Tag: 2020s

Rina Sawayama | This Hell

” … Japanese-British pop superstar Rina Sawayama … was born in Japan and raised in North London. (She) ascended to pop stardom via an unusual trajectory at Cambridge University studying politics, psychology and sociology, and funding her early music with modeling before signing a record deal,” (IMDB). “At the beginning of her song “This Hell,” Rina Sawayama recalls seeing a religious poster condemning so-called sinners for their identities,” (Pitchfork). “She rebukes the hateful messaging with an eye roll—’Don’t know what I did but they seem pretty mad about it’—pulls her chosen family closer, and offers affirmation: ‘This hell is better with you.’

The first track off the SAWAYAMA-follow up Hold the Girl (2022) was inspired by country pop, and that influence is most evident at the track’s intro, which features a neighing horse and a winking tribute to country pop queen Shania Twain (‘let’s go, girls’). From there, she fans these flames into a turbocharged pop banger complete with a glam, unapologetically over-the-top hair metal riff. Not one to pass up a good pop culture reference, Sawayama quotes Paris Hilton’s famous catchphrase and chastises the paparazzi for their cruelty towards Britney Spears, Whitney Houston, and Princess Diana. ‘Got my invitation to eternal damnation,’ she chants. ‘Get in line, pass the wine, bitch.’ With Sawayama, hell is the hottest party in town.”

After an intro in A minor, the verse enters in E major (0:31), then shifts to a pre-chorus and chorus in C major at 0:48. More changes follow from there.

One Day (from “Groundhog Day”)

“In the role that won him the 2017 Olivier, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Award for Best Actor, Andy Karl plays Phil Connors—a disgruntled big-city weatherman mysteriously stuck in small-town America reliving the same day over and over and over again—with no consequences, no regrets, no tomorrows, and no hangovers,” (Broadway.com). “But once he starts getting to know associate TV producer Rita Hanson, he discovers it’s a day of second, third, and fourth chances.

“Tim Minchin, with too many credits to mention, perfects the music and lyrics for Groundhog Day,” (New York Theatre Guide). “Minchin’s score makes a joyful noise, to be sure, but it is not unalloyed hoopla. As one of the shows recurring lines underscores — for all the toe tapping mania — ‘there’s a sense of sadness’ (and, I would argue, of substance). While there is a nod to Leonard Cohen and another to Jerome Kern … this is an original score that will endure. The sometimes dense lyrics, by turns funny and poignant — in the mode of Sondheim — leave you stretching to sort it all out at times. It’s more than worth the effort.”

Starting in Eb major, the piece shifts to G major after the solos and as the chorus enters at 1:52. The footage is from the rehearsals for the 2023 return of the show at London’s Old Vic Theatre.

Lucy Dacus | Forever is a Feeling

“Lucy Dacus’ highly anticipated fourth album Forever Is a Feeling (2025) is a love record to adulthood and relationships, and a noticeable departure from indie rock to a softer acoustic pop sound,” (WhenTheHornBlows.com). “It comes after the 2021’s critically acclaimed Home Video and 2023’s The Record, which brought wide commercial and industry success to Boygenius, her band alongside Phoebe Bridgers and Julien Baker … It’s a quiet record filled with emotional honesty, always looking to find meaning in the peculiar, the still, and the small.

Forever Is a Feeling gains richness not by building up, but by stripping away … Dacus sings with quiet conviction, but never certainty. An uncertainty that carries into the title track where gentle synths and echoing vocals blur the edges of time … It is a less immediate record than 2021’s Home Video. The hooks are subtler, the backgrounds quieter, and the scope narrower. Dacus isn’t chasing radio play or viral TikTok sounds, she’s inviting us into her current life. Ultimately, Forever Is a Feeling is about love in its most enduring form. With her artistic vision set on a quieter life, relationships, and the study of love, it results in her softest and most hopeful album yet.”

Dacus, a Virginia native, plays with shifting textures throughout “Forever is a Feeling,” but her vocals always remain primary. After the track begins in Ab major, the chorus shifts up (1:08) to the tonic of B major, obscured somewhat by an first-inversion voicing. The same inversion is applied when the short intro to the next verse returns to the original key (1:22). The pattern continues from there.

Kings Return | After the Love Has Gone

“Grammy-nominated a cappella group Kings Return, made up of vocalists Vaughn Faison, Gabe Kunda, JE McKissic and Jamall Williams … (focus on) a mix of genres, including gospel, jazz and pop, and feature songs from their new album, Rove,” (Dartmouth.edu). “The group is well-known for videos posted online of their rehearsals in the stairwell of a Dallas church. ‘[The group] just happened to go in [the stairwell to rehearse],’ Faison said. ‘It sounds nice. It wasn’t anything that was preplanned. We tried going up and down [the stairs], but it doesn’t sound the same. It’s a three-floor stairwell; we’ve gone to the bottom floor and it doesn’t ring the same, especially when we’re singing ballad-y or classical. [The stairwell] allows everything to ring out really nicely.’

… Given that Kings Return found their start as undergraduate students themselves, one of the group’s main goals is to inspire students. ‘We’ve been inspired by so many that came before us,’ Williams said. ‘It’s cool to use all of the training that we gathered over the years and come together to be an inspiration. The future is in [students’] hands, so we want to make sure we’re doing our part to put forward positive energy.’ The group believes education is essential to art, and hope that by making themselves visible, kids might be inspired to never stop learning. ‘They won’t give up learning music if they see someone who looks like them or grew up like them reading off of sheet music,’ McKissic said. ‘We love giving back to students; music education was a big part of how this group formed.'”

