Tag: pop

Sparks | Amateur Hour

The US-based brother act Sparks, founded by Ron and Russell Mael, “are the epitome of the genre-defying act,” (Nialler9). “Over the course of a career spanning four decades they’ve released 23 albums and undergone several major metamorphoses … their stylized sound and sensibility varies radically from album to album … Yet while there are chapters of the Sparks saga that aren’t to everyone’s taste, these chameleonic fluctuations should be seen as symptomatic of a determination to constantly evolve.

While there is frivolity in some of Sparks’ songs, there’s nothing frivolous about the audacious aesthetic decisions they’ve made in their attempts to find new ways of presenting their work … While a tendency toward radical change characterizes the music of Sparks, there are also elements that have remained consistent throughout. It is these facets that make Sparks so special … never willing to sacrifice aesthetic convictions for the sake of mass success, their integrity and resolute sense of adventure remains intact … This is why numerous bands from New Order to Nirvana have lauded them and why they continue to be contemporary and significant.”

“Amateur Hour,” a track from 1974’s Kimono My House, features a rhythmic concept known as a hemiola in classical music terminology; it isn’t very common in pop music! A hemiola occurs when a short phrase is repeated, but doesn’t fit perfectly with the meter of a piece — so it’s slightly rhythmically displaced each time it’s consecutively repeated. For this track, the concept is most clearly stated in the opening bars, by the guitar: the four-note upward step-wise melody is repeated multiple times, but begins both on and off the beat due to the displacement. It’s repeated later in the vocals during the choruses … a lot. At 2:08, the track shifts up a full step from Bb major to C major.

Nik Kershaw | Wild Horses

“Rushed to market to capitalise on the white-hot momentum of his debut, Kershaw had just two weeks to write and record the demos for Human Racing’s follow-up (The Riddle, 1984). While The Riddle has its flaws, it’s a tribute to the songwriter that he managed to get this over the line at all,” (Classic Pop Magazine). “The fact that album two is amongst the most consistent of his career is even more noteworthy.

The success of Human Racing had spread across the Atlantic, too, with its jazz-pop-prog stew turning the heads of Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock … However, Nik’s jazzy background remained at odds with the marketing department’s teen heart-throb vision of him at MCA – Smash Hits called him ‘the thinking man’s Limahl’ and that’s Kershaw looking all moody at Chesil Beach in Dorset on the cover, a cut-price The Joshua Tree (U2) if you like.”

After a verse built in C major, the chorus shifts up to D major at 0:57. But between the two is some unsettled key-of-the-moment territory (0:41 – 0:57). The patterns continue from there until 3:17, when the a late half-step key change closes the tune.

Damiano David | Born With a Broken Heart

“Damiano David’s … second solo single (is) ‘Born With a Broken Heart’ (2024). A soaring, synth-pop tinged offering, the new track follows ‘Silverlines’ – Damiano’s first release independent of the Eurovision-winning band (Måneskin),” (DIY Mag). “‘When I wrote this song I was getting out of a very dark place, I was feeling emotionless and I was afraid that I had lost my ability to feel things, either good or bad,’ the Italian star has shared. ‘This was happening while I was starting the most meaningful relationship of my life and the fear of not being capable or ready was big. I think the song was a way to make myself make sense of what I was feeling and look at it from a less scary prospective. I’m happy to say that today I don’t feel like this, but I think a lot of people can relate with the feeling of not being good enough.”

The track hit top 100 status in several dozen countries, but climbed to the top 5 in Belgium, the Czech Republic, Finland, Japan, Poland, and Spain. Built primarily in B major, the tune shifts up a whole step to C# major at 2:39 after a post-bridge grand pause.

Marvin Gaye + Tammi Terrell | Ain’t No Mountain High Enough

“Listen to this track by Motown titan and smooth as silk soul-pop provider Marvin Gaye, along with his vocal counterbalance, and no slouch in the soaring vocal department herself, Tammi Terrell,” (The Delete Bin). “It’s ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,’ a  single from writing partnership and real-life couple Ashford & Simpson. The song was a top twenty hit single in 1967, released on the Tamla label, a sister label of Motown, eventually appearing on the Marvin Gaye/Tammi Terrell joint album United.

The song was thought of by its writers as being their golden ticket into the Motown stable, even turning down Dusty Springfield who wanted to record it herself. Ashford and Simpson held it back , and it was eventually offered as a duet to Marvin Gaye, and to Tammi Terrell who made it one of the most prominent songs of the Motown catalogue, and an important record of the whole decade. Later on, Diana Ross would record it when she split with the Supremes and went solo in 1970. It would be a number one hit, and become a signature tune for her.Yet, it’s the alchemy that the Gaye-Terrell version offers that makes this the definitive version of the song.

… Their collaboration yielded several hits of the classic Motown era, including ‘Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing,’ ‘You’re All I Need To Get By,’ and ‘Your Precious Love,’ also all Ashford & Simpson songs. They would record three albums together over the next two years, with this period being looked upon by many as one of the finest in Marvin Gaye’s career, with Terell contributing significantly to that success.

