Tag: dance

Gloria Gaynor | I Am What I Am

“‘I Am What I Am’, (Jerry Herman’s) signature anthem from La Cage aux Folles, is a song to be scaled whenever drink has been taken and identity totters: by a spangled diva in the spotlight, a club kid staking a claim, a bridesmaid clinging desperately to dignity,” (The Guardian).

“La Cage is a Feydeau farce with show tunes, pitting a cabaret queen against the moral majority, with a book by Harvey Fierstein (who later lent his gravel-pit register to the song on Broadway). When drag queen Albin is disinvited from his own son’s wedding, he refuses to shuffle out of the picture. One draft speech included the line, ‘I am what I am and there’s nothing I can do.’ Herman’s synapses rippled. ‘Hold everything,’ he exclaimed. ‘I want to take those five words, if you will give them to me … I can write you a first-act closer that will be a killer because I feel that emotion in me.’ The next morning, he gathered everyone in his 61st Street studio and sang through the mounting choruses. ‘The reaction was cataclysmic.’ … Away from the show, ‘I Am’ has been a lip-synch love bomb, of course it has … it provided the (2019) Pride theme for Belfast club Harland and Poof … It naturally slotted into Shirley Bassey’s repertoire – though the diva hardly struggles for self-belief – and attained disco fervour with Gloria Gaynor.”

Released in 1984, Gaynor’s version reached #82 on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts. After a poised rubato intro, the tune kicks into its groove gear at 0:37. After a long instrumental break, there’s a whole-step key change at 3:26 — and then another unexpected upward half-step skip at 3:48. The groove isn’t quite 100% disco, but its 1984 release date was certainly past the heyday of the disco craze. Nonetheless, this track was a club-driven hit.

Madonna | Vogue

“The underground — any underground — tends to find peculiar and unintended routes into the spotlight,” (Stereogum). “Madonna was always a creature of New York club culture, and it wasn’t particularly out of character for her to get interested in a particular facet of that culture, which kept evolving after she got famous. But it was pretty weird that Madonna managed to take a small slice of the deep underground and mainstream the absolute hell out of it. And it was also pretty weird that Madonna pulled this off with a would-be B-side that got stapled onto the hoochie-coochie retro-cabaret album that she’d recorded as a tie-in with her big summer-blockbuster movie … Madonna was prescient about a lot of things, but she can’t have predicted the ripple-effects of all the moves that she made. ‘Vogue’ wasn’t even supposed to be a single, but it became one of the defining smashes of a hall-of-fame career. That happens sometimes.” The single reached #1 in the spring of 1990 and remained there for three weeks.

The Guardian further describes the drag scene of the late 1980s: “Contrary to popular belief, Madonna did not invent voguing. (Her hit song) was a euphoric celebration/appropriation of a dance form that emerged from the Harlem ballroom scene in the 80s. ‘Balls are part of a broader history of black queer performance and spectacle that stretches back at least to the early days of the 20th century,’ says Madison Moore, assistant professor of gender, sexuality and women’s studies at Virginia Commonwealth University. Poet and playwright Langston Hughes described these balls in his 1940 autobiography The Big Sea as ‘spectacles in color’.”

After an intro and a verse in Ab major, the chorus shifts to Ab minor at 1:40, with a brief but dense series of syncopated compound piano chords layered over the bass, which never migrates away from the tonic throughout the entire tune. Since the melody also centers around the tonic, the harmonic variety of those compound chords is pivotal. At 1:56, verse 2 reverts to Ab major; the pattern continues from there.

George Michael | Freedom ’90

“Freedom ’90” was the second single from George Michael’s 1990 album Listen Without Prejudice. The album attempted to accomplish the nearly impossible task of following up on Faith, Michael’s global smash 1987 album that produced multiple hit singles and was among the top 50 best-selling albums of the 1980s.

Billboard’s review of the track included some colorful prose: “Platinum pop star waxes both cynical and philosophical on this well-worded stab at his early days of fame.” From The Daily Vault: “Its catchy chorus and uptempo, jangling instrumentation, coupled with his signature soaring vocals, make this confessional a striking example of Michael’s newfound independence.” From Music and Media: “… a stirring Bo Diddley beat, a gospel approach, and a great piano riff are the main features of this addictive hit candidate.”

