pop

Peter Gabriel | Sledgehammer

“Peter Gabriel is one of the great sonic explorers of pop-music history, a classic restless spirt whose wanderings have always demanded attention,” (Stereogum). “Gabriel has a decades-long history of big, bold gestures. He was early on all sorts of things — art-rock theatricality, massive drum-sound reverberations, the pop-music embrace of various different forms of African music. He championed worthy global political causes and worthy global musicians, exposing them to people who would’ve never otherwise known much about them. Few artists have had as much effect on the texture of pop music, on the way that you can turn songs into complete sonic environments. So naturally, the one time Peter Gabriel hit #1 in the US, he did it with a janky, digital white-soul song about his dick. That’s pop music for you.

(1986’s) ‘Sledgehammer,’ Peter Gabriel’s big hit, is one of the many, many songs that owes a great deal of its success to its music video. That’s another thing that Peter Gabriel embraced early: The warping, convulsive possibilities of music videos as an art form. Gabriel’s ‘Sledgehammer’ video is one of the all-time masterpieces of the medium … By some estimates, ‘Sledgehammer’ is the most-played video in the entire history of MTV.

… Gabriel’s early singles did pretty well on the UK charts. In the US, Gabriel was less of a presence. A couple of tracks charted: 1977’s ‘Solsbury Hill’ at #68, 1980’s ‘Games Without Frontiers’ at #48. But Gabriel was more of a culty, esoteric figure until the advent of MTV made him harder to ignore. 1982’s ‘Shock The Monkey’ reached #29, largely on the strength of its memorably freaked-out video. Still, a song like “Sledgehammer” represented a real and self-conscious turn towards the pop mainstream … Gabriel has acknowledged that ‘Sledgehammer’ owes much of its pop success to the video … But on its own, ‘Sledgehammer’ is a charmingly goofy dance-pop song with production that makes it sound fucking huge, like a spaceship taking off. Even without the video, it would’ve been a hit. Even without the video, it’s a lot of fun.”

After an intro in Eb minor, the verse shifts to Eb major (with the major third prominently placed as the vocal melody’s opening note) at 0:52. At 3:11, there’s a return to the original key for an interlude, with the vocal re-joining the mix at 3:41 for the bridge.

Alanis Morissette | Head Over Feet

“During a live performance, Morissette told fans the story behind ‘Head Over Feet’ (1995), which finds the rage-fueled ‘You Oughta Know’ singer in the unfamiliar territory of a healthy relationship, (Songfacts). ‘ … When I wrote (the song) about this particular person, it was the first time that I actually had a glimpse of what it would be like to be in love and have it be something that was inducing heart palpitations, yet at the same time I could spend a couple minutes and actually not think about that person. It was very new to me.’

Creating the album was only part of the battle: Alanis didn’t have a record deal, so they were shopping it while they were recording it. They got lots of rejections before landing it with Maverick Records, Madonna’s label … ‘It’s very conversational and doesn’t adhere to any structure. I had been attempting to write without consideration for rhyming for quite a long time, and a lot of people would just stop writing with me – they would physically leave the room … ‘” Glen Ballard, a writer matched with Morissette via the record company, told Rolling Stone: “I just connected with her as a person, and, almost parenthetically, it was like ‘Wow, you’re 19?’ She was so intelligent and ready to take a chance on doing something that might have no commercial application. Although there was some question about what she wanted to do musically, she knew what she didn’t want to do, which was anything that wasn’t authentic and from her heart.”^[

Forgoing an intro and jumping right into the verse in C major, Jagged Little Pill‘s fifth single shifts up to D major for the chorus at 0:38. Verse 2 returns to the original key; the pattern continues from there. The broader-ranging harmonic structures of the chorus, including an unusual chromatic bass motion, contrast with the cliché chord progression and more repetitive melodic phrases of the verse.

for Amy

The Tymes | You Little Trustmaker

“The Tymes began as the Latineers in 1956,” (Philadelphia Music Alliance). In 1963, they released their hit record “So Much In Love” … “the song hit number one on the Billboard charts. The classic was also the first record to replace the Beatles in the number one slot on the British charts. ‘So Much In Love’ is currently number 38 on Billboard’s all time record list. Their other most requested chart toppers include ‘Wonderful, Wonderful,’ ‘Somewhere’ and ‘You Little Trustmaker.’ … The Tymes, now known as The Original Tymes, were the 2005 inductees of The Vocal Group Hall Of Fame Foundation in Youngstown, Ohio. They were also awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award and Retro Artist award in 2017 by The American Music Guild.” The group joined the Philly Music Walk of Fame in 2023.

