Tag: funk

Bill Wurtz | Meet Me in September

The Internet Music Genius You’ve Never Heard Of: “(Bill) Wurtz’s content stretches back to the early internet of 2002, and looking at the breadth and depth of his work highlights exactly how ahead of his time he was—and continues to be. Wurtz has become a massive success by melding bipolar shitposts, philosophical reflections on existence and legitimately exciting music with whiplash-inducing animation, (MelMagazine). It’s exactly what the democratizing force of the internet, and platforms like YouTube, was intended to nurture.

‘It’s funny because some of the people who become most famous on the internet aren’t the ones trying to capture that popularity, but ignore it. That’s Bill,’ says Taylor Lorenz, who writes about digital culture for The Atlantic. ‘Absurdist, quirky, lo-fi humor is very mainstream now, but the internet kind of caught up to Bill in a sense. I see him having a long-term dedicated fanbase when the trends pass, too. When you do something so consistently for so long, you create diehard fans. And he’s been true to his art for a long time.’

To watch a Bill Wurtz video is to explore the head of an idiosyncratic man—one who makes you struggle with preconceived notions of what coherent art is supposed to be. Wurtz flashes talent on all sorts of instruments, including piano, bass, drums and his own voice, which is a silky tenor with range and energy. He produces animated videos that sparkle with neon text, dancing stick figures and vaporwave-y transitions. He also wades in Weird Twitter, offering punchlines designed to inspire confused laughs.”

Released today on Youtube, Wurtz’s tune “Meet Me in September” is a 3.5-minute stream-of-consciousness meditation somehow grafted onto a travelogue of the USA, percolating along with consistent energy but never presenting the listener with much of an energetic peak or valley. “I’m greedy, so I’ll make more than my fair share of bad choices” is a representative lyric. Angular syncopations, multi-layered percussion, and ear-catching trills coming from all corners of the instrumentation are all part of the mix. After a start in E major, we shift to F major at 0:56. At 1:33, we’ve fallen back into E major via a short instrumental transition that sounds like a warped slinky making its fitful way down a stairway after it’s been run over by a bicycle. There are more shifts in tonality to follow; listen to it all, then join Wurtz’s growing legion of listeners in asking “WTF was that?”

The Tubes | Tip of My Tongue

Stylistically, it would be difficult to ask for a rock band more diverse than The Tubes. Over time, they’ve released punk-adjacent rave-ups, guitar-driven straight-ahead rock, keyboard-saturated power ballads, and more. Several prominent producers have worked with the band in the studio, including David Foster and Todd Rundgren.

“In 1983, after the huge success of their previous album The Completion Backward Principle, The Tubes released Outside Inside, another catchy offering, again with David Foster at the helm,” (Fozfan.com). “Foster, who was responsible for making the band’s sound more suitable for rock and pop radio, brought in many of his friends from Toto, plus other session greats like Nathan East and Freddy Washington to help raise the level of  musical sophistication in the Tubes’ sound. The voices of Patti Austin, Bobby Kimball and Bill Champlin were also smart additions to support Fee Waybill’s strong vocals. The overall sound of Outside Inside was a slick mix of rock and funk. It included a series of gems like ‘She’s a Beauty,’ that zoomed to the top of the charts, the powerful ‘No Not Again’ and the classy up-tempo ‘Fantastic Delusion.’

The second single was ‘Tip of My Tongue,’ a tight, funky affair co-written with (Earth, Wind + Fire’s) Maurice White, who also sings some uncredited ad-libs. This song definitely echoes the sound of EWF. Sure, the lyrical content fully belongs to the best Tubes’ tradition, but musically it could have come off any EWF album of those years.” The band has generally written its own material, but “Tip of My Tongue” is an exception. The tune’s allusions to oral sex go a bit beyond the point of double-entendre, which is right down the fairway for the band; much of its material seems to be written with its bull-in-a-china-shop stage shows in mind.

After starting in C# minor, a bridge in F# major (1:50), and a drum/bass break at 2:19 which hammers on C natural with a side order of mixed harmonic signals, “Tip of My Tongue” returns us to F# at 2:34; 2:50 drops us back into C# minor; thereafter, a series of choruses repeat and fade to the end. The horn section is full of swagger throughout, frequently shifting its complex filigree to the last bar.

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.

Kim Petras | Malibu

German singer Kim Petras describes her song Malibu, released in 2020, as a “pick-me-up song” with a “punchy mix of synth-bass squirts and tropical-funk guitar that lives up to its namesake.” The music video for the track features over a dozen artists, including Todrick Hall, Demi Lovato, and Jonathan Van Ness, and was filmed in isolation during the pandemic.

Starting in G, the tune shifts up to A at 1:58.