Completely independent of radio airplay: the focus on a pantheon of the world’s top supermodels at the height of their own careers, rather than Michael singing to the camera, sent the video into the highest strata of popularity. The fact that all of the cover art iconography of Faith — the leather jacket, the jukebox, and the blonde hollow-body guitar — ends up spectacularly reduced to ashes didn’t hurt, either.

Beginning in a slightly uptuned C major, the verse is followed by some relatively delicate syncopation of the vocal line during the C minor pre-chorus (1:46). At 2:07, C major comes roaring back for the monstrously huge sing-along chorus. 3:30 brings another minor pre-chorus; at 4:52, a minor bridge also provides a contrasting lead-up to the chorus.

Good Morning (from “Singin’ in the Rain”)

“’Making Singin’ in the Rain and childbirth were the two hardest things I’ve ever done,’ Debbie Reynolds wrote in her 2013 memoir, Unsinkable,” (Slate). “’The movie was actually harder, because it hurt me everywhere, mostly my brain and my feet.’ Reynolds was only 19 when she was cast alongside Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor in what would become one of the greatest Hollywood musicals … But she had no training in dance, and she was about to share the screen with two of Hollywood’s greatest hoofers. ‘I wasn’t a dancer,’ Reynolds wrote, ‘and I had three months to learn what Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor had been doing for years.’

Reynolds’ preparation was arduous, and Kelly, who co-directed Singin’ with Stanley Donen, was a stern and unforgiving taskmaster who had opposed Reynolds being cast in the part. At one point, according to Unsinkable, she wound up crying under the piano in one of MGM’s rehearsal rooms, where she was comforted by no less than Fred Astaire. ‘You’re not going to die,’ Astaire told Reynolds. ‘That’s what it’s like to learn to dance. If you’re not sweating, you’re not doing it right.’” It’s riveting to watch Reynolds, well known as a triple threat, keep up with dance legends Kelly and O’Connor — particularly given that the number was shot over a single 15-hour day.

“Singin’ in the Rain (1952) is the best musical of all time, according to the prestigious American Film Institute,” (The Guardian). “West Side Story came in at number two, followed by The Wizard of Oz and Cabaret.”

After a start in B major, we shift to G# major at 1:01. Several other key changes follow, beautifully presented by full orchestra.

Jessie J | I Want Love

English singer/songwriter Jessie J released “I Want Love” as a single in June 2021. “I had an argument with a bf once after a major red carpet. I went to a bar where I didn’t know anyone and I danced alone until sunrise,” she said describing the inspiration behind the song and subsequent music video.

“I took a shot with strangers and I talked to myself in the mirror in the bathroom,” she continued. “My tough exterior that I so often use as a defense mechanism went away, my heart softened. My fear left the room and I just let go. That’s what this song this video means and represents to me… I wanted this video to feel like I felt like that night.”

Beginning in Ab minor, the tune abruptly shifts up a half step to A for the final chorus at 2:43.

Whitney Houston | Love Will Save the Day

“Love Will Save the Day,” according to RandomJPop, was “the one single from Whitney that I think is oft forgotten about due to the likes of “I Wanna Dance With Somebody,” “Didn’t We Almost Have It All,” and “So Emotional” being such huge hits and the songs most remember from the album,” (the singer’s 1987 debut, Whitney). “It was one of the few songs from the release which gave us Whitney’s personality in a way that not all of the other songs did. We got a bit of matriarchal Whitney. A bit of church Whitney. A bit of street Whitney.

‘Love Will Save The Day’ stuck out greatly on the album because of its sound, which could be seen as a response to the boom of Madonna at the time. Madonna was known for her uptempo cuts, whilst Whitney was still defined greatly by her ballads. But of course Arista records wanted to show that Whitney can compete with the club kids. After all, a bitch was from Jersey … ” Although the review dates from 2020, both it and the track seem relevant: ” … at a time when politics are a mess, the world is on literal fire and mental health is something that is being aired out in the open with more regularity than ever before, this song really does hit now.” The track never had the benefit of a music video, but “managed to chart well without one. So a music video probably would have secured Whitney yet another Billboard number 1 single.”

Roy Ayers’ immaculate vibes performance is most prominent during a duet feature with Whitney at 3:35, but keeps the groove at a low 16ths boil elsewhere. After 4:10 brings a blockbuster whole-step key change, the tune doesn’t let up a notch — right to the last second.

