pop – Page 41

Jim Croce | Time in a Bottle

Jim Croce was “a songwriter with a knack for both upbeat, catchy singles and empathetic, melancholy ballads” … (AllMusic). “Croce appealed to fans as a common man, and it was not a gimmick — he was a father and husband who went through a series of blue-collar jobs. And whether he used dry wit, gentle emotions, or sorrow, Croce sang with a rare form of honesty and power. Few artists have ever been able to pull off such down-to-earth storytelling as convincingly as he did.”

“Jim Croce wrote this reflective song the night that he found out his wife, Ingrid, was pregnant,” (Songfacts) … “She recalls a mix of terror and delight in Jim’s reaction when she told him the news. The child was a boy named Adrian, who grew up to become the singer-songwriter A.J. Croce … ‘Time In A Bottle’ hit #1 in America 14 weeks after Croce was killed in a plane crash. Croce started touring after he completed his last album, I Got A Name. On September 30, 1973 a plane carrying Croce and five others crashed upon takeoff as he was leaving one college venue to another 70 miles away … The single entered the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 chart for the week ending December 1, 1973 and finally reached #1 for the week ending December 29, a little over three months after he died.”

The verses are in D minor, but the choruses (heard first between 0:56 – 1:17) shift to D major. Quite unusually, the title is mentioned only at the beginning of the first verse, rather than during the chorus.

T-Pain | Best Love Song

“Best Love Song” was released as the first single from American singer/rapper T-Pain’s 2011 album Revolver. It features singer Chris Brown and the R&B group Once Chance. It reached the 33 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 and was used in the premiere of the TV show Hart of Dixie.

Beginning in G, the track shifts up to A at 2:50.

Justin Bieber | That Should Be Me

Canadian singer Justin Bieber makes his MotD debut with “That Should Be Me,” the final track on his first studio album, My World 2.0, released in 2011. The song, which was co-written by Bieber, Nasri Atweh, Luke Boyd, and Adam Messinger, debuted at ninety-two on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The lyric portrays the singer pleading with his lover to take him back.

The tune begins in C minor and transitions to the relative major, Eb, for the chorus at 0:41. There is a full modulation, up a half step to E major, coming out of the bridge for the final chorus at 2:34.

Annie Lennox | Cold

“From the very beginning of her rise to international stardom, Annie Lennox desperately wanted to transcend her own fame,” (Pitchfork). “Her breakout single as one half of Eurythmics, 1983’s ‘Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This),’ encapsulated her anxieties as a frontwoman in the increasingly panoptic public eye: ‘Everybody’s looking for something,’ she warned … Like an international spy, Lennox used clothing and makeup as tools of professional disguise, continuously shapeshifting … many of Lennox’s characters served as commentary on societal perceptions of fame, wealth, and gender … But even if her facades had successfully warded off the media’s leering eye—even if she hadn’t been dubbed ‘Britain’s most tortured rock star’ … Lennox might still have justifiably burnt out by the end of the decade. Eurythmics were incredibly prolific, releasing almost an album a year starting with their 1981 debut In the Garden. Almost every album begot an international tour, with little downtime to recuperate. ‘I had this vision constantly towards the end of the Eurythmics period,’ Lennox later told Q, ‘my life was a bus, but I was running behind it. I just could not catch up with that fucking bus.'”

After she stepped away from Eurythmics and her longtime artistic partner Dave Stewart, “Diva (1992) broke dramatically with Eurythmics in style and substance: Where her work with Stewart trafficked in restless anxieties, her solo work was a step towards the wistful, patient resolve of womanhood … Despite the velveteen, varied instrumentation on Diva, Lennox’s voice is the album’s most essential and expansive element … a veritable one-woman orchestra.

In a decade marked by the meteoric rise of prefab boy bands, the explosion and subsequent implosion of Britpop, and the tragic, paparazzi-fueled death of Princess Diana, Diva is a prophetic warning about the acceleration of fame … In her eerily predictive manner, Lennox identified Ivana Trump as a bellwether for the growing influence wielded by, as she put it in 1992, ‘people famous for being famous.'”

On “Cold,” one of Diva‘s ballads, the verses never settle into one key (the music starts at 0:44, after a cinematic intro). The first progression, I – bIII – IV – I in G major (0:56 – 1:19), alternates with a second progression (1:20 – 1:43), which features the ii-V (and eventually the I) of the closely related key of D major. This tonality shift continues throughout all of the verses. Amid the rangy yet fluid melody and intensely emotive lyrics, somehow not a hair seems out of place.

ABBA | Why Did It Have To Be Me?

Described by Pitchfork as “Björn’s barroom boogie about a sap who loses his heart, all but one lap-steel and two fingers of whisky short of vintage Hank Williams,” this is the eighth track on the Swedish pop band ABBA’s 1976 album Arrival. The tune incorporates elements of blues, rock, and pop, and a cover was included in the 2018 film Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again.

It begins in G and modulates up to A in the middle of the third verse at 1:47.

Burt Bacharach | The Look of Love (feat. Diana Krall)

We usually wrap up our week with an up-tempo rock or dance tune, but this week we’ll continue to look back at the singular career of legendary songwriter Burt Bacharach, whose work has been a frequent feature on MotD. Bacharach’s work not only featured a broad harmonic vocabulary — including plenty of modulations. It generally stepped lightly through complex harmonic and meter transitions which only fully came to light after several listening sessions, rarely “telegraphing” themselves in advance. Bacharach generally avoided cliché half-step or whole-step key changes; rather, he favored transitions between closely-related keys, which don’t hit the listener like a brick upside the head, but a bit more like the sun gradually peeking through the clouds. He hid all the seams and made the final result sound effortless.