RCA Records signed the group in late 1973. Soul Express: “Those days, RCA paid serious attention to developing their soul roster and they were awarded with some hits by the Hues Corporation (‘Rock the Boat’), Wilson Pickett (‘Mr. Magic Man’), the New Birth (‘I Can Understand It’), the Main Ingredient (‘Everybody Plays the Fool,’ ‘Just Don’t Want to Be Lonely’) and the Friends of Distinction (‘Grazing In the Grass,’ ‘Going In Circles,’ ‘Love Or Let Me Be Lonely’). In the summer of 1974, RCA released their first Tymes single … ‘You Little Trustmaker.’ Written by Christopher Mack Jackson, the single stayed on the Billboard charts for fourteen weeks and reached #12 (pop), #20 (soul) and #18 (UK pop).”

Starting with its intro featuring a distinctive wordless vocal, “You Little Trustmaker” is initially in F major. 1:53 shifts up to F# major, bringing an instrumental verse featuring a full compliment of strings and brass, augmented with another wordless moment. Stick around for the track’s genre-defying unresolved ending!

Toto | Rosanna

“Each member of Toto played a part in bringing ‘Rosanna’ to fruition. Vocalist Bobby Kimball and guitarist Steve Lukather transposed the musical key so the verse and chorus could be traded between them as a duet,” (LouderSound). “(Keyboardists) Steve Porcaro and David Paich ironed out the keyboard solo at five o’clock in the morning. Late drummer Jeff Porcaro laid down a masterful shuffle inspired by John Bonham.

‘Jeff was really into Led Zeppelin,’ Lukather told Classic Rock, ‘and for ‘Rosanna’ he morphed ‘Fool In the Rain’ [from Zep’s 1979 album In Through The Out Door] with a Bernard Purdie drum groove [a renowned session drummer, Purdie invented the Purdie Shuffle]. And we took it from there.’ As former session musicians to a man, it was little surprise that Toto bottled ‘Rosanna’ fast in the studio. ‘In one afternoon we did the basic rhythm track,’ Lukather said. ‘And that first guitar solo was made up on the spot the first time we played it.'”

All the hard work certainly paid off: upon its release in the summer of 1982, the track reached US #2 and UK #12. Starting in G major, the key shifts down to F major for the second half of the verse. But the downward motion in key is muted by a rising melodic range (up a minor seventh) as the lead vocal shifts from Lukather to Kimball at 0:36.

Howard Jones | City Song

“One of the defining figures of mid-’80s synth pop, Howard Jones merged the technology-intensive sound of new wave with the cheery optimism of hippies and late-’60s pop … (The UK’s) Jones released his first single, ‘New Song,’ in England in the fall of 1983 and it became a big hit, peaking at number three,” (100PercentRock). “His second single, ‘What Is Love,’ was released a few months later and it reached number two. Humans Lib, Jones’ debut album, was released in the spring of 1984 and quickly rose to number one in England. Thanks to repeated exposure on MTV, the album became a moderate hit in the U.S. Later in 1984, ‘New Song’ and ‘What Is Love’ became American Top 40 hits, while ‘Pearl in the Shell’ became his third British Top Ten single.

In 1985, Jones … formed a touring band and released his second album, Dream Into Action. The record became his most successful, reaching number ten and going platinum in the U.S., spawning the hit singles ‘Things Can Only Get Better,’ ‘Like to Get to Know You Well,’ ‘Life in One Day,’ and ‘Look Mama.'” He’s continued releasing albums ever since, the most recent being Transform in 2019.

