Tag: 2020s

Silk Sonic | Leave The Door Open

“Leave The Door Open” is the debut single from the new band Silk Sonic, comprised of Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak. Describing the band’s genesis in an interview with Billboard, Mars said, “It was like, ‘Well, want to come back tomorrow? And we kept coming up with music. It felt like why you fall in love with music in the first place. And jamming with your buddy… There’s no plan, just working out the parts and trying to excite each other… that’s why this wouldn’t happen if it didn’t make sense and it didn’t feel natural and organic. This was a series of events that led us to ‘Man, why don’t we just do it?'”

“When you get in and you can jam with someone and other artists that could hold it down and you’re bouncing, that’s different,” .Paak said. “That’s the difference and you’re really creating a groove from scratch. You guys are trying to figure out what’s going to work. What’s the math behind this that’s going to get everybody feeling good? What is it? Is it too heavy? Is it not heavy enough? And especially with this song [Leave The Door Open], it’s a song that requires so much patience and delicate…” Mars jumps in: “Delicatessen,” with .Paak adding, “Delicatessens. A lot of meat went into this song.”

Released last week on March 5, the music video has already racked up over 22 million views on YouTube; the release date for the full album has not yet been announced.

The tune begins in A minor and pushes at its boundaries throughout. A definitive modulation to Gb occurs at 2:42. Thanks to contributor Clara Jung for this find!

Carmen Ruby Floyd | Unexpected Blessing

Actress and singer Carmen Ruby Floyd has appeared in the Broadway productions of Avenue Q, the jazz revue After Midnight, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, Chicago, and Hello, Dolly!, where she served as a cover for the title role under Bette Midler, Bernadette Peters, and Donna Murphy. “Ellington’s lyric-free but gorgeous “Creole Love Call” is delivered by Carmen Ruby Floyd with hypnotic simplicity,” critic Charles Isherwood wrote in his review of After Midnight in the New York Times. “Her voice taking flight in tandem with swooning melody, which seems to glimmer visibly in the air before you.” 

In addition to her theatre work, Floyd has performed with Gladys Knight, Toni Braxton, Babyface, Fantasia, Hugh Jackman, among others, and most recently toured with her mentor Vanessa Williams.

Earlier this year, Floyd released her first EP featuring “Unexpected Blessing.” Key change at 3:25.

Make Our Garden Grow (from “Candide”)

“Make Our Garden Grow” is the final number in Leonard Bernstein’s 1956 operetta Candide, based on Voltaire’s 1759 novella. This virtual performance was coordinated and produced by Jeremy Robin Lyons. “During this time of global trauma, it is increasingly clear that we are all in this together,” he said. “In the sense of our collective responsibilities for taking care of each other through public health as well as economically, for taking care of the planet we share (which happens to be the only one we have!), and for pulling together with a spirit of hope, motivation, and cooperation while working towards a brighter future. I think we are also experiencing the need for art in the face of the most difficult times, and the importance of community in the face of isolation. So I felt an impetus to reach out to friends and strangers alike through the internet, bringing people together through music and producing a mass collaboration with as much heart as possible.”

Key changes at 0:22, 1:35, and 2:42

Bob Kelly | I Was Young

“I Was Young” is the opening track on composer/pianist Bob Kelly‘s debut EP Open Road, released earlier this month. Kelly’s website notes that he is ” … a NYC-based pianist, composer, and music director. His work as a music director, pianist, and orchestrator/arranger for musical theatre includes productions and educational programs throughout NYC and across the country.”

Featuring vocalists Andrew Way and Daniel Youngelman, the song modulates at 2:23.

Jennifer Lopez | This Land Is Your Land / America the Beautiful

At today’s Biden/Harris Inaugural, pop diva Jennifer Lopez performed a medley of the populist folk anthem “This Land is Your Land” and “America The Beautiful” for a small in-person audience on the Capitol steps, while tens of millions watched worldwide.

The Los Angeles Times reports that JLo “linked the first two verses of Woody Guthrie’s ‘This Land Is Your Land’ with ‘America the Beautiful’ — and threw in a line from her own ‘Let’s Get Loud’ just for good measure … Lopez remade the two American standards — the first a famously fought-over piece of U.S. history.

And she didn’t pass up the opportunity to try to cleanse the spot where insurgents soiled the American dream two weeks ago: Building up to her big finish, Lopez paused to recite the last line of the Pledge of Allegiance — in Spanish. ‘Una nación, bajo Dios, indivisible, con libertad y justicia para todos!‘ she said, her eyes sparkling with pride — ‘One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.'”

