“Groovin'” was written and first released in 1967 by the American rock band The Rascals (formerly known as The Young Rascals.) Its Afro-Cuban groove and relaxed vibe quickly led to the tune becoming one of the band’s signature songs, and it has since been covered by numerous other artists. This performance, by the British/Irish boy band The Overtones, was featured on the 2012 album Higher. Key change at 2:16.
Tag: 2010s
Ariana Grande | Greedy
We briefly covered this tune in January 2018. We hope you’ll enjoy this expanded post by our intern, Maya.
The release of Dangerous Woman, Ariana Grande’s head-bopping 2016 album, marked the start of the singer’s transition from innocent Nickelodeon singer/actress to full on pop idol. The album is full of dangerously sexy hits, but one song in particular ties up all of Grande’s sass and style into one stellar track.
The A.V. Club captures the essence of the tune with its review: “The horn-peppered “Greedy” is an exuberant R&B-pop earworm on which (Grande) has a blast indulging her inner gospel diva.”
The song features a brilliantly arranged horn section which enhances and reinforces the songwriting and production genius of Max Martin. It isn’t surprising that Martin also happens to have co-written and produced Brittany Spears’ hit, “… Baby One More Time,” as well as P!nk’s dance party must-have, “Raise Your Glass.”
On “Greedy,” Martin takes an epic sing-along chorus and transforms it into a wall of sound which hits listeners from the moment the song begins. The tune has that “early 2000s dance floor” sound, but also includes some 2016 trademarks such as the lush vocal stacks that are featured in the song’s hook. With funk undertones in the bass, gospel-style vocal stacks, and a disco groove, the song is appealing to a wide audience and really takes synth-pop to the next level.
The song is just repetitive enough for the modulation at 2:37 to pull the listener back in as the song explodes into a final chorus, sprinkled with Grande’s whistle tone adlibs and breathy riffs.
Maya Wagner is a singer/songwriter and music producer currently studying at Berklee College of Music. Maya is passionate about sharing her experiences with mental illness and her LGBTQ identity through her music. She blogs about all things music production on her website and has established a broad web presence as an artist, performer, and producer.
Maya is MotD’s first intern. Watch this space for her continuing contributions!
Shoshana Bean | I Wanna Dance With Somebody
Written and originally recorded by Whitney Houston, “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” won the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance at the 1988 Grammy Awards, and was Houston’s first platinum single in the US with over a million copies sold. This cover, performed by singer/songwriter and Broadway actress Shoshana Bean with Troy Laureta on keys, features some subtle reharmonization and a key change at 2:52.
Where Am I Now (from “Lysistrata Jones”)
A musical adaptation (updated for the 21st century) of Greek playwright Aristophanes’ 411 BC comedy Lysistrata, Lewis Flynn (music & lyrics) and Douglas Carter Beane’s (book) Lysistrata Jones opened on Broadway in 2011 and ran for 30 performances. Reviewing the production for Backstage magazine, critic David Sheward said, “Each of the characters starts out as a broad stereotype—just as Aristophanes’ figures are—but Beane turns the cultural expectations inside out, creating complex people within a comic context.”
“Where Am I Now” is performed here by Patti Murin, who played Lysistrata in the original Broadway cast. The key change from Eb to D at 3:09 is preceded by the sustained vocal D changing function from the 3rd of the Bb major chord to the root of a D major chord. Murin then sets up the new key a cappella before the orchestra dramatically re-enters.
Thanks to Madeline Ciocci for this submission!
Sabaton | To Hell and Back
Sabaton is a Swedish band comprised of “heavy metal military historians,” according to The Guardian, which describes a recent pre-COVID gig: “A vast crowd of people are singing raucously, raising large beer tankards skyward and grinning like they have just won the lottery. In this small and sweaty venue, a Swedish heavy metal band are opening their set with a song about the exploits of Field Marshall Rommel’s infamous 7th Panzer Division in the second world war. They follow it with a number about the horrors of Passchendaele in the first world war.
By the end of the night, we will have had exuberant hymns to Lawrence of Arabia, an all-female Soviet bomber squadron and the military genius King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden. Everyone in the room, the vast majority of whom are wearing Sabaton shirts, sings along with absolutely everything. Meanwhile, the venue gently rocks from side to side, because we are on a ship in the middle of the Baltic Sea. Welcome to the 10th annual Sabaton Cruise: The Battleship, where passions for military history and Olympic-standard drinking collide.”
“To Hell and Back,” released in 2014, focuses on the Battle of Anzio (referenced in the chorus), part of the Italian Campaign of World War II fought in January 1944. Starting in D minor, the guitar solo (2:30 – 2:47) rises up into E minor before a reprise of the hook. At 3:06, the outro climbs up to F minor. Many thanks to first-time contributor Erik Lofgren for this submission!
The Academic | Sarah
“Sarah” was a single first released by Dublin Ireland’s Thin Lizzy in 1979; it reached #24 on the British pop charts and #26 in Ireland.
The Academic, a band from just west of Dublin, met while attending the same secondary school during the 2010s. AllMusic reports that the group ” … rode a series of punchy, melodic singles to national success when their 2018 debut album topped the Irish charts. They soon netted a deal and followed up with a couple of dreamy singles … “
“Sarah” was apparently a live one-off for the band; the track wasn’t included on either of its studio releases. This performance was live on Today FM, an Irish radio station. After starting in A major, 1:48 brings an instrumental bridge, followed by a shift to Bb major at 2:08.