“City Song” is the album-closing track from Jones’ 1992 album In the Running. Starting with a desolate synthesized drone in Ab minor, the tune’s groove kicks in for the second section of the intro at the 1:00 mark, followed by the verse’s vocal at 1:41. At the 2:00 mark, a pre-chorus in B minor enters before a return to the original key for the next verse. The D minor chorus finally arrives at 3:03. The pattern continues from there — until 4:44, when C# minor is in effect for the bridge. The key changes are so frequent that the focus remains instead on Jones’ melodies and lyrics. Characteristically, Jones focuses on humanity writ large and the possibility of its betterment: What is it about this city, that brings us all to life / Ten millions souls vibrating / They’re shimmering in the night.

The Beatles | Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds

“Classic rock is known for having subversive songs, dealing with taboo topics. So, it’s not all that surprising to learn that quite a few tunes from the genre were not allowed on radio stations at one time or another,” (Yahoo) ” … Far Out ranked The Beatles’ 1967 song, ‘Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds,’ as the best classic rock song ‘banned from radio.’ According to the publication, the John Lennon-penned hit, off the acclaimed record, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was deemed not radio-friendly because of its initials. The official Beatles website reported that ‘Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds’ was prohibited by the BBC due to theories that it was inspired by LSD. Far Out reported that Lennon stated the rumors were untrue.”

“… the Faberge psychedelic egg that was finally laid on the eve of the Summer of Love came so fully-realised that it changed the way we listened to recorded sound forever,” (BBC). “Sgt Pepper’s is at once warm and familiar, yet wild and strange … Yet what was revolutionary was the sonic carpet that enveloped the ears and sent the listener spinning into other realms.”

After the tune starts in A major, there’s a shift to Bb major for the pre-chorus at 0:32. At the 0:50 mark, the G major chorus begins, built around a repeated I-IV-V chord progression. At 1:08, the pattern repeats.

Barbra Streisand | Woman in Love

After the popularity of disco waned, so did album sales for the Bee Gees — widely considered standard bearers for genre. “… And yet Bee Gees songs still hit huge in the US (in the early 1980s); they just did it without the words ‘Bee Gees’ on the record cover,” (Stereogum). “Consider Barbra Streisand’s 1980 LP Guilty. Barry Gibb produced the album with his regular Bee Gees collaborators Karl Richardson and Albhy Galuten. Gibb also wrote or co-wrote every song on the LP. He sang, played guitar, and did the horn and string arrangements on Guilty. Guilty was basically a Bee Gees album, except with Barbra Streisand singing lead … On Guilty, the ballads dominate. ‘Woman in Love,’ the biggest hit from Guilty, is an extremely Bee Gees song, and yet nobody would confuse it with disco.

… Multi-tracking his own voice, Barry Gibb does the backing vocals, echoing the song’s central melody and anchoring it so that Streisand can sing all her showiest runs. Gibb and Streisand recorded the song in Miami with an elite squad of session musicians, and it sounds lush and clean and expensive. Strings and horns hum to each other. Electric pianos glow. The heavily processed guitars murmur fancily. On the chorus, the echo on Gibb’s voice is immaculate, and Streisand holds notes for absurd lengths of time. It’s terribly dramatic, in a good way. ‘Woman in Love’ (was) Streisand’s fifth and final #1 hit.”

After a few verses and choruses in Eb minor, 3:03 brings a shift up to E major for a final chorus. Streisand’s famously strong belt takes top billing here, well above melody, lyric, arrangement, etc.!

Simon + Garfunkel | My Little Town

“It’s humorous to see what experts in the music world thought was the location of Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘My Little Town,’ the duo’s final Top 10 Columbia Records single,” (Viera Voice). “On October 18, 1975, Simon hosted the second broadcast of Saturday Night Live. In doing so, he brought on his former partner. They sang three songs together, including a new Simon composition called ‘My Little Town” … the fun began when people began to opine exactly where they thought that little town was.

In his book Paul Simon: A Life, writer Marc Eliot proclaims that ‘My Little Town’ is ‘clearly Queens, and all the references to schoolbooks, saluting the flag and so on appear to be symbols of nostalgia for the days of Tom and Jerry as much as for the years of Simon and Garfunkel.’ Not so, counters music critic Dave Marsh, the author of The Heart of Rock and Soul. ‘(It’s) a portrait of the middle-class Forest Hills, NY neighborhood where Simon and Garfunkel grew up.’

