Tag: ballad

Jacob Collier (feat. Lizzy McAlpine + John Mayer) | Never Gonna Be Alone

“For ‘Never Gonna Be Alone,’ his first single since the award-winning Djesse Vol. 3, Jacob Collier enlisted the help of Lizzy McAlpine and John Mayer to create a celestial soundscape that spans the depths of isolation, loss and memory,” (NPR).

“There’s much to experience over the course of this one multifaceted and emotional song. ‘It speaks to my experience of the world as a hugely beautiful and fragile place,’ Collier writes in a press statement, adding that the song ‘has helped me process some of the grief I think we’re all feeling for our pasts and futures, in a myriad of different ways.'”

From the video description on Collier’s YouTube channel: “After eighteen months of FaceTime and virtual collaboration, we got to play this song in real life! Performed live at Lizzy’s show at the Troubadour on October 7th 2022.” After a few verses and choruses in C major, 2:21 brings a masterful but understated guitar solo from Mayer. At 3:02, the end of the solo intersects with a few chords outside the key, but the overarching key is unchanged. McAlpine’s crystalline soprano leads a soft-spoken mid-phrase modulation up a half-step to Db major at 3:19.

Lamont Dozier | Reach Out, I’ll Be There (feat. Jo Harman)

Lamont Dozier, who died earlier this month at the age of 81, “played his part in many of the songs that built the Motown legend and which now seem as impervious to the ravages of time as those of Rodgers and Hart or Lennon and McCartney,” (The Guardian). As Dozier worked with the songwriting team of brothers Eddie and Brian Holland, the “Holland-Dozier-Holland” catalog grew to include classics such as “‘Heat Wave’ and ‘Nowhere to Run’ (with Martha and the Vandellas), ‘Can I Get a Witness’ (Marvin Gaye), ‘Baby I Need Your Loving,’ ‘I Can’t Help Myself’ and ‘Reach Out I’ll Be There’ (Four Tops), ‘This Old Heart of Mine’ (Isley Brothers), ‘Take Me in Your Arms’ (Kim Weston) and a record-breaking string of #1 hits in the US charts for the Supremes, starting with ‘Where Did Our Love Go’ in 1964 and including ‘Baby Love,’ ‘Stop! In the Name of Love,’ ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’ and ‘You Keep Me Hangin’ On.'”

The Guardian continues: “Long after their original radio and chart success had faded away, many of Holland-Dozier-Holland’s million-sellers turned out to have embedded themselves so deeply in the public consciousness that they enjoyed second lives, reimagined for new audiences in cover versions by non-Motown artists. Rod Stewart’s ‘This Old Heart of Mine,’ Kim Wilde’s ‘You Keep Me Hangin’ On’ and Phil Collins’ ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’ were among the many reinterpretations that kept a smile on the faces of Holland-Dozier-Holland’s song publishers as the years went by … In later years he provided songs for Alison Moyet, Debbie Gibson, Peabo Bryson and Regina Belle, wrote with Simply Red’s Mick Hucknall … Phil Collins, and Kelly Rowland. Dozier and the Hollands were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.”

Dozier released the album Reimagination in 2018, “a collection of twelve tracks previously written for other artists while at Motown, but Dozier performs them in a way that will make you forget the original,” (BlackGrooves.org). For a rendition of the Four Tops’ uptempo 1967 hit, “Reach Out, I’ll Be There,” Dozier and British vocalist Jo Harman have transformed the up-tempo classic into a gospel-tinged ballad. After a start in E major, 1:59 brings a shift to C# major. At 2:40, we revert to the original key for a piano solo before the arrangement beautifully unfolds into a full gospel texture. The cover is so earnest and so self-assured that yes, the distinctive original is indeed forgotten, at least for a time!

For reference, here’s the original:

Astral Drive | Love, Light + Happiness

After performing with, producing, and/or writing for The Jam, Paul McCartney, XTC, Duran Duran, The Cure, Thompson Twins, Sting, Hot Chocolate, Cyndi Lauper, Natalie Imbruglia, Pixie Lott, and Bryan Adams, what does one do for an encore?

“After decades of making records, hits and misses for other artists, Phil Thornalley began making his own under the Astral Drive moniker in 2017, a combination of seventies recording techniques, impromptu jam sessions (with himself) and starry-eyed idealism,” (The Progressive Aspect) … Thornalley seems to have enjoyed the broader focus allowed by working for himself: “In my days as a songwriter-for-hire, I could happily contrive a tune at the drop of a hat, imagining the artist’s voice and sensibilities as I made choices about melody or chords. But for my own music I have the freedom to allow the songs to bubble up from the unconscious. Perhaps that’s a more natural and organic route than writing in a caffeinated sweat, hoping to deliver something for an impatient platinum-selling artist.”

Astral Drive’s 2021 single “Love, Light and Happiness” opens in A minor with a deceptively simple five-step ascending melodic run (the tonic to the fifth degree of the scale). Via a common tone, the melody lofts right over the border of the A minor tonality and makes an ecstatic landing in the anthemic chorus (an F# minor/E minor vamp) at 0:55. F/G provides some sleight of hand for the transition back into the A minor verse (1:18 – 1:24).