Bacharach studied composition with composer Darius Milhaud, one of the members of the informal but influential guild of progressive French composers, “Les Six.” Key changes and meter changes were not special effects for Bacharach, but rather organic tools for expression. Composer/pianist Ethan Iverson reports that Milhaud “told Bacharach that he shouldn’t worry about dodecaphony and keep composing those nice melodies.”

Iverson continues: “In his 60s songs, Bacharach undoes conventional pop from deep underneath the surface. ‘Hooks’ are almost always a bit asymmetrical, but Burt’s are truly lopsided. In the background of his radio-friendly hits, there is an echo of bebop logic, an echo of Schoenbergian logic.” Lyricist Hal David, Iverson suggests, “searched a surreal and overcast meadow for unexpected rhyme and reason.” Iverson continues by saying that jazz musician Dave Frishberg, when learning to write memorable themes, studied “the ‘4 Bs’: The Beach Boys, the Beatles, Brazilian, and Bacharach. (‘Brazilian’ means Jobim, Gilberto, Mendes, etc.)”

“The Look of Love,” originally released by Dusty Springfield in 1967, was covered by jazz vocalist/pianist Diana Krall for a 2012 performance at the White House as part of the In Performance at the White House | Burt Bacharach + Hal David: The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song PBS broadcast in May 2012. While Bacharach was present for the performance, Krall’s emotional mention of David hints at the ill health of the lyricist, who lived only a few more months. Krall’s version of the #22 US pop hit, which features plenty of “Burt-isms” in her piano work, is in Bb major overall, but shifts to Bb minor from 3:59 – 4:10. The modulation is situated in the heart of an outro that seems lit only by hushed twilight (3:59 onward), during which Krall communes with her bassist as the two negotiate the subtle ritardando that brings the tune in for a landing. The final Bb major tonic chord rings out at 4:10, complicated by the quintessentially Bachrachian #11 tension Krall repeats several times.

You’ll Think of Someone (from “Promises, Promises”)

“You’ll Think of Someone” is sung by the two main characters in Act 1 of the 1968 Broadway musical Promises, Promises, based on the classic 1960 film The Apartment. Featuring a score by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, the show is notable for introducing the pop idiom to Broadway, and was among the first shows to use amplified instruments in the pit.

Performed here by Kristin Chenowith and Sean Hayes, who starred in a 2010 Broadway revival, the song moves fluidly between time signatures and alternates between E major and Db major throughout. Bacharach, a 6-time Grammy winner known for his unconventional chord progressions, died yesterday at age 94. In 2012, Bacharach and David were awarded the Library of Congress Gershwin prize for Popular Song, the first time the award had been presented to a duo.

Bobby Vee | Be True to Yourself

“Be True to Yourself” is an early Burt Bacharach / Hal David composition that was a minor hit for singer Bobby Vee in 1963. Bacharach played on and conducted the orchestra for the recording. The trademark Bacharach touches are there: horn introduction, syncopated melody line, and harmonic complexity. Does the emphasis on beats 2, 3, and 4 at 0:35 foreshadow “Do You Know the Way to San Jose”?

This record reached a respectable #34 on the Billboard charts; Bobby Vee had bigger hits in the 1960s, notably “Devil or Angel” (#6 in 1960), “Take Good Care of My Baby” (#1 in 1961), and “The Night Has a Thousand Eyes” (#3 in 1962).

There’s a half-step modulation up at 1:06 during the instrumental bridge.

Owsley | I’m Alright

“Audacious musicians are the best,” (Harvard Crimson). “They’ve been all over the map with their talents and tastes, they’ve been a part of power-pop band The Semantics, they’ve toured with Shania Twain, Pat McGee, Amy Grant and Janis Joplin to get a foothold in the music industry, they’ve jammed with Ben Folds for fun. And then they retire to their living rooms in Alabama to craft their solo pilot over four meticulous years, which they subsequently drop off at the major labels with a rakish take-it-or-leave-it attitude until Giant Records snaps it up. As a result, they make music that’s informed and intelligent, yet independent and fresh.

That’s Will Owsley, recommended by his history and spirit and supported by a very strong debut album of 11 rock gems … The songs here don’t address urgent issues or bleed hearts and even have a tendency to sound like one another, but they do serve blissful, slightly off-center rock with consistent crunch. They make you shut your eyes, nod emphatically and belch, ‘Yey-ahh. Thank god for audacious musicians.'”

The meticulously produced “I’m Alright” is a track from Owsley’s eponymous debut album (1999), recorded in his home studio, which went on to receive a Grammy nod for Best Engineered album. The track starts in E major, shifts to E minor for the first chorus (0:40); the pattern continues until 1:34, where an instrumental verse arrives in Eb major. At 1:51, we’re back to the original E major/minor pattern.

Charlie Puth | I Don’t Think That I Like Her

“I Don’t Think That I Like Her” was the fifth single from American singer Charlie Puth’s 2022 album Charlie, the third studio record he has released. Rolling Stone critic Larissa Paul noted that “the [song] finds the singer weighed down by past relationships that instilled a sense of paranoia in him, making dating all the more precarious.”

The tune begins in B and modulates up a step to C# at 2:25.