Danny and Alex | Friends Kiss Too

“Friends Kiss Too” is a 2019 single released by Danny and Alex, a pop duo based in St. Petersburg, Florida. Counting Steely Dan, Prince, and The Beatles among their influences, [Danny] Scordato and [Alex] Merrill write and produce all of their music; they released an EP in 2018.

The track begins in A and modulates up to C at 2:28.

Average White Band | You’re My Number One

Released in 1982, “You’re My Number One” was a track from the Average White Band’s album Cupid’s In Fashion. ” … the group decided to keep things a bit funkier on this release … ” (Soulfinger). ” … they brought in some cool cats like Dan Hartman to write ‘You’re My Number One’. Say what you will about Hartman, but that man can make a fun song … AWB could do LA pop without losing their soul … “

Hartman is perhaps best known for his own release “I Can Dream About You” (which reached #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1984 and #12 on the UK Singles chart in 1985). He wrote and/or produced many other successful tunes for other artists, including “Living in America” for James Brown (1986), as well as tracks for a wide-ranging list of artists including The Plasmatics, Steve Winwood, Tina Turner, Joe Cocker, Dusty Springfield, and Bonnie Tyler. Hartman passed away from HIV in 1994 at the age of only 43.

1980s LA pop could hardly have a better standard-bearer than this track. Its funk foundation, nimble horn section, glossy production, and an entire instrumental verse devoted to a sax solo all belie the fact that Average White Band is from … Scotland! The modulation kicks in at 1:46.

Eddie Bo | Hook and Sling

“Edwin Joseph Bocage, known to music lovers around the world as ‘Eddie Bo’, was born in New Orleans, raised in Algiers and the 9th Ward,” (EddieBo.com). “Having come from a family that is legendary in the traditional jazz community … after graduating from Booker T. Washington High School and spending time abroad in the Army, he returned to New Orleans to study composition and arranging at the Grunewald School of Music. It was here that Eddie Bo developed a unique style of piano playing and arranging that incorporated complex be-bop voicings, influenced by Art Tatum and Oscar Peterson. His mother and Professor Longhair, whose playing styles were similar, were major influences on Bo as well.

In a career that spanned well over five decades, Eddie Bo made more 45s than any artist in New Orleans, other than Fats Domino. He produced records for Irma Thomas, Robert Parker, Art Neville, Chris Kenner, Al ‘Carnival Time’ Johnson and the late Johnny Adams … ” In terms of songwriting, he “demonstrated genius in the realm of contemporary New Orleans funk on the highly creative works ‘Hook and Sling’ and ‘Pass the Hatchet.'” Some of the awards Bo garnered during his career include the U.S. Congressional Lifetime Achievement Award in Jazz + Blues, the New Orleans Jazz + Heritage Foundation Award, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the South Louisiana Music Association, and coverage in the PBS documentary on contemporary music along the Mississippi, River of Song.

Evoking a tow truck fleet capable of moving any vehicle, Bo’s “Hook and Sling,” released in 1969, is infused with New Orleans flavor. The groove was so good that the track was later sampled by the hiphop artist Everlast (formerly of House of Pain), then again by Kanye West, Common, Pusha T, Big Sean feat. Kid Cudi, and Charlie Wilson for the track “G.O.O.D. Friday” (WhoSampled.com). The tune shifts up a half step at 1:36.

Here’s the G.O.O.D. Friday sample:

Tower of Power | Maybe It’ll Rub Off

“In the realm of power funk and jazz-rock, Tower of Power was an original voice, one carved from a unique place within an exceptionally heady moment,” (AllAboutJazz). “And this convergence of forces, clearly, has yet to cool some 53 years hence. Horns? They’ve carried up to six at a time, to hell with diminished door splits. A big band of scorching funk, Tower of Power traces its roots to 1968 Oakland, where it flourished in a thicket of sound tearing at industry barriers. The band, initially dubbed the Motowns, was founded at the juncture which begat Blood Sweat and Tears, Chicago Transit Authority, and Earth Wind and Fire. Even then, the soul—if you will—of Tower of Power was born in the muscular arrangements and searing leads of the former as much as the latter’s R&B core.”

Tower of Power released Urban Renewal in 1974 — one of three releases by the band that year, just four years into its history. Although the album lacked an uptempo hit like “What is Hip?” or a stand-out lush ballad like “So Very Hard to Go” or “You’re Still a Young Man,” the release was a snapshot of the band hitting its stride.

“Maybe It’ll Rub Off,” built in F major overall, features an instrumental mid-section that meanders through several other keys between 1:45 and 2:31, when it returns to the initial key.

Cee Lo Green | What Christmas Means to Me

Written by Allen Story, Anna Gordy Gaye and George Gordy, and first recorded by Stevie Wonder in 1967, “What Christmas Means To Me” has been covered by dozens of artists over the years. Green included the song on his 2012 Christmas album Cee Lo Green’s Magic Moment, and it reached the #23 spot on the R&B charts in the United States. The tune modulates from Bb up to B at 1:41.