The quartet’s cover of Earth, Wind + Fire’s legendary R&B power ballad hit, “After the Love is Gone” (1979), written by David Foster, Jay Graydon, and Bill Champlin, is marked throughout by harmonic and rhythmic precision that would be impressive even if the tune stuck to one key. But in addition to EWF’s complex original, Kings Return’s version features a striking intro and outro that are fully new and original to their arrangement. After the tension-filled, close-voiced intro, the verse begins in F major with a bass voice feature. At 0:59, the tri-tone shift to B major leads us into the multi-key chorus at 1:08. At 2:50, the stairstep climb up to a bouquet of keys, landing momentarily in B major on “found.” The pattern of EWF’s composition continues until 3:22, when the groove falls away and the arrangement suddenly veers away from the original.

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.

Gabriel Kahane | Limping Waltz

“Gabriel Kahane is a singer/songwriter, pianist, composer, and musical polymath equally at home in classical, theater, jazz, and adult pop settings,” (Qobuz). “He has written large-scale orchestral works, piano sonatas, string quartets, and song cycles as well as intimate singer/songwriter fare, and has collaborated with everyone from Elvis Costello and Rufus Wainwright to the Kronos Quartet and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He first came to national attention in 2006 for his playful Craigslistlieder, which set personal ads to theatrical piano accompaniment (he would later take on celebrity tweets.)”

Kahane has gone on to work with artists such as Pekka Kuusisto, Andrew Bird, Chris Thile, his father pianist Jeffrey Kahane, Sufjan Stevens, Sam Amidon, Aiofe O’Donovan, and ensembles including the American Composers Orchestra, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Kansas City Symphony, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the string quartet Brooklyn Rider, and the Aspen Music Festival. He’s served as the Oregon Symphony’s Creative Chair.

According to the notes he includes with this Instagram post from earlier today, Kahane’s “Limping Waltz” has yet to be formally released. It begins with a verse with a subtly but constantly shifting harmonic backdrop. Instagram doesn’t provide timeslates, but the tune’s chorus, starting with the lyric “But hey kid,” and running through “listen, it’s urgent,” provides a comparatively peaceful respite in a straightforward B major before the unsettled verse returns.

NOTE: we’re getting reports that this post won’t play predictably. Very, odd. Please search on Instagram for Gabriel Kahane’s January 22 post. It makes us really appreciate the relative ease of working with Youtube. Our apologies!

Brent Jones | Praise in the Choir Stand

“Recorded live at Friendship Baptist in Yorba Linda, California, Brent Jones and the Best Life Choir’s rafter-raising ‘Praise in the Choir Stand’ (2025) offers Sunday morning gospel chock full of R&B influences,” (Journal of Gospel Music). “There’s a swaggering confidence in Jones’s voice, a gospel impresario on the best of terms with the musicians, singers, and the congregation. The full-throated Best Life Choir—which is so good, it should have received co-billing on the album cover—thunders its support like an ‘80s mass choir, especially on the title track … Like Jones’ previous release Live Your Best Life, Praise in the Choir Stand offers the spiritual and physical thrill of a live gospel program.”

After a start in Bb minor, there’s a shift to C# minor at 1:28 which persists to the end — through a grand pause and a huge sonic buildup by the ensemble.

Tim Minchin | I Wouldn’t Like You

“I Wouldn’t Like You,” from Australian comedian/musician Tim Minchin’s 2025 release Time Machine, “begins as a tender piano ballad, gently unfolding with Minchin’s signature lyrical wit and emotional nuance, before gradually building into a more guitar-driven, alt-rock finish,” (Amnplify). “At its heart, the track is a wry and quietly romantic ode to loving someone exactly as they are, quirks, contradictions and all. With lines like ‘I wouldn’t like you if you weren’t like you,‘ Minchin delivers a love song that’s both offbeat and sincere, playfully rejecting perfection in favour of authenticity. It’s equal parts dry humour and heartfelt truth, wrapped in a deceptively simple melody that swells with feeling as the track evolves. 

Tim Minchin said: ‘Of all the tunes on this record that have been reinvented, this one has had the most successful vibe update. I always thought this was a keeper, but now with Evan’s loping groove, and the pure undeniable jank of Jak’s guitar in the chorus… I love it.’ The track adds a new layer to the growing portrait painted by Time Machine, a curated anthology of previously unreleased material. This collection of 11 songs offers a glimpse into the mind of the songwriter Tim was before global acclaim, showcasing a raw, witty, and deeply human side of his artistry.”

The intro verses are built in Bb major; the pre-chorus (0:49) and brief chorus (1:14) shift to the closely-related key of Eb major. At 1:26, the cycle repeats.

Andrea Bocelli & Pentatonix | Do You Hear What I Hear?

MotD holiday favorite Pentatonix and Andrea Bocelli collaborated on a cover of “Do You Hear What I Hear” for the deluxe edition of Bocelli’s 2022 album A Family Christmas, which also features his two children Matteo and Virginia. The track begins C and shifts up a half step to Db at 2:00.