Debbie Gibson | Lost In Your Eyes

“Lost In Your Eyes” is featured on American singer Debbie Gibson’s second studio album, Electric Youth, released in 1989. The song, which Gibson wrote and produced, was her most successful single and sat atop the Billboard Hot 100 chart for three weeks. Writing for the former British music newspaper Record Mirror, critic Betty Page said, “Golden larynxed Debs hits us with the big moodsome ballad, proving that she’s shaping up to be the Barry Manilow of the Nineties.”

The track begins in C and modulates to D at 2:14.

Bee Gees | Bodyguard

“The Bee Gees made a commercial comeback outside the U.S. with 1987’s E.S.P. and its single, ‘You Win Again,” (AllMusic). One (1989), on the other hand, had an improved chart showing in the U.S., while sales fell off elsewhere. The Bee Gees are remarkable pop craftsmen … say what you will, “One” and “House of Shame” are convincing pop music. ([the single] “One” was a Top Ten comeback hit that topped soft rock radio playlists.) This stuff works as pop for the same reason “I’ve Gotta Get a Message to You” and “You Should Be Dancing” did: the melodies are catchy, the hooks are deathless, and the vocals convey emotion over meaning. It may be weightless, but it’s polished.”

“‘I’m the last man standing. I’ll never be able to understand that as I’m the eldest,'” said Barry Gibb (SmoothRadio.com). All three of his brothers (twins Robin and Maurice of the Bee Gees, and much younger brother Andy) passed away between 1988 and 2012. “‘Nobody ever really know what the three of us felt about each other; only the three of us knew … It was such a unifying thing, the three of us became one person. We all had the same dream. That’s what I miss more than anything else.”

The disco grooves that propelled the Bee Gees to international superstardom were long gone by the time of this 1989 release, but “Bodyguard” features the fraternal vocal trio still firing on all cylinders. At 3:09, a whole-step modulation leads into a short guitar feature before the vocals return. Many thanks to Brazilian contributor Julianna for this submission!

Lee Jieun (이지은) | Winter Sleep

“Lee Jieun (이지은), popularly known as IU, is a highly-acclaimed South Korean singer, songwriter, philanthropist, and actress … She is also known in South Korea as ‘The Nation’s Little Sister.'” (KPopping.com) “For years, she attended singing and acting lessons … She also auditioned for more than 20 companies, failing most of them. However, her hard work eventually lead to her debut on September 18, 2008 when she performed the digital single ‘Lost Child.'”

KoreaTimes reports: “According to IU, 2021’s ‘Winter Sleep’ is a piano-driven song in which she talks about the feeling of loss that hits people when a loved one passes away. ‘I was hit by a wave of loss after having a farewell with people around me … but I realized that flowers still bloom and stars rise in the sky regardless of how I feel… Now, my heart does not break when I sing this song.'”

The straightforward arrangement keeps its focus on the melody, which takes a few unexpected steps from time to time. At 2:12, an early half-step modulation brings a shift which lasts for the balance of the tune — all the way to the non-resolving ending. Many thanks to our frequent contributor Ziyad for this submission!

Yebba | How Many Years

“Dawn (2021) doesn’t sound like the debut of a burgeoning pop sensation hopping onto trends,” (New York Times). “The album has a rich retro palette, draws deeply from jazz and R&B and is set in a dusky register that gives Yebba’s flexible voice room to roam … The album’s title doesn’t just refer to the break of day; it was her mom’s name, too.” Yebba’s mother died by suicide just as the artist was rising towards her current prominence. “’I feel like now I get to be 26, instead of always being so immersed in grief … I no longer feel like my life is some chore that I haven’t completed — that my mom is hanging over my head. There are new ways to honor her.’”

“The retro and the contemporary find a nice equilibrium throughout Dawn, but the draw is still Yebba’s voice and the way she massages every note into a sigh,” (The New Yorker). “She possesses an explosive melisma on par with some of the great power-pop divas of the past, but finesse is her strength. She allows the depth and purity of her tone to reverberate, even in the quieter moments. The album’s opener, ‘How Many Years,’ lets threads of whisper-song fray into a gossamer veil, mirroring her apprehension and her doubtfulness … The greatest triumph of Dawn is that Yebba never loses her sense of self in remembrance. A tragedy of this magnitude threatens to overwhelm a début’s statement of identity, but Yebba won’t allow her story to be defined only by what happened. Instead of romanticizing her grief, she pushes through it, untangling a mess of emotions in search of closure.”

“How Many Years,” co-written by Yebba, seems to embody its lyric Where can I run when the ground moves beneath my feet? After the music begins at the 0:50 point, the verses change harmonic direction every phrase or two, all the more profoundly because the shifts happen during phrases rather than between them. However, the melodic shape of the choruses is constant — stated and re-stated with increasing emphasis, perhaps in an attempt to counteract shifting tonalities. The first chorus (1:31) is in Bb major; the second (2:37), in E major; the third (4:04) is something of a harmonic question mark, augmented and artfully blurred by subtle reharmonization.

