Tag: pop

Marillion | Kayleigh

“Marillion are a rock band formed in Aylesbury, England often categorized as neo-progressive,” (Sputnik Music). “They originally started as ‘Silmarillion’ (from Tolkien’s book) with heavy influences from classic Genesis, but went on to develop their own distinctive sound.” The band released 1983’s Script for a Jester’s Tear, Fugazi (1984), Misplaced Childhood (1985), and Clutching at Straws (1987), as well as the 1984 live album Real to Reel. “All sold respectably, and the band scored a hit single in Britain with ‘Kayleigh’ in 1985.

When Fish left the band in 1988 after four albums, he was replaced by Steve Hogarth. A former member of The Europeans and some-time collaborator with The The and Julian Cope, Hogarth brought a new energy to the band.Across a further ten albums, Hogarth – along with existing members Rothery, Kelly, Trewavas, and Mosley – have reinvigorated and constantly redefined Marillion’s sound. They forged into new musical territories with a succession of inventive, emotional albums, displaying little regard to the vagaries of hit charts or radio playlists.” As Loudersound reports, lead vocalist Fish recalls: “‘Releasing a song like Kayleigh sent our career into hyperdrive – like that moment in Star Trek when the screen goes white. One minute we were playing in France, I think it was in Toulouse, to 100 fans, and the next we had our own private Learjet.'”

Starting in B minor, “Kayleigh” makes the shift to its relative major for its chorus at 1:09. At 1:46, there’s a return to B minor for a guitar solo/interlude, but then a pivot back to D major before a drop into C# minor at 2:13. At 2:58, another chorus in lands in D major. The tune ends directly after the chorus, leaving an oddly unfinished feeling in its wake.

Eitan Kenner | Call Me Maybe

“Eitan Kenner is an award-winning keyboardist, composer, and music producer,” (Nord.com). “Born in Tel Aviv, Eitan began studying classical piano at the age of 6. After dropping out early from Jazz high school, he attended and graduated from Berklee College of Music before relocating to New York City. A versatile musician described as a musical wizard, Eitan has become one of the leading young forces both as a band leader of a highly praised genre-bending project named Kenner and as an in-demand sideman in the NYC Jazz scene.”

Kenner’s 2013 cover of the Carly Rae Jepsen’s 2011 hit “Call Me Maybe,” written by Jepsen, Josh Ramsay, and Tavish Crowe, is an intriguing instrumental expansion on the original track. Filmed on and around the Berklee College of Music campus in Boston, the video focuses on the lighter side of life at a college centered around music study. Starting in G major, the track goes through a few transformations along the way, including a prog rock interlude that transports the tonality up a whole step to A major at 2:23.

Dan Hartman | Time and Space

“When you’ve written a classic banger like the Edgar Winter Group’s ‘Free Ride,’ a huge disco hit like ‘Instant Replay,’ a monster 1980s smash ‘I Can Dream About You,’ and James Brown’s rousing movie theme ‘Living in America’ (a co-writing collaboration), what do you do for an encore? In Dan Hartman’s case: combine yet more writing — along with production and session work duties — for a stunningly diverse list of groups and acts including The Plasmatics, Nona Hendryx, Steve Winwood, John Waite, Paul King, Tina Turner, Dusty Springfield, Bonnie Tyler, .38 Special, Foghat, Muddy Waters, Diana Ross, Average White Band, Neil Sedaka, Chaka Khan, Joni Mitchell, and more.

Hartman gained so much traction by writing, producing, and performing for others that his solo recording and performance career was very much obscured. Renowned contemporary music critic Robert Christgau slammed Hartman’s workhorse ways in his review of Hartman’s 1989 album Instant Replay, seemingly with compliments wrapped in insults: “Too bad one of the few disco albums that out-dollar-for-dollar the corresponding disco single is this super-efficient piece of rock funk … ” But on the slow tune, ‘Time and Space’ … “Hartman breaks his own rule by trying to write a meaningful lyric and then triples the misdemeanor by running it through his own larynx. Who does he think he is, Robert Plant? Machines can’t sing.”

The ballad “Time and Space” begins in A major, with dynamics ranging from hushed sections accompanied by soft piano to rhapsodic passages supported by string section, plentiful percussion, and more. 2:26 brings us to the bridge, which shifts to C major at 2:55 via bouncy syncopation. Ultimately, Hartman is at the helm of a full-blown anthem — a ballad eventually turned power ballad.

Faith Hill | The Way You Love Me

Breathe, the 1999 album by country/pop artist Faith Hill, hit #1 on both the Billboard 200 and the Top Country Albums chart and became the second most successful album of 2000 on the Albums chart. Breathe reached top 40 album status in ten countries (Wikipedia).

“The Way You Love Me,” a single from the album, was released at first only country radio, where it hit #1 on the Hot Country Songs chart. The song later migrated to pop radio, reached #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and went on to spend 56 weeks on the chart. The song was Hill’s most successful single at the time, reaching the top ten in Hungary and Spain, the top twenty in the UK, and the top forty in New Zealand, Australia, Italy, Sweden, and Ireland.