But, there was something very wrong. Terrell had suffered migraines for many years, and one night during a concert in Virginia, Terrell stumbled on stage and collapsed in Gaye’s arms … Later, it was discovered that she was suffering from malignant tumours in her brain.” No treatments were successful in the long term, and “Tammi Terrell died in March of 1970 at the young age of 24, the same year Diana Ross recorded her version of this song. Retrospectively, ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’ is an anthem to Terrell’s determination to succeed despite her cancer diagnosis … The song’s epic quality would attract cover versions from many. But, this original version is the one by which all others must be judged, including Diana Ross’, largely due to the sheer defiant vitality that Tammi Terrell brought to the performance. Marvin Gaye would of course continue to make his mark as one of the most gifted vocalists of his generation. But with Terrell gone, this vital phase of his career was at an end, with that combination of voices bursting with personality never to be repeated.”

Packing a complex arrangement and a true wall of sound into its spare 2.5-minute length, the track climbs to its bridge at 1:18, then shifts up from D major to Eb major at 1:37.

Tom Petty | Mary Jane’s Last Dance

“Tom Petty wrote dozens of hit songs over the course of his four-decade career as frontman of the Heartbreakers, but not all of them impressed his bandmates. At least not right away,” (Ultimate Classic Rock). “Such was the case with ‘Mary Jane’s Last Dance,’ a song that Petty started one day and didn’t finish. ‘I wrote all but the chorus,’ he recalled for 2005’s Conversations With Tom Petty. ‘I just had the loop going around and around and really had most of the words and everything. And I played the tape for Rick [Rubin] and he liked it a lot and suggested I write a chorus. So I tried to finish it up while I was making [1994’s] Wildflowers, and there were maybe five years between the writing of the verses and the chorus.’

… For those who hastily assumed ‘Mary Jane’ was a reference to marijuana, Petty cleared that up later on. ‘I don’t think I was writing about pot,’ he said in 2005. ‘I think it was just a girl’s name. I can’t imagine that I’d write a song about pot. I don’t think there’s enough there to write about [laughs].’ Though it took years for ‘Mary Jane’s Last Dance’ to take its final form, it clearly paid off. By the time Petty died in 2017, the band had played the song live in concert over 500 times, and it’s remained an important touchstone of their catalog.”

Starting with an intro and verse in an uptuned A minor, the chorus (first heard from 1:09 – 1:31) shifts to A major — somewhat obscured by a prominent minor v chord (E minor).


OK Go | Here It Goes Again

“Dancing in a beautiful synchronicity has long been part of OK Go singer Damian Kulash’s life,” (The Guardian). ” … he recalls his formative years in Kulash Alarm System, with big sister (and current choreographer and video director) Trish Sie. ‘I was seven and Trish must have been 11,’ he says, ‘and every morning when we’d wait for the school bus, we’d do this heavily thought-out dance routine outside our house, shouting, KULASH! ALARM! SYSTEM! like Kraftwerky robots.’

2006’s ‘Here It Goes Again’ has been viewed a staggering (68 million) times. ‘We saw that by dropping our instruments in the middle of the show and breaking into dance, it completely broke that fourth wall of expectations in a rock show … I love cultural products where you can see the effort people have put in to make something weird and unlikely.’ … Kulash points out that the ‘one take’ operates in a unique position in the current climate. ‘In the hypermediated world that we live in, we immediately go into ‘suspension of disbelief mode’. Like we see so much impossible shit in commercials, on films, in music. We assume artifice in everything we consume.'”

“Here It Goes Again,” a tune whose popularity is driven by a video that is arguably the band’s best known, was the fifth single from the 2005 album Oh No. The tune is built primarily in C major and C mixolydian, but during the nearly wordless bridge (1:40 – 1:59), there’s a shift to Eb major before a return to the original key. Eb also makes another appearance for the closing chord.

The Indigo Girls | Reunion

“The Indigo Girls … have been friends singing together since they were kids in 1970s Atlanta,” (New York Times). “They make a good living as working musicians, touring regularly to delight a loyal fan base … But their music — songwriterly, acoustic-forward, aggressively emotional — hardly seems a good fit for our strange and cynical times. They are, as the kids would say, cringe … Cringe: the ultimate insult of our era. It implies a kind of pathetic attachment to hope, to sincerity, to possibility.

I asked (film director Greta) Gerwig why the Indigo Girls were in Barbie. ‘The Indigo Girls were part of my growing up … ‘Closer to Fine’ is just one of those songs that meets you where you are, wherever you are. It has spoken to me throughout my life, like a novel you revisit,’ … This is what the Indigo Girls are all about. Sincerity coupled with wisdom, which is a recipe for something durable: solidarity. A sense that we are in this together. The Indigo Girls are great. Cringe but true. That’s because the kernel of who we are is cringe. That is what it means to be open to the world. To be open to the possibility of a future different from who you are now.”

