Tag: pop

David Ruffin | My Whole World Ended

“The Temptations released one of the enduring singles of the rock and roll era when ‘My Girl’ topped the Billboard Hot 100 and R&B charts,” (Seattle Post Intelligencer). “The song was propelled by the sweet tenor voice of David Ruffin. During his time with the Temptations he provided the lead vocals for such hits as ‘Ain’t Too Proud To Beg,’ ‘All I Need,’ and ‘Beauty Is Only Skin Deep.’ His time with the group was short, 1964-1968, but he would help leave a lasting legacy and be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame … While he would never be as commercially successful as during his time with the Temptations, his solo releases would sell moderately well and produce some fine music.

His debut release, My Whole World Ended, (was) released during the spring of 1969. It was more emotional and rawer than the smooth soul sound of his former group. The only song that runs counter to this formula was the hit single “My Whole World Ended (The Moment You Left Me),” which was originally written for the Temptations. It has a smooth Sam Cooke quality as it just flows along.”

In addition to typical R&B instrumentation, smooth strings and piccolo arpeggios(!) are prominently featured on the mid-tempo title track. 2:13 brings brief instrumental chorus as well as a half-step modulation.

Thank you, Quincy Jones

In honor of Quincy Jones, the singular musician, performer, producer, educator, and mentor, we’re bringing back a post from 2022 which sheds a bright light on his extraordinary gifts. Jones passed away yesterday at the age of 91. Given that his career spanned the worlds of jazz, R+B, funk, and pop over many decades, it’s likely impossible to describe its full impact. But many of our posts here on MotD featured his work as a producer, even though the names of the artists and bands in question accompanied the songs’ titles.

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“‘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.

Petula Clark | Don’t Sleep In the Subway

“Although nominally part of the British Invasion, Petula Clark’s age and pre-rock career history gave her a different perspective from the beat groups and girl singers who emerged in the early-to-mid ’60s … ” (ReBeat). “Unlike the heightened emotions of most youth-oriented pop, Clark’s best ’60s singles are decidedly human in scale, dealing with ordinary adult challenges like stressful jobs, limited prospects, and domestic discord … Because she frankly acknowledges the difficulty of these problems, her entreaties to keep your chin up and make your own happiness carry real weight.

… Clark’s 1967 hit ‘Don’t Sleep in the Subway’ is the epitome of this sort of celebration of small successes. Clark inhabits the role of a woman who, inadvertently or not, bruised her partner’s ego and now has to persuade him not to leave. There’s no outsized dramatics — she’s not pleading with him, or immolating herself before him, or trying to win him over through sheer vocal willpower. There’s even a touch of humor in Clark’s voice as if she is recognizing the ridiculousness of her partner’s huffy threats to spend the night riding the rails …

Songwriter Tony Hatch … was clearly inspired by the Beach Boys’ experimental teenage symphonies, both in terms of the immaculate, yearning melody (the chorus hints at ‘God Only Knows’) and the affinity for crossing rock with orchestral music.” After a start in G major and a rhapsodic pre-chorus, the chorus arrives in Bb major (0:50 – 1:13), complete with a gentler groove. The pattern continues from there.

Champaign | How ‘Bout Us

“When Champaign burst on the scene in 1981, it appeared to be a group that was going to be around for quite awhile,” (SoulTracks). “With strong lead vocalists Pauli Carman and Rene Jones … great production by Leo Graham, and a crossover smash hit in “How ‘Bout Us,” the group’s debut album won critical acclaim and sold well.” The septet was named for the band’s hometown of Champaign, Illinois (WBSSMedia). The track’s songwriter was Dana Walden, the band’s keyboardist.

The track, from an album of the same name, reached #5 in the UK, #4 on the US Billboard R&B chart, and #12 on the Billboard Hot 100. “It was a wonderful debut — one of the best complete albums of that year. Unfortunately, that debut album would be the commercial high point for the group.”

The mid-tempo funk-infused tune starts in Bb major; the bridge (2:22 – 2:35) then shifts to the relative G minor before a final transition into Db major for the final verses.

Carole King | Tapestry

“Tapestry” is the title track from singer-songwriter Carole King’s second studio album, released in 1971 and one of the best-selling albums of all time. In 2020, the record ranked 25th on Rolling Stone’s list of the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time.”

The track, for which King wrote the music and lyrics, begins in F and modulates up a half step at 2:15.

Thomas Dolby | Urban Tribal

“London-born Thomas Morgan Robertson had already made a bit of a name for himself as a synth wiz for hire – working with Bruce Woolley/The Camera Club, Joan Armatrading, Thompson Twins, Lene Lovich and Foreigner – before embarking on his debut solo album in late summer 1981,” (MovingTheRiver). “But, as he once said, he knew ‘too many chords’ to get any regular employment in the punk and new-wave bands of the era, so was pretty much forced to go it alone.

… Lyrically, The Golden Age Of Wireless (1982) … seemed to be a Janus-like vision of England – looking back to its WW2 past and forward to the kinds of urban dystopias explored by novelist JG Ballard.” Its international smash hit single, “She Blinded Me with Science,” became “a signature tune of the Second British Invasion” but was “somewhat of an anomaly. Much of Wireless is downbeat, enigmatic and haunting. Dolby proves himself a brilliant producer and arranger, a master of painting pictures with sound.” His retrofuturistic palette included passages of shortwave radio and marine shipping weather forecasts undergirding the music.