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We’re including a live track as well as the heavily produced studio track, simply because they stand in such stark contrast to each other.

Hall and Oates | Laughing Boy

“For all the success that this Philadelphia-based duo would experience later on in their career, Daryl Hall and John Oates struggled to find a commercial footing early on,” (ClassicRockReview.com). “That’s not to say that they didn’t produce interesting and creative music as demonstrated brilliantly on their second album, Abandoned Luncheonette, released in late 1973. Despite only reaching #33 on the album charts during its initial run, this album slowly grew in stature and would finally reach platinum-selling status about three decades after its release.

For Abandoned Luncheonette, the group and production team moved from Philadelphia to New York where their disparate influences of folk, rock, and soul were refined with the help of expert session players to forge the album’s musical tapestry as well as the group’s signature sound for the next decade.”

In addition to one of their breakthrough hits, “She’s Gone,” Abandoned Luncheonette featured “Laughing Boy,” a ballad which showcased Daryl Hall’s vocals and keyboard skills. An unusually high percentage of the tune’s sonic real estate features chromatic basslines; for example at 0:08, we start out with a bassline alternating between C and B; at 0:31, we’re down to Bb, then D/A before the pattern breaks. The short chorus (0:57 – 1:10) is built around F# minor, which makes the tritone jump to C Lydian at the start of the next verse quite distinctive. There’s not a strong feeling of tonality to begin with, so modulation isn’t really on the menu per se, but that tritone shift (which recurs several times) is quite the statement!

Robert Glasper | Forever

Robert Glasper’s Black Radio III, released in February 2022, features heavy-hitting guest artists on each track, including Common, Esperanza Spalding, Jennifer Hudson, Killer Mike, Q-Tip, Ty Dolla $ign, Yebba, and many more. It’s the third release in the Black Radio franchise; The New Parish describes the concept in its review of Black Radio (2012), which has continued throughout its subsequent chapters:

“’Real music is crash protected,’ state the liner notes of Black Radio … (it) boldly stakes out new musical territory and transcends any notion of genre, drawing from jazz, hip-hop, R&B, and rock, but refusing to be pinned down by any one tag. Like an aircraft’s black box for which the album is titled, Black Radio holds the truth and is indestructible …

Robert Glasper has long kept one foot planted firmly in jazz and the other in hip-hop and R&B,” (working with Q-Tip, Mos Def, Maxwell, and many others). “The Los Angeles Times once wrote that ‘it’s a short list of jazz pianists who have the wherewithal to drop a J Dilla reference into a Thelonious Monk cover, but not many jazz pianists are Robert Glasper,’ adding that ‘he’s equally comfortable in the worlds of hip-hop and jazz,’ and praising the organic way in which he ‘builds a bridge between his two musical touchstones.’”

After starting in F major for the first verse and chorus (PJ Morton, lead vocals), “Forever” shifts up to F# major at for vocalist India Arie’s feature at 1:11. By now showing its colors as an earnest love song, the tune continues with an almost trance-like repeating chorus. Arie and Morton create a subtly shifting tapestry of sound, alternating between tightly coordinated parallel leads and soaring ad libs. By 4:30, the tune has faded out entirely, but then fades back in, its focus completely shifted, in a brief reprise — a Glasper trademark. The reprise explores a few strands of the harmony and textures over a subdued but complex drum solo before fading out again.

for Kym and Marcus

Barry Manilow | Looks Like We Made It

” … there’s a good chance you’re Facebook friends with your ex. But in 1977, when people still had to run into their exes at parties or whatever, that feeling still got a drippy Barry Manilow ballad dedicated to it,” (Stereogum). “Around the time that Barry Manilow got to #1 with 1976’s ‘I Write The Songs,’ he apparently figured out what the world wanted from him. He could sing silly, frisky, jazzy numbers, but those songs weren’t what the world wanted from him. They wanted big, grand, feelings-on-display adult-contempo ballads full of pianos and woodwinds and showy Broadway notes.

… you can hear that formula at work on ‘Looks Like We Made It,’ Manilow’s third and final #1. As with (his) two previous #1 hits, Manilow didn’t write ‘Looks Like We Made It.’ Instead, the song’s music came from Richard Kerr, the pianist who’d already co-wrote the 1975 #1 ‘Mandy.’ (No surprise that it sounds a whole lot like ‘Mandy.’) The lyrics, meanwhile, were written by Will Jennings, a ballad specialist … Manilow’s got an impressive voice, and he’s not shy about showing it off. He and producer Ron Dante pile on the strings, which makes for a whole lot of big, crashing moments.”

After a start in C major, a short bridge at 2:28 starts sweetly, continues with the piled-on strings mentioned above, and ends with the drummer sounding like the host of an “instrumental petting zoo” at an elementary school. After pulling out all the stops, 2:44 opens the curtains, shines the spotlights, and sounds the figurative trumpet fanfare as the new key of Db major arrives.