Hubert Giraud | Sous le Ciel de Paris (Joao Palma, accordion)
Expatica.com notes that the French composer and lyricist Hubert Giraud, whose works were recorded by vocalists from Edith Piaf to Tom Jones, “started out as a musician playing with the likes of Django Reinhardt’s jazz group the Quintette du Hot Club de France in the 1930s and on Ray Ventura’s big-band tour of South America.” He also wrote the theme for the 1951 film Sous le Ciel de Paris (Under the Sky of Paris); the song was later recorded by Edith Piaf, Yves Montand, Juliette Greco, and more. Giraud died in 2016 at the age of 95.
The tune was beautifully showcased at the 66th CMA Trophée Mondial accordion competition, held in Portimao, Portugal in 2016. The competition welcomed contestants from more than 20 countries; Joao Palma achieved only ninth place in his junior division, giving some idea of the level of artistry represented at the competition. Palma, a Portuguese national, went on to win the World Accordion Cup, a competition protected by UNESCO’s International Music Council, in 2018.
Starting in E minor, the waltz progresses to E major at 1:03, reverting back to the original key at 1:49. Utilizing rubato as more of a rule than an occasional flourish, Palma throws in a last-minute whole-step modulation at 2:20 — quickly leading to an unexpected ending.
Many thanks to our frequent contributor JB for this submission!
Labrinth | Jealous
“There isn’t a lot in contemporary music that Labrinth can’t do,” declares AllMusic. “The London-based artist is a singer, rapper, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and producer who has enjoyed success as a solo artist while also working alongside such stars as the Weeknd, Ed Sheeran, and Sia. Although he has released only two solo albums, Electronic Earth (2012) and Imagination & the Misfit Kid (2019), he has regularly appeared near or at the top of the U.K. singles chart since the dawn of the 2010s.”
In 2014’s “Jealous,” C major is challenged by its relative minor over the first verses and choruses, but there’s a huge shift at the bridge (3:20) as the protagonist’s hopelessness becomes ever more clear. Focusing on that bridge, pianist / composer / music educator Mark Shilansky writes:
“The Gbo (3:20) sounds like a pivot chord. It’s like a #VIo chord in A minor, but then it vacillates back and forth with F7b9 and Gbo again, so it sounds like it’s V7/V in the key of Eb, the V of Bb.” Paraphrasing a comment from one of his Berklee faculty colleagues: “a dim7 chord can resolve four different ways; it’s usually best analyzed in relation to the chord it resolves to.”
Mark continues: “Then it kind of abandons function and jumps to Ab (3:30), the IV in the key of Eb. There is some voice leading to which you could attribute this progression: A moving to Ab; the C and Eb staying the same; the Gb moving to G (even though some of this movement is octave-displaced). And then he’s pretty firmly in Eb for the rest of the tune. It’s a pretty risky modulation and it barely works, but if it does I think it’s because of the voice-leading. I’ve never seen a modulation like it. I would have resolved the Gbo7 to something else before I tiptoed into Eb. But maybe because it’s so ambiguous, it forms prosody with the desperation of the lyrics — like the narrator himself is lost.”
RaeLynn | Lonely Call
“Lonely Call” is featured on WildHorse, the 2017 debut album of American country singer/songwriter RaeLynn. The song depicts RaeLynn’s breakup with boyfriend Josh when she was 18 (they would subsequently get back together and eventually get married.) “‘Lonely Call’ is a confessional,” RaeLynn said in an interview with Rolling Stone. “My WildHorse record is like my diary. It’s so funny to listen back because I was so sad when we broke up, when I hear those lyrics I’m like, ‘That’s exactly how it felt, that’s exactly how it was.’”
Writing for the radio network Taste of Country, critic Sterling Whitaker described the track as “an amalgam of sweet pop-country melodicism and some surprisingly traditional instruments, with a reverb-drenched banjo and simple acoustic guitars framing the gentle, moody verse before stacked guitars lift the song up into a sweeping chorus. RaeLynn’s uniquely smoky vocal tone is perfectly suited to the aching, regretful subject matter that she’s delivering, and the result is a track that is so universally identifiable that it could very well carry her career to new heights at country radio.”
Key change at 2:54.
Dappy | No Regrets
North London MC/vocalist Dappy, born Costadinos Contostavlos, most prominently worked with the trio N-Dubz before going solo, reports AllMusic. “After several years of plugging away on the pirate radio scene … they went on to score a number one single alongside Tinchy Stryder (‘Number 1’), several MOBO Awards, and three Top 20 albums … “
In 2011, Dappy went on to release his debut solo single, “No Regrets.” The lyrics are about moving on from the past — perhaps not surprising, given the artist’s penchant for controversy in the UK tabloids. Songfacts notes that “the song’s elevation to pole position was the eleventh successive UK #1 by a British artist. This beat the all-time record set between January and July 1963, when there were 10 consecutive chart-toppers by a domestic act.”
Fusing elements of pop and hiphop, the tune shifts up a half-step at 3:14. A complete disappearance of the groove telegraphs the modulation’s arrival.
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