Michael Buble’s 2011 album Christmas has sold more than 12 million copies worldwide, making it by far his most successful album, and one of the best-selling records of the 21st century. “Winter Wonderland” was one of four tracks added to the deluxe edition of the album released in 2012. It modulates from Db up to D at 1:54.
Tag: 2010s
Cee Lo Green | What Christmas Means to Me
Written by Allen Story, Anna Gordy Gaye and George Gordy, and first recorded by Stevie Wonder in 1967, “What Christmas Means To Me” has been covered by dozens of artists over the years. Green included the song on his 2012 Christmas album Cee Lo Green’s Magic Moment, and it reached the #23 spot on the R&B charts in the United States. The tune modulates from Bb up to B at 1:41.
Berklee Indian Ensemble | For Whom the Bell Tolls (Metallica)
Berklee describes its Indian Ensemble: “What started out as a class at Berklee College of Music in 2011 has become one of the hippest global acts to emerge from Boston … Founded by Indian Berklee alumna and faculty member Annette Philip ’09, the ensemble provides an open and inclusive creative space for musicians from all over the world to explore, study, interpret, and create music influenced by the rich and varied mosaic that is Indian music today.” The Ensemble has garnered more than 200 million YouTube views, at one point comprising over 50% of Berklee’s total. “‘Indian music wasn’t being taught in Berklee as formally as other genres, so we founded this ensemble … The idea is to nurture the next generation of musicians from India and given them a pathway into the global music scene. We have people from 44 countries in this ensemble,'” Philip explained in an India Today interview.
From the 2019 video’s description: “In December 2018, the Berklee India Exchange team got an unusual request: to reimagine and interpret a Metallica classic of our choice. The Berklee Indian Ensemble has always been known to experiment, but this one took us by surprise. The brainchild of Mirek Vana, the Metallica Project at Berklee is a Boston Conservatory at Berklee and Berklee College of Music collaboration featuring a contemporary dance reimagination of Metallica’s songs, arranged, recorded, and performed in four different musical styles, the fourth being Indian music … ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’ felt like a natural fit, and soon, a new version came to life.”
After starting in E minor, there’s a shift to a quieter instrumental interlude in C# minor (3:40 – 3:57) before the original key returns.
Little Mix | You Gotta Not
“You Gotta Not” is featured on the 2016 album Glory Days by the British girls group Little Mix. The album was their first to reach #1 in the UK; AllMusic claimed “the group deliver[s] a set of hooky, smartly crafted songs that balance swaggering, ’60s-style R&B with stylish, electronic-tinged dance-pop.” Co-written by Meghan Trainor, “You Gotta Not” highlights themes of female empowerment, and its groove recalls Jennifer Lopez’s “Ain’t Yo Mama,” also written by Trainor. The tune modulates from Db up to D at 1:12.
Bruno Mars | Versace on the Floor
Featured on the 2016 album 24K Magic, “Versace on the Floor” is an homage to the slow jams of the 1990s, and gives singer Bruno Mars a chance to show off his sentimental side.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Mars claimed the song through several different iterations before arriving at the final version. “At a certain point, I needed to stop telling you we’re gonna get down, and just get down,” Mars said of his inspiration for the hook.
The track charted moderately well, peaking at #33 on the Billboard Top 100 in the US. A music video, starring American actress and singer Zendaya, and a popular remix produced by French DJ David Guetta, were both released in 2017.
The tune begins in D major and modulates up to Eb for the final chorus at 3:19.
No More Wasted Time (from “If/Then”)
“No More Wasted Time” is from the 2014 musical If/Then, featuring a Tony-nominated score by Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey. The music incorporates folk elements with a contemporary edge. Performed here by original cast members Idina Menzel, LaChanze, Jenn Colella, and Tamika Lawrence, the song begins in Db and builds into a dramatic modulation up to Eb coming out of the bridge at 2:44.