As the arrangement returns to “This Land Is Your Land” after “America the Beautiful” (3:00), the key is a half-step lower than the opening rendition of the same tune. The music begins at the 0:40 mark.

John Powhida International Airport | Michael 3 o’Clock

The Arts Fuse describes The Bad Pilot, the 2019 album by John Powhida International Airport (winners of the 2011 Rock & Roll Rumble and multiple Boston Music Award nominees), as “clearly rooted in the 1970s — but that decade was nothing if not kaleidoscopic … the sound and feel of everything from Philly soul to new wave, hard rock, funk, and progressive rock.” JPIA’s recent release “Michael 3 O’Clock” continues that trend, incorporating kaleidoscopic effects on the video in addition to the melange of styles on the track.

Powhida relates some of the tune’s backstory: “I saw Michael Quercio and the 3 O’Clock Band open for REM. A direct quote from him to a heckler: ‘REM will be out in a second. Suck on this, honey.’ Trailblazers of the Paisley Underground scene with The Bangles and others … Prince was a fan and held his hand in a meeting, then signed them to Paisley Park.” AllMusic details that The 3 O’Clock “incorporated the chiming guitars of the Byrds and the Beatles into their pop songs with a psychedelic bent, and the clothes to match.” While this track centers the sheen of Philly Soul, it’s appropriately completed by a gilded paisley frame, including the filigree of Peter Moore’s artful backup vocal and string arrangement.

The ballads of the Philly Soul canon certainly never shied away from melancholy. Instead, they stared the emotion down bravely while featuring ecstatically gorgeous arrangements and harmonies — providing incentive for the listener to stick around instead of running back to bubble-gum pop. Meanwhile, Powhida has the guts to stare down his influences and a potentially pivotal missed connection while taking us along for the ride. A capsule review on Powhida’s Bandcamp page lauds the tune’s mix of “admiration, resentment, and a little heartbreak” — not bad for a four-minute narrative.

After the tune opens with a guitar hook over a mysterious suspended chord, the groove starts the track in earnest at 0:09 in an uncomplicated A major. The verse then shifts to a second section in C major at 0:37. The chorus, in E minor, admittedly owes a huge melodic debt to the chorus of The Stylistics’ “You Are Everything,” but mixes in plenty of Powhida’s trademark wit — so clever that Quercio reportedly couldn’t stay mad for long, even after being artfully skewered:

SuperCaliforniaFragileDiva what goes on inside your head? / PsychoRelicDandyLiar Michael 3 o’Clock it’s time for bed

Verse 2 and Chorus 2 continue the pattern, followed by a beautifully contrasting bridge, starting with a surprising palate-cleansing sidebar (C major) at 1:56, then a jump to C# minor at 1:59. At 2:44, JPo delivers one final double-sided homage before his pitch glissandos downward like an anchor falling to the bottom of a pond — making the modulation upward to E minor for the final wall-of-sound choruses all the more massive. After a minor-key echo of The Beatles’ “All You Need Is Love” at the start of the outro, we somehow end this unlikely travelogue where we began, shifting back to A major and a reprise of the opening hook at 3:51.

Meghan Trainor (ft. Earth, Wind & Fire) | Holidays

“Holidays” is included on A Very Trainor Christmas, pop singer Meghan Trainor‘s first holiday album, released earlier this year. All of Trainor’s family members played a part in creating the album, as songwriters, producers, background vocalists and instrumentalists.

“I’m a Christmas baby, it’s always been a dream of mine to release a Christmas Album and to do it with my family makes it that much better,” said Trainor. “Songs featuring my family are like permanent memories that I get to replay all the time. Earth, Wind & Fire and Seth MacFarlane (also featured on the album) are two of my family’s all-time-favorites – we worship the ground they walk on – so to get them to feature on this album still doesn’t feel real. Best Christmas Present Ever!”

The key change is snuck in right at the end at 2:30.

Straight No Chaser | The First Noel

American a cappella group Straight No Chaser formed at Indiana University in 1996. In 2006, they released a video of “12 Days of Christmas” that has since been viewed over 24 million times on YouTube. “The First Noel” is featured on the group’s first full-length Christmas album, Social Christmasing, which came out in November. Beginning in Gb, the track modulates to Ab at 1:35.

Jacob Collier | The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire)

Jacob Collier released his arrangement of this holiday classic in November, and it has all the hallmarks of his distinctive style: thick chordal textures, extensive reharmonization, and frequent modulations (as well as stunning video production.) The first noticeable shift in key occurs at 2:35, then again at 3:10. At 3:48, Collier begins a cycle of modulations over the last phrase of the tune, finally landing in B at the end.