Counting Steely Dan, Prince, and The Beatles among their influences, [Danny] Scordato and [Alex] Merrill write and produce all of their music; they released an EP in 2018.
The track begins in A and modulates up to C at 2:28.
“What Side of Love” is featured on Wide Awake, the fourth studio album by the Virginia-based rock band Parachute, released in 2016. “While pleasing critics has never been Parachute’s M.O., they certainly know their way around big melodic hooks,” said critic Timothy Monger, reviewing the record for AllMusic. The gospel-tinged song was written by lead vocalist Will Anderson with James Flannigan and Sean Douglas. Starting in Bb, the tune shifts up to C at 2:45.
“Blending the energy and melodicism of pop-punk with theatrical pop ambitions and a progressive rock spirit, Canadian quartet Marianas Trench — named after the Pacific Ocean trench which is the deepest known spot in the world — rose to widespread popularity at the end of the 2000s thanks to platinum-selling concept albums like 2009’s Masterpiece Theatre and 2011’s Ever After,” (AllMusic). “With an increasing trend toward thematic grandeur and a growing worldwide audience, the Vancouver band continued to expand both their sound and commercial reach with the ’80s adventure film-themed Astoria in 2015 and the lush, haunted pop of 2019’s Phantoms.“
Reviewing Phantoms, MelodicMag adds: “Full of theatrical moments, textures, colors, and unconventional sounds … Reminiscent of Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody,’ (‘The Killing Kind’) sounds like multiple songs in one … Each section is like organized chaos. They build onto each other, while staying central to a certain theme or idea.”
Starting in B minor, the track ends in the relative major key of D major — but this seemingly straightforward shift is handled in an indirect fashion: a meandering path through a landscape constructed from equal parts 1970s Queen-style pomp and the gleaming grandeur of contemporary symphonic metal.
Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox, a music collective known for their original, inventive arrangements of well-known songs, included a soul-infused cover of the Backstreet Boys hit “I Want it That Way” on their 2015 album Selfies on Kodachrome. The track features Shoshana Bean on vocals, and modulates up from Eb to F at 2:17 and then to G at 2:35.
“We want it tp sound like the Beatles and Motown had a party.” That was how drummer Mike Calabrese described the music of Lake Street Dive, a Brooklyn-based band, in an interview with The Guardian. “We’re taking the elements of the 60s and 70s music we love,” he went on, “and applying it to what we’re able to do with the four of us.”
The group formed in 2004 when the original four members — Rachael Price, Mike “McDuck” Olson, Bridget Kearney, and Calabrese — met while studying at the New England Conservatory (keyboardist Akie Bermiss joined in 2017.) They have released seven studio albums and one live record, and are currently on tour. “Wedding Band” was released as a single in 2014, and modulates from G up a half step to Ab at 1:06.
“Better Than That” was included on the 2019 EP Dog Years, released by the Washington D.C.-based pop band Sub-Radio. Comprised of six members, the group gained wider recognition during the pandemic after they began live-streaming on Reddit, and they are currently touring.
The song begins in Eb and shifts up to F at 2:22 for the final chorus.
American singer Grace Potter released her third solo album, Daylight, in 2019, featuring “Love Is Love” as the first track. “Daylight is an incredibly unfiltered musical expression of who I want to be,” Potter said in an interview with Billboard. “It’s a journal. It’s really personal. It’s a very powerful feeling to become a mother, to fall in love and also to watch and experience love falling apart and say goodbye to an entire era of your life.”
The tune begins in Ab and shifts up a step to Bb following the second chorus at 1:54.
“Play with Fire is The Reign of Kindo’s third full length record,” (CandyRat Records). “… music that pinpoints the middle ground between a respect for past greats and a boldness to pave tomorrow. This is, quite modestly, the definition of The Reign of Kindo. Citing influences from Dave Brubeck to Ben Folds to Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto to John Mayer, there’s not a degree of pomposity in this sound, just an honesty in the group’s craft to blend such diverse influences into an identity.”
Perhaps some of the highest possible praise for this eclectic indie/prog/jazz/rock/etc. band comes from Sputnik Music: “… me and my dad can listen together in the car without one of us saying ‘God, this sucks.'”
Starting in A minor, “The Man, the Wood and the Stone” (2013) is full of harmonic pivots. At 2:01, we’ve shifted to Db major; 2:19, C major; 2:30, A major … accelerating and building from there. Other than a difference in meter, the final melodic phrases of the album-closing track (3:24) mirror the first phrases of the opening track, “The Hero, The Saint, The Tyrant, & The Terrorist” — weighty bookends for a wide-ranging album.
“Through It All” is the last track on American singer Charlie Puth’s 2018 album Voicenotes. In an interview with Billboard, Puth described the sound of the album as “like walking down a dirt road and listening to New Edition in 1989 — and being heartbroken, of course.” The album was nominated for a Grammy and reached the #4 spot on the Billboard 200.
The track begins in A and has a standard direct modulation up to B at 2:39.
Architecture in Helsinki was an indie pop band based in Australia, active from 2000 to 2018. “Contact High” is featured on their 2011 album, Moment Bends, which was nominated for Australian album of the year. Reviewing the album for the online music publication Pitchfork, critic Eric Grande wrote of the tune, “[lead singer Cameron] Bird’s breathy falsetto verses sound normal enough, but they turn into that odd, otherly voice of the Auto-Tuned on the chorus, singing, ‘I’ve got nothing to hide,’ with what might be the slightest smirk, sometimes tripled by an octave-lowered bass voice, sounding in the main like nothing so much as Owl City. And yet, it’s a terrific pop song, and the chorus, for all its strange sheen, is an undeniable pleasure.”
The track begins in Gb major, and modulates up a third to A at 2:56.
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