George Benson | Give Me the Night

“‘Quincy Jones was looking for artists for his new label, Qwest Records,” jazz/pop vocalist and guitarist George Benson remembered in a Guardian interview). ‘I’d started to cross over from jazz and Quincy asked: Do you want to make the world’s greatest jazz record – or go for the throat? I laughed and said: Go for the throat! … He said: George, put yourself in my hands. I know more about you than you do yourself. I was insulted at first, but calmed down, and things started happening.’

George was under pressure to have a crossover hit. Nobody yelled at each other but there was tension, because he wouldn’t always do what Quincy told him to. (The sessions for 1980’s ‘Give Me the Night’ were) a clash of the titans at first. ‘I asked for the same musicians he’d used on (Michael Jackson’s) Off the Wall. The sound they made inspired me. Quincy also brought in Rod Temperton, formerly of the band Heatwave … Rod was always in the background except for when something went wrong. He didn’t mind saying: George, you’re singing in the wrong key.” Patti Austin, now known for her own R+B, jazz, and pop material, was the accomplished background singer Jones hired. Austin remembers: “‘When I went into the studio, the tracks were already recorded. I used to be a jingle singer; you have to be able to walk in, sight-read, and make whatever product the jingle is plugging sound orgasmic. So I worked very quickly.'”

Built in F minor overall, the tune shifts to Ab minor for the chorus at 1:19 – 1:42, later repeating the pattern. The track crossed over with a vengeance; it wasn’t a smash hit, but managed to become a solid global presence (see below) while hitting top five on the US Pop, Soul, and Disco charts.

Judy Garland feat. Tommy Dorsey Orchestra and Mickey Rooney | I’ve Got Rhythm (from “Girl Crazy”)

Tap cowboy boots? Yep, we’ve got those. The ninth of ten movies co-starring the iconic pairing of Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney, 1943’s Girl Crazy ends with “I’ve Got Rhythm” staged as a gargantuan Busby Berkeley production number –the very definition of the “Golden Age movie musical.”

From Film Frenzy‘s review: ” … another Rooney-Garland confection where not much of interest happens when everyone isn’t singing or dancing. The Gershwin score is tops, though.” HighDefDigest describes the title as “the best film pairing of Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland … Girl Crazy not only showcases the dynamite talents of two enduring dynamos, it also features a first-class score by George and Ira Gershwin that includes such standards as ‘I Got Rhythm,’ ‘Embraceable You,’ and ‘But Not for Me,’ a bubbly cast, and a lavish rodeo finale staged by Busby Berkeley.” Meanwhile, Tommy Dorsey leads his orchestra while playing some top-drawer trombone.

After the intro, the tune begins in earnest at 0:58 in Eb, shifts to F at 1:34, and lands in D at 1:42 — for starters. Thereafter, key changes continue to parade by throughout.

Bros | When Will I Be Famous?

Rolling Stone Australia gathered a list of “75 Greatest Boy Band Songs of All Time” in 2020: “Irresistibly catchy, unapologetically inauthentic, sexy and they know it — the boy band is the most fabulously pre-fab of all musical outfits. From the scripted TV shenanigans of the Monkees to the charming folkiness of One Direction, as long as there are junior high school notebooks to deface, there will be outfits providing pop spectacle in its purest, least filtered form.”

Coming in at #72 on the list is the 1987 track from UK-based trio Bros, “When Will I Be Famous?” The group “epitomized the late Eighties Young Conservative air of steely determination: money, power, and success at any cost. Twins Matt and Luke Goss, along with schoolmate Craig Logan, prioritized fame and fashion over brotherly bonhomie (the increasingly sidelined Logan quit, then sued the brothers). The mean streak in their lyrics, their distinctive crewcuts and bomber jackets, and their penchant for wearing Grolsch bottlecaps on their shoes made them ripe for parody and vitriol in the press … Britain had seen nothing like it since the Bay City Rollers … the Casio cowbell serves as the instant timewarp back to 1987.”

At 2:47, the relentless electronic groove downshifts a bit in terms of intensity and loudness, but goes on to add even more ruthless layers of synth shimmer instead. By its end, the bridge has tapered down to a percussion and vocals-only break. Next, the band heaves itself through a stuttering, meter-shifted portal at 3:34 before regaining its balance (just in case you didn’t notice the half-step key change).

Many thanks to regular contributor Ziyad for this submission!