“Reunion” is a track from the duo’s fifth studio album Swamp Ophelia (1994). Tim Paul, a first-time contributor to MotD, explains that “the song is in A major until the instrumental interlude around 2:21; they modulate to B major, then back to A major at 2:51.” Many thanks, TP, for this wonderful submission — doubly good because it marks the Indigo Girls’ (long overdue) MotD debut!

Pet Shop Boys | In Suburbia

Reviewing a 2022 Pet Shop Boys concert, The Guardian described the distinctive culture surrounding the band: “Judging from the demographic here, the audience stretches from 18-year-old girls to middle aged men in suits, hen parties to arty intellectuals. Their vast constituency reflects the electro-pop pair’s status as British pop’s biggest-selling duo, and a musical reach that stretches from Italian house to Tchaikovsky samples.

… Their songs are like miniature kitchen sink dramas – the couple struggling with fidelity in ‘It’s Hard,’ the painful reminders of a break-up in ‘Losing My Mind,’ or the power imbalances in ‘Rent.’ Tennant, unfeasibly now 67, brings delicate thespian touches – a shrug of the shoulder or wagging finger (in ‘It’s a Sin’) – and is one of our most unmistakable vocalists, his inimitable tones somehow capable of expressing excitement and yearning at the same time.”

Tennant viewed the 1986 track “In Suburbia” as a pivotal moment for the UK band (Classic Pop): “I thought Pet Shop Boys were very likely going to be one-hit wonders… We were on a classic trajectory. Our first single: No. 1 everywhere around the world. Next single: No. 19 in the UK. Now, the logical trajectory is that the next record goes to No. 29, the one after doesn’t make the Top 50, and then you’re dropped … “ The intro and choruses are in C major; the verses (first heard between 1:31 – 2:03) are in C minor.

Many thanks to one of our veterans, mod-spotter Rob P., for this wonderful submission!

Todd Rundgren | Someday

“Fifty (plus) years into a career that includes more than twenty solo studio albums, another ten with the band Utopia, plus production credits on albums by the Grand Funk Railroad, The Tubes, New York Dolls, Psychedelic Furs, and Meatloaf’s mega-selling multiplatinum Bat Out of Hell, among others, plus a tour with a post-Ocasek Cars, and currently touring with Adrian Belew performing an all-star tribute to the music of David Bowie, Todd Rundgren can pretty much do whatever he wants. And usually he does,” (TheFireNote). “When finally inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (in 2021) largely at the behest of his long-suffering fans, Rundgren came close to pulling a Sex Pistols-like rejection, ignoring the auspicious proceedings, leaving the producer of the online version of the Award show to pull an excerpt from a graduation speech where he offered the standard disclaimer, ‘if nominated I will not run, if elected I will not serve.’

So, here on his 24th album under his own name (Space Force, 2022), Rundgren takes the direction of his 2017 duets album, White Knight, to the next level. On that record, Rundgren wrote most all of the music with collaborators in mind, and then invited them to sing and play with him on the tracks. It worked well much of the time, especially on the single ‘Tin Foil Hat,’ written in the style of Steely Dan with guest Donald Fagen. Upping the ante for Space Force, Rundgren approached a variety of artists, some he’d worked with previously and others he’d hoped to work with, and asked them to contribute a piece of unfinished music or recording that they’d laid aside for one reason or another, offering to complete it and bring the duet to completion. The result is stylistically diverse, but with Todd, who described his role as “curator and producer” as well as performer, the album’s 12 tracks hang together fairly well, often pointing to different periods and styles in Rundgren’s long and varied musical explorations.”

“Someday,” a pop-centric collaboration between Rundgren and Australian musician Davey Lane, features quite a few metric hiccups to go along with its key changes. Starting in F major, the tune shifts to G major for its first chorus at 0:49 before returning to the original key for a short interlude and another verse at 1:08. More changes follow from there.

Debbie Dean | Itsy Bity Pity Love

“Debbie Dean, aka Reba Jeanette Smith, aka ‘Penny’ from Penny & The Ekos,” released “Itsy Bity Pity Love” in 1961 (Motown Junkies). “Motown had hoped to turn ‘Debbie’ – who differed from her labelmates in two ways seen as important at the time: by being in her early thirties, and by being white – into a major crossover star, but it never quite happened for her.

Ironically, the same month ‘Itsy Bity Pity Love’ came out, Motown also released their first massive commercial breakthrough, the Marvelettes’ unstoppable crossover hit ‘Please Mr. Postman,’ which teenage audiences both black and white couldn’t get enough of … Debbie gives it her all, giving a strong and charming performance, her white Southern accent (she was originally from Kentucky, and it really shows here) lending appropriate color to the song’s C&W stylings … but she’s simply not given enough to do.

The Country/pop tune moseys through several verses and choruses until an upward half-step shift at 2:00.