Show Yourself (from “Frozen II”)
Featured in the 2019 Disney film Frozen II, “Show Yourself” recounts Elsa examining her past and the source of powers. The song has compared to the anthem “Let It Go” from the hugely successful 2013 movie Frozen, and hits on many of the same themes of self-acceptance and discovery. Composer Kristen Anderson-Lopez said that her 14-year old daughter was sobbing after the first time she heard the song. “It feels like you’re telling me I can follow my gut and find my own path,’” Anderson-Lopez remembered her saying. “That’s the success of this movie for me. If she can’t hear it from her mom in daily life, she can hear it from her mom through a Disney movie she wrote.”
The music combines cinematic depth and musical theatre sophistication, incorporating other motifs from the score and reflecting Elsa’s evolution over the course of the number. Beginning in F# major, a modulation to G major leads into the second verse at 1:51, followed by a shift to Eb minor at the bridge at 3:27. A modulation up to Ab sets up the final chorus at 3:51.
John Powers | Test Drive (from “How To Train Your Dragon”)
“Test Drive” is a cue from John Powers’ Academy Award-nominated score for the 2010 Dreamworks film How To Train Your Dragon, accompanying the moment that Hiccup first rides his dragon, Toothless. “I was certainly trying to get a bit more epic,” Powers said in an interview discussing his score. “I just felt the animation and the visuals were giving me a broader palette to play with. As a kid I remember watching The Vikings with Tony Curtis and Kirk Douglas, and I always liked that score.
“[The directors] were really very specific a lot of the time. They did want size and depth and emotion. They wanted a feeling of the Nordic musical past. You could say the symphonic musical past was Nielson, the Danish symphonist. Sibelius. Grieg to a certain extent, although I think he was a little bit more Germanic than he was Nordic.
“We looked at all the folk music from the Nordic areas. And I’m part Scottish and grew up with a lot of Scottish folk music, so that came into it a lot.”
Multiple critics named it as the best score of the year, though Powell ultimately lost the Oscar to The Social Network. The cue begins in D major, and at 1:21 becomes somewhat tonally ambiguous before the sky clears into E major at 1:53.
Gogol Bordello | Trans-Continental Hustle
“Gogol Bordello is a spectacle,” (NPR). “The wildly exuberant, multi-ethnic group from New York City makes frenetic music that’s part punk rock, part Gypsy folk, part Cabaret. Led by Eugene Hütz, a Chernobyl survivor from Ukraine, the band is famous for its costumed live shows that often stretch for more than two explosive hours … ” The band, formed in 1999, has a focus of making “‘the contradictions of life sound harmonious,’ with a head-spinning mix of ska, punk, metal, rap, flamenco, roots reggae, dub and any other sounds they could think of.”
Pitchfork describes Gogol Bordello’s fifth studio album: “the aptly titled Trans-Continental Hustle is largely about the experience of being Gogol Bordello, about overcoming stigmas against immigrants and America’s tacit favoring of bland one-world homogenization in order to carve out a vibrant, warts-and-all space where life can be celebrated and differences cherished.”
The title track from the 2010 album starts with just an acoustic guitar, but soon more layers are added, building to the first chorus at 0:48, where the groove is fully in place. At 1:42, the key jumps up a major fourth; at 1:57, we skip up another full step, then returning to the original key at 2:27. Many thanks to our keen-eared mod scout JB for yet another wide-ranging submission!
Kacey Musgraves | Space Cowboy
Kacey Musgraves, in all her pop-country glory, presents a slickly executed key change in her 2018 track “Space Cowboy.” The song’s intriguing wordplay and atmospheric textures will easily put listeners in a trance. The second verse ends with a refrain which transitions into a laid-back electric guitar interlude.
In the midst of calm ambience, the track is suddenly uplifted as Kacey’s vocals sneakily enter a half-step higher than expected at 2:27! The modulated vocals enter over the reverb tail of the preceding guitar strum and add a tint of brightness to a rather casual tune. It is most definitely one of the most graceful and well-considered moments in Musgraves’s repertoire!
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