Tag: pop

Huey Lewis + The News | The Power of Love

“Back To The Future, the biggest hit at the 1985 box office, is a beautifully assembled Swiss watch of a movie, a perfect little machine full of subliminal clues that pay off much later,” (Stereogum). “Director Rob Zemeckis and his co-writer, producer Bob Gale, find small and clever little ways to convey information, and we get a lot of those in the film’s first few minutes. We also get the big, pumping jam that would become the first #1 hit for Huey Lewis And The News, a band that was already on fire …

‘The Power Of Love’ is a goofy song, but it’s a catchy one. Lewis mugs hard all through it, and he wails out nonsensical cocaine-logic philosophical nuggets about how love is tougher than diamonds, rich like cream, and stronger and harder than a bad girl’s dream. When you’re making good bubblegum, you can get away with refusing to make sense, and ‘The Power Of Love’ is good bubblegum. The track has hooks on hooks on hooks, with all the keyboard stabs and shiny-bluesy riffs in the exact right places.”

The verses are in C minor, but the choruses (first heard from 3:12 – 3:30) shift to C major. Between 4:11 – 4:33, the bridge transitions to Eb major. True to HL+TN’s trademark sound, there’s plentiful helpings of everything: the generous guitar solo, the wall-to-wall huskiness of Lewis’ lead vocal, the up-in-the-mix drums, and synth kicks just about everywhere. The band might have been somewhat less delicate than a Swiss watch, but it was nonetheless one of the most perfect pop machines of its era, scoring 19 top ten hits overall. “Power of Love” reached #1 for two weeks in August 1985 and was later nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song.

Haley Reinhart | The Letter

“The Letter,” originally written and recorded (and a #1 hit) in 1967 by the American rock band The Box Tops, is featured on Hailey Reinhard’s 2017 album What’s That Sound?

Reinhart, whose career jumpstarted with her third-place finish in the 10th season of American Idol in 2010, said in an interview with Variety that the song “is such a cool, timeless tune. One of my earliest memories is crowding around my grandma’s piano listening to my Aunt Janice and Uncle Tom sing and play it. My uncle can sound just like Alex Chilton and the Box Tops with his guttural, sandpaper-like tone, while my aunt would harmonize with her soulful pipes. I thought it would be really neat to bring it up a couple of keys and give a woman’s take on the tune. It’s such a unique, upbeat song with gritty vocals, horns and sweeping strings. It’s become a pop standard to many and I’m so happy I got to put my own spin on it.”

Reinhart has performed and toured with Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox, and is preparing to tour on her own later this year.

The track is in D minor and briefly shifts up to Gb major at 1:41 for the outro.

Petula Clark | I Couldn’t Live Without Your Love

“The most commercially successful female singer in British chart history,” (AllMusic) Petula Clark spent her childhood “entertaining British troops alongside fellow child stars Julie Andrews and Anthony Newley … by the dawn of the ’50s, she was a superstar throughout the UK, with a résumé of close to two dozen films” and released several charting pop tunes … “Riding the wave of the British Invasion, Clark was finally able to penetrate the U.S. market in 1964 with the Grammy-winning ‘Downtown,’ the first single by a British woman ever to reach number one on the American pop charts.”

‘Downtown’ was also the first in a series of American Top Ten hits … that also included 1965’s ‘I Know a Place’ and 1966’s ‘I Couldn’t Live Without Your Love,’ and the number one smash ‘My Love.'” Over the years, she’s acted in multiple stage productions and movies. During the 1960s, she released popular singles in French, German, Italian, and Spanish, building a strong fanbase across Europe. In January 2023 at age 90, she appeared in Stephen Sondheim‘s Old Friends concert on the BBC, where she performed “I’m Still Here” from Follies.

“I Couldn’t Live Without Your Love” (1966), heard here on French television with Clark chatting with the host in French, does a quick harmonic sidestep during the verses (heard for the first time from 0:58 – 1:05). But it permanently modulates up a half step at 2:20.

Hall + Oates | She’s Gone

In an interview with American Songwriter, John Oates, songwriter/guitarist/vocalist for Hall and Oates, spoke about “She’s Gone,” from the band’s 1973 album Abandoned Luncheonette (re-released to larger acclaim in 1976): “I don’t know if it’s the best song we’ve ever written, but it’s certainly one of the most enduring songs. I think it’s a song that is certainly emblematic of our collaborative relationship … We knew it was a good song. We knew it was unique. But really that song – don’t confuse that song with the record. The song was the thing that happened in our living room with him on the piano and me on the acoustic guitar. The record is what happened when we went into Atlantic studios with the legendary producer, Arif Mardin, and this incredible collection of musicians who he surrounded us with and his string arrangement and the chemistry. I call it the perfect storm of creativity. It turned that song into a classic record that has really stood the test.”

From Songfacts: “This is one of the duo’s favorite Hall & Oates songs. Daryl Hall told Entertainment Weekly: ‘It’s very autobiographical. What we wrote about was real, even though it was two different situations. And it’s very thematic with us: this soaring melody and uplifting chord progression, but about a very sad thing.'” In Songfacts‘ 2011 interview with John Oates, he explained: “‘We started out as songwriters. And both Daryl and myself, individually and collectively, have a wide variety of musical tastes. Just because the music we made may have fallen into a certain category doesn’t mean we weren’t aware of and interested in other kinds of music. When Hall & Oates got together, I brought a traditional American folk-y approach, and it was something Daryl wasn’t really even aware of. And Daryl brought a lot more of the urban R&B side. And when we blended those together, we eventually created a sound.'”