Songwriters Keith Follesé and Michael Dulaney packed a lot into a tune just a shade over three minutes in length. After a start in C major, 0:42 brings the pre-chorus in D major, followed by the short chorus (1:01) in E major. The cycle continues through a second verse/pre-chorus/chorus, leading us into a bridge (1:58), which pivots a bit before landing in A major. At 2:10, we’re back to the pre-chorus in D and then the chorus and outro in E.

The Debonaires | Headache In My Heart

“The Debonaires were cousins, Joyce Vincent Wilson and Telma Hopkins … there were other members who remain unknown,” (AllMusic). The group released several smaller singles in the mid-60s, but 1966’s “Headache in My Heart” b/w “Loving You Takes All My Time,” raised the group’s profile by engaging George Clinton as producer (Solid Hit Records). “Solid Hit’s typist blew the spelling and the single is credited as by the Debonairs; she missed the E, but it didn’t matter; it didn’t sell either. They tried one last time with “I’m in Love Again” before closing the book on the Debonaires.

… Wilson and Hopkins later sung with Tony Orlando, a pop group that notched three number one hits” … eventually, they became known collectively, via their work with Orlando, as Dawn. “Tony Orlando and Dawn unite from time to time for brief appearances, but the Debonaires were forgotten almost before they began.”

“Headache in My Heart” comes straight out of central casting: a minor key tune about heartache that clocks in well under three minutes, following a clear recipe for chart success at the time. Unfortunately, this tune didn’t catch fire. The two-and-a-half-minute track shifts upward by half a step at 1:43.

Young Gun Silver Fox | Midnight in Richmond

“Soulful pop-rock combo Young Gun Silver Fox … the brainchild of British singer/musician Andy Platt and prolific London-based American expatriate producer and multi-instrumentalist Shawn Lee, the project first came together in 2012,” (CBS). “Both men already had well established careers, with Platt fronting the acclaimed soul-pop group Mamas Gun that he had co-founded, while Lee has put out dozens of albums and break records since he began his professional career in the ’90s … Drawn to each other by their mutual love for the warmth and melodicism of ’70s pop, soul and rock — Steely Dan, Hall & Oates, and latter-era Bill Withers were touchstones — the two talented musicians began working on original material … YGSF showcased their knack for crafting immaculately produced, breezy soul-pop confections driven by taut drum grooves and Fender Rhodes electric piano licks that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on AM radio during the late ’70s.”

The duo’s music is “timeless in one sense, while also referencing a very particular era,” (Grammy.com). “Over four albums, YGSF reflect ‘an apex of analog record-making’ that occurred between 1977-1982. ‘One of the things that was unusual about that whole West Coast scene was that you had these really talented people, but they all worked together in different capacities. One day they were working on a Michael Jackson record and another day they were doing their own record — or maybe sometimes the same day,’ says YGSF co-founder Shawn Lee, an American multi-instrumentalist with credits the length of some of his idols. ‘That’s why the music sounds so money, because everybody was at the height of their powers. Everybody had craft.'”

Released in 2018 on the album AM Waves, “Midnight in Richmond” starts in A major with a keyboard hook. 1:23 – 1:40 brings a short bridge in the closely-related key of B minor before the next chorus returns us to A major. Between 2:12 and 2:28, we head into another short bridge — this one in D major but leaning into its relative B minor at times. The sections alternate to the end as the hook continues to haunt the choruses.

Marshall Crenshaw | Someday, Someway

“Punk and New Wave was only one way of taking rock back to basics. Marshall Crenshaw took an altogether different approach, stripping back to three-chord songs about girls, delivered by a tight three piece and earning comparisons to Buddy Holly,” (Aphoristic Album Reviews). The Detroit native’s eponymous 1982 debut album “features his brother Robert on drums, while Crenshaw handles all the guitar parts. The simplified arrangements of these songs are invigorating; the songs are snappy and intelligent, and even though the production places the album in the early 1980s, these melodies could have easily come from an earlier era. Crenshaw’s persona is so likeable that he can get away with a song simply about cruising around checking out girls, and make it innocent and laudable rather than seedy and leering. In a just world, half of these songs would be radio staples, and that these accessible songs didn’t make Crenshaw a superstar is almost unfathomable.

The lack of success of this album is magnified by the strong triple punch at the beginning; ‘There She Goes Again’, the power-pop standard ‘Someday, Someway’ and the exuberant ‘Girls…’ … superlative examples of 1980s pop. Any fan of intelligent guitar pop will cherish songs like ‘Someday, Someway’ and ‘Mary Anne’, and play this refreshingly sincere album often.”