A bonus track from the album,”Urban Tribal,” is certainly a song in the haunting category. The modulations are solidly in the enigmatic mode, too: they don’t announce themselves clearly or proudly. Instead, they pivot smoothly and quietly underneath the gathering stormclouds of Dolby’s storytelling. The lead vocal is prominent enough that a synopsis of the song’s ultimately sad plot is likely unnecessary, but please take a moment to refer here if there’s any doubt. This live performance features a few sudden changes in volume, so please don’t adjust your set. The instrumental intro, featuring the chorus’ rangy melody, is in Eb minor. Just in advance of the verse (0:29), the tonality shifts to D minor. At 1:24, the chorus reverts to Eb minor; the pattern continues from there.

Thelma Houston | Don’t Leave Me This Way

“There is absolutely nothing in this world like what happens when disco music is operating at peak capacity,” (Stereogum). “Disco was a wave that swept all across pop music for years. It was tremendous, all-encompassing, and, when done wrong, flattening. The whole genre was more or less built around a drum pattern — a stead thump-thump-thump kick — that kept people in clubs moving and made it easy for DJs to blend one song into the next … There were people who became stars because of disco, and there were fading stars who used disco to extend or even elevate their fame. But disco, like early rock ‘n’ roll, was also a genre of fast, elusive, one-time success.

Every once in a while, when everything lined up just right, a long-toiling artist could hit just the right sound at just the right moment and make something immortal. That’s what happened when Thelma Houston made ‘Don’t Leave Me This Way’ … Most of Thelma Houston’s career works as a story of what happens when the starmaking machine fails. Houston — no relation to Whitney or her extended clan — was an absolute monster of a singer, one who was capable of taking her gospel training and using it to make earthly concerns sound urgent and wracked and overwhelmingly joyous. She spent years with Motown, a label that should’ve known exactly what to do with a singer of her surpassing power. But for Thelma Houston, everything clicked exactly once. Thankfully, that one time was something special.”

Starting in Bb mixolydian for the wordless (and initially grooveless) intro and verse, the tune shifts to C mixolydian for the chorus at 1:19. Billboard included the track on its list of 70 Best LGBTQ Anthems of All Time: “This Motown Hot 100 No. 1 hit in April 1977 was appropriated by the gay community as an anthem for friends lost to the AIDS epidemic. As part of a commissioned ‘public space statement,’ artist Nayland Blake juxtaposed the title of the song against an image of a bouquet of flowers with their tangled roots showing.”

One Direction | Night Changes

**We are re-posting this tune today to recognize Liam Payne, who died in a tragic accident earlier this week. Our thoughts are with his family and loved ones. **

English/Irish boy band One Direction makes its MotD debut with the 2014 single “Night Changes.” Included on Four, the group’s fourth studio album, the track is notable for being the last to feature Zayn Malik before he left the group to pursue a solo career the following year. The tune begins in Ab major and modulates to Bb and 2:29.

Elton John | Tower of Babel

“Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy, released in 1975, was the culmination of six years’ feverish exertion (PopMatters) … (it) was the first album to ever premiere at number one on the Billboard album charts … (Elton’s) early ’70s run is almost unmatched in the history of pop music. In terms of quality and quantity, his only real peers are the likes of the Beatles, the Stones, and Bowie … The duo of John and (lyricist) Bernie Taupin produced some of the greatest songs and most memorable albums of the rock era, and yet today their prolific career is routinely dismissed, if not forgotten.

The duo’s creative marriage was defined by their marked dissimilarities. While both came from lower middle-class origins, John (born Reginald Dwight), was raised in urban London while Taupin hailed from the rural districts of Lincolnshire, in the far north of the country. Their musical interests were similarly contrasted: John had been raised on a catholic diet of mainstream pop and early rock ‘n’ roll, with a special affection for American soul music, while Taupin was a fan of American folk and country … one of the most influential synergies in the history of pop music … Elton John, the globetrotting Captain Fantastic, and Bernie Taupin, the down-home countrified Brown-Dirt Cowboy, rose out of absolute obscurity to become the most successful songwriting duo since Lennon and McCartney (if you young’uns don’t believe me, just take a gander at the historical record).”

The album is listed at #158 on Rolling Stone‘s “500 Greatest Albums of All Time.” John mentioned in an interview: “I’ve always thought (it) was probably my finest album because it wasn’t commercial in any way,” (EltonJohnItaly.com). “We did have songs such as ‘Someone Saved My Life Tonight,’ which is one of the best songs that Bernie and I have ever written together, but whether a song like that could be a single these days, since it’s [more than] six minutes long, is questionable. Captain Fantastic was written from start to finish in running order, as a kind of story about coming to terms with failure—or trying desperately not to be one. We lived that story.”

After starting in C major, “Tower of Babel” falls into a flight of Elton’s trademark inversion-driven fancy at 0:28 before landing once again on the terra firma of Eb major at 0:50. Don’t get too comfortable, though, because 1:40 brings a multi-key instrumental bridge; eventually we’re led back to C major. The shifting pattern continues from there.