In what might be a high water mark for the duo’s vocals, lead vocal duties are shared and harmonies alternate with octave unisons. Although the single peaked at only #7 on the Billboard Hot 100, it also placed in the top 10 on the Canada Top Singles chart and both the US and Canadian Adult Contemporary charts. It only reached #93 on the US R&B chart. Though the duo’s unprecedented run of early-80s hits almost entirely arose from the pop genre, this earlier outing was textbook blue-eyed soul. Between 4:08 – 4:34, a late instrumental bridge brings three half-step modulations, ushered in with a IV/V compound chord in each new key.

John Mayer | Still Feel Like Your Man

“I feel like I never touched the ground those three days,” John Mayer said in an interview with Rolling Stone, discussing his process for writing this tune. “Like ‘Let’s not worry about what this might draw from and be true to whatever it is.'”

Mayer also confirmed that the ex he is singing about in the lyric is Katy Perry, who he dated for four years, and claimed he spent more hours fine tuning the song than any other he has recorded.

The track is the lead single from the extended EP The Search for Everything: Wave 2, released in 2017. It begins in D and then detours briefly to Bb (and a new half-time feel) for the bridge after the second chorus at 1:47 before seamlessly returning to the chorus in the original key at 2:28.

Trijntje Oosterhuis | What the World Needs Now

Vocalist Trijntje Oosterhuis has been part of the Dutch pop scene since the 1990s. After touring with saxophonist Candy Dulfer, she formed the band “Total Touch” with her brother Tjeerd, releasing two successful albums in the late 90s. She went on to embark on a solo career.

She has released two albums of Burt Bacharach songs, The Look of Love (2006) and Who’ll Speak for Love (2007), with Bacharach performing on some of the tracks.

The selection here, “What the World Needs Now,” another Bacharach/David song, was a hit for Jackie DeShannon in 1965 (Billboard #7). The video is taken from a 2008 DVD release, Ken Je Mij (Do You Know Me), a series of duets with Uruguayan guitarist Leonardo Amuedo.

There’s a dramatic whole-step modulation at 2:40.

The Supremes | The Happening

“If the Beach Boys’ ‘Good Vibrations‘ was a ‘pocket symphony,’ as it was so masterfully marketed, then the Supremes’ classic singles were pocket melodramas,” (Stereogum). “Those songs were heavily and fascinatingly orchestrated in their own ways, but the arrangements, nimble and groundbreaking as they might’ve been, were there to serve the stories. The Holland-Dozier-Holland songwriting team found simple, direct ways to write about complicated feelings — heartbreak, elation, faint embers of hope. And Diana Ross sang those songs with poise and sensitivity, maintaining her composure even as she subtly hinted at huge and overwhelming feelings.

For years, the Supremes were an absolute machine. They cranked these songs out with a terrifying efficiency, and almost all of them hit their marks. And maybe that’s why ‘The Happening’ stands out in the group’s catalog. It’s a rare miss, a song that deviates from the plan and goes all the way awry. It’s the moment where everything falls apart … ‘The Happening’ sounds like exactly what it is: a cynical tie-in with a bad movie. But it doesn’t sound like a Supremes song — even though, in some literal sense of the term, it’s the last Supremes song.” Nonetheless, the track hit #1 in 1967, if only for one week!

The tune modulates up a half-step while trying its darnedest to be a light-hearted and goofy part of its “crime/comedy” genre.

Bobby Darrin + Judy Garland | That Lonesome Road

Taken from the December 29, 1963 episode of The Judy Garland Show, “That Lonesome Road” was one of many music numbers from that evening’s offerings, which were produced among some difficult times for Garland and for all of the United States. “Show 14 lacks a little of the sparkle of other episodes, but this is hardly surprising when you consider that Judy should really have been resting during the time it was filmed,” (JudyGarlandProject). “The taping occurred in the aftermath of President Kennedy’s assassination. However, rather than take time off, it appears that Garland worked harder than ever following the death of her friend.

… Looking back on the entire series, over fifty years after it was broadcast, one can only be astounded at the huge achievement that it was, and still is. American seasons are lengthy, and here we have 26 episodes, each of nearly one-hour running times. Not only do they star the ‘World’s Greatest Entertainer’ but also a roll-call of the some of the great singers of the twentieth century, including Peggy Lee, Lena Horne, Tony Bennett, Vic Damone, and Barbra Streisand. These shows will be around long after all of us have gone, and amen to that.”

Bobby Darin, an eventual inductee into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters’ Hall of Fame, was an established pop star and movie actor by the time of his guest appearance on Garland’s show. Converting Darin’s well-known tune “That Lonesome Road” into a duet for the episode, the two vocalists change keys at 0:58 and 1:40.

Michael W. Smith | Place In This World

American singer/songwriter and three-time Grammy winner Michael W. Smith wrote “Place In This World” with Wayne Kirkpatrick and Amy Grant for his sixth studio album, Go West Young Man, released in 1990. The track ended up being his biggest mainstream success, reaching the #6 spot on the Billboard Hot 100.

In an interview with Songfacts, Smith recalled hearing a story about how the song helped someone who was suffering. “Well, the one story I remember vividly, I could still go back to reading the letter, was some young girl, I think she was 18 or 19 years old, and had a horrific childhood in terms of abuse and that sort of thing. And she was suicidal. She gave me this whole story in a two page letter. She was driving down the freeway and listening to a pop radio station and heard ‘Place In This World’ and pulled over and began to weep. And had this encounter with God on the side of the interstate. And her life forever changed. And that’s the one that I’ll never forget. There’s been plenty of people talk about ‘A Place In This World’ but that’s the one letter that I’ll never forget.”

The track begins in B and modulates to C leading into the instrumental bridge at 2:15.