After a start in A major for the groove-driven, hook-free intro, two short verses and choruses follow. At 1:02, a bridge in D major follows, differentiated not only by its new key but also a shift into a simpler texture centered by the walking bass. At 1:11, we’re back to an interlude which mirrors the intro, another verse, and another chorus, all in the original key. 1:41 brings another D major bridge, followed by another pass through A major: an echo of the intro, then a final verse and an extended chorus/outro. The outro’s looping lyrics are so relentless it’s a wonder that Crenshaw didn’t keel right over.

James Taylor | Sweet Potato Pie

“Since his debut album in 1968, James Taylor has created a casserole of countless combinations packed with tasteful hints and familiar flavors; sounds that are a satisfying, addictive, delicious, traditional, memory-inducing musical meal, inducing an emotional warmth and pleasing, happy tingle,” (Backstage Ravinia). “Taylor standards such as the tender, nostalgic lullaby ‘Sweet Baby James’; the loving, adoring ‘Something In The Way She Moves’; the wistful, promising ‘Shower the People’; the dreamy, longing ‘Carolina In My Mind’; the joyful, grinning ‘Your Smiling Face’; and so many other favorites enforce this metaphor.

… Yet, while his musical lineage maybe be founded on solid pop hooks and structures, his legacy is deceptively diverse. Taylor’s muse often expands and expounds into myriad influences of folk, blues, gospel, soul, Motown, and country. Taylor’s quiet, introspective songs seductively speak of pain, ease the heartbreak, and sprinkle spices of surprise into the mundane … His selfless sharing of all his struggles and triumphs through music and actions struck cohesive chords with individual listeners and made universal connections with a mass audience.”

Alongside the hits are Taylor’s album tracks; for many artists, these often constitute filler, but not for JT. “Sweet Potato Pie” is one of the lighter-weight tunes on Taylor’s 1988 Never Die Young, one of his three platinum-selling 1980s album releases. But this earworm of a song is driven by the infectious shuffle groove and sunny mood that pervade the entire track. Beginning in F major, the key climbs to F# major at 1:55 and G major at 2:02 during the interlude.

The Communards | Don’t Leave Me This Way (feat. Sarah Jane Morris)

“Bronski Beat was originally Jimmy Somerville, Steve Bronski, and Larry Steinbachek, three flatmates who wanted to inject more political slants into the gay music scene at the time,” (The Bottom Five). “They achieved that right out of the gate; their heartbreaking debut 1984 single ‘Smalltown Boy’ went platinum in the UK, peaking at #3 there, and #1 on the US Dance chart. Somerville left Bronski Beat in 1985 and formed The Communards with multi-instrumentalist Richard Coles … The Communards’ 1986 debut LP is a mix of hi-NRG dance tunes and piano-based ballads, and it’s interesting to look at Spotify and see that the dancey songs are more popular by about an order of magnitude.

‘Don’t Leave Me This Way’ was originally a Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes song, but Thelma Houston’s #1 cover from 1978 is the inspiration here. While not getting great critical reviews, the Communards’ version hit #1 on the US Dance charts and was the top-selling UK single for 1986. Somerville shares vocals with Sarah Jane Morris, a jazz/standards singer … The Communards disbanded in 1988. Richard Coles became an Anglican minister. Jimmy Somerville went solo; he stayed a presence in Euro/club scenes, and had a solo #1 US Dance single in 1995 with ‘Heartbeat.’”

Like Melvin’s and Houston’s versions, the Communards’ cover shifts from a minor verse to a parallel major chorus (Bb in this case for both), then back to the original key (first heard between 1:01 – 1:30). But this cover version takes the vocal glissando between the verse and chorus, prominently featured in Houston’s version, and supercharges it with both more range and longer duration (3:29 – 3:33), landing us in an energized C major for the balance of the tune.

Many thanks to regular contributor Rob P. for this submission!

Shelby Lynne | Bend

“Following her somewhat belated Best New Artist Grammy award (six albums and 13 years into her musical career), Shelby Lynne’s follow-up to the truly heartbreaking and spectacular I Am Shelby Lynne finds her reaching out to a more rock-oriented audience with mixed results,” (AllMusic). “After some last minute retooling from the record label, Love, Shelby proves Lynne can still write a hook, but much of what makes or breaks the finished results ultimately falls in the hands of her producer.

… In all honesty, this would actually be a more successful album if her previous work hadn’t been so strong. It seems as though the singer had such artistic success with her ‘rock-tinged’ record that she thought it would be a good idea to push the envelope further into an almost strictly rock environment … The few songs that embrace her rough, soulful edge are pretty terrific, and (hopefully) smarter choices in the future will bring about another strong album along the same lines as I Am…“

“Bend,” a non-single album track from Love, Shelby (2001), is built around a polished shuffle feel. This mid-tempo track provides an attractive showcase for Lynne, who covers both lead and backup vocal duties. Starting in C major, the chorus (first heard from 0:42 – 1:04) shift into Eb major.

Many thanks to Ari S. for yet another wonderful contribution!