… In a (1980s) interview with Bill Flanagan for his book Written in My Soul: Conversations with Great Songwriters, Simon admitted, ‘I was picturing a town. I was thinking about Gloucester, Massachusetts. A friend of mine comes from Gloucester, and he used to talk about what it was like to grow up there … . That song was entirely an act of imagination. … There’s no element of me in there at all.'”

Starting in E major, the tune then briskly parades through many keys; at the 1:14 mark, D major is a resting point for awhile. After an interlude, the tonality shifts to B minor at 2:05 for the woeful mantra “Nothing but the dead and dying back in my little town.” 2:23 brings another multi-key tour before B minor and the mantra return — this time accompanied by the intensity of a full horn section even as the tune fades.

Madness | Coldest Day

“While a keen feature of London’s musical tapestry, Madness seem to have bottled whatever the British spirit is, unmistakably moulded by the nation’s working class households, terraced streets, and enthusiastic embrace of Caribbean cultural import in keeping with the rest of the Two-tone generation,” (Far Out Magazine). “There’s an infectious invite to Madness at their best, which has assured pop ubiquity ever since, any spin of their hits letting you in on the Nutty gang’s weird world.

Fundamentally, Madness are fantastic popsmiths … the lads wielded a strange ability to report on the lay of the land, even with the grey bits left in … Madness can often pull the rug up while still larking about in fezzes, a bouncy ska number can easily jump into a peek at urban malaise, poverty-induced crime, or racial tensions via their tattered, Beano lyrical lens.

As the 1980s rolled by, so did the studio toys. While never completely losing themselves in the decade’s production trends and digital gadgets, a little of that sophistipop gloss trickled into Madness’ sounds … there’s plenty to enjoy from (1985’s) Mad Not Mad’s vivacious offering … Madness dwell in a deeper introspective realm than fans were used to.”

After beginning in G minor, “Coldest Day” a pre-chorus in F major(ish) kicks in at 0:26. The 0:45 arrives as the chorus shifts to E minor via some thoroughly Madness-style flourishes, despite the tune’s prominent synthetic drums and decidedly non-Ska groove. 1:10 brings a return to G minor; more shifts continue from there.

Many thanks to Julianna A., a longtime contributor from Brazil, for submitting this distinctive tune!

Alannah Myles | Love Is

“When Alannah Myles burst onto the scene in 1989 with ‘Black Velvet,’ the bluesy single, her fantastic, slightly gravelly vocals caught the attention of the entire world,” (Adam’s World). “The song didn’t just hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the U.S., it reached the Top 10 in over a dozen countries (although, oddly, just #10 in her native Canada); it continues to receive radio airplay to this day. In fact, in 2005 ‘Black Velvet’ was the recipient of a “Millionaire Award” from ASCAP for having racked up more than four million radio plays. The single went gold in the U.S., took home the Grammy in 1991 for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance (yes, nearly two years after its release), and launched her self-titled debut album to platinum status.

The follow up single, however, titled ‘Love Is,’ peaked at #36 (although it was her debut single in Canada) … After that, those of us in America didn’t hear much from Alannah, even though she released three albums in the ‘90s, and two more in the current century, including one as recently as 2014. ‘Black Velvet’ was a lightning in a bottle moment, and its staying power over the past 30+ years is a testament to the greatness of the song … ” But “Love Is” has a key change — one of the very few features that “Black Velvet” lacks.

Built primarily in G major, “Love Is” spends most of its verses and choruses in a groove-driven trance limited to various voicings of the tonic chord. From 1:44 – 2:05, a bridge in E major is in effect before a return to the original key. At 2:24, the same E major section returns through 2:44. Then it’s back to G major again for the balance of the tune. In 1990, “Love Is” was nominated for Canada’s Juno Award for Single of the Year; the track lost to “Black Velvet,” clearly illustrating the song’s also-ran status when compared to Myles’ international smash hit.