Tag: pop

Diana Ross | Chain Reaction

Written and produced by the Bee Gees, “Chain Reaction” was recorded in 1985 by Diana Ross, featured on her album Eaten Alive. “‘Chain Reaction’ was never originally meant to be on the album,” Barry Gibbs explained in an interview. “It was the last song we cut. We’d done the whole album and Diana said, ‘Well, we still need one more song from somewhere.’ We had ‘Chain Reaction’ all along but didn’t have the nerve to play it to her because it was so Motown-ish that we were scared she wouldn’t go back there. Robin Gibb persuaded her by saying, ‘We think it’s time you did something that you would have done with The Supremes and not just Diana Ross.’ Once Diana had recorded it, she sat down and heard the playback and realized it was a credible tribute to the past.”

While the tune did not perform well in the US, it reached #1 in the UK, Ireland, Australia and Zimbabwe. There are modulations sprinkled throughout the song: just in the first verse it moves from B to Db at 0:56 and D at 1:11, returning to B for verse 2 at 1:43 and moving through the same cycle again. A shift to Eb occurs at 3:00, followed by a half-step modulation up to E at 3:15, and it continues to alternate between those two keys as it fades to the end.

Deniece Williams | Let’s Hear It For the Boy

“Deniece Williams’ ‘Let’s Hear It For The Boy,’ … was a last-second addition to the Footloose soundtrack, (Stereogum) … Like Michael Sembello, another relatively anonymous artist who scored a #1 single by soundtracking a dance montage in an early-’80s blockbuster, Williams had gotten her start backing up Stevie Wonder … Williams recorded (the tune) with the producer George Duke, a jazz-fluent polymath who’d made records with Cannonball Adderly and Frank Zappa … (and) gives a whole lot of room to backup singers George Merrill and Shannon Rubicam, who would go on to form the duo Boy Meets Girl and peak at #5 with ‘Waiting For A Star To Fall.’

As a singer, Williams is pretty great at conveying the idea of pure, overwhelming happiness. She’s the reason why ‘Let’s Hear It For The Boy’ doesn’t carry the immediate threat of doom for this couple. When she sings about this boy, hopeless schlub though he may be, she sounds utterly transported with joy … Putting a gospel singer like Williams on a giddy dance-pop track like this is a smart decision. Whitney Houston, someone who will be in this column a ton of times, first became famous singing songs like that. After ‘Let’s Hear It For The Boy,’ Deniece Williams never came anywhere near the top 10 again. Instead, she pulled a reverse Whitney Houston: After spending years as a successful pop singer, she became a full-time gospel singer. She’s won four Grammys, all in gospel categories, and she seems plenty happy in that world.”

After a start in C major for the intro and the verse, the chorus pivots up to D major for the chorus (0:43). From 1:06 to 1:15, some instrumental connective tissue provides some space for the tune to sidestep back down into C. The pattern continues from there. From 3:07 and onward, Williams seems to have fun effervescing at the very high end of her four-octave range through the extended outro.

September | Can’t Get Over

“Can’t Get Over” was recorded in 2007 by the Swedish pop singer September (her stage name) and featured on her third studio album Dancing Shoes. The song, written by Anoo Bhagavan, Jonas von der Burg and Niklas von der Burg, reached the #14 spot on the UK charts. It modulates from D up to E for the final chorus at 2:32.

Little Mix (ft. Charlie Puth) | Oops

“Oops” is featured on the British girl group’s acclaimed fourth studio album Glory Days, released in 2016. The record spent five consecutive weeks at #1 on the UK Albums chart and is the most streamed girl group album on Spotify.

In their review, AllMusic said Glory Days “finds the group delivering a set of hooky, smartly crafted songs that balance swaggering, ’60s-style R&B with stylish, electronic-tinged dance-pop,.” London’s Evening Standard added “the foursome have carved out a pop niche for themselves, so the really rather good You Gotta Not and Oops have a finger-clicking Fifties feel and there’s a hint of edge to the delightfully fierce Power.”

This track features American singer Charlie Puth, and modulates up from D to Eb right near the end at 2:45.

Amer Mounib | Allah Alaik

The late Egyptian recording artist Amer Mounib “excelled at playing the Oud (a stringed musical instrument) through extensive learning sessions with the dean of Helwan University’s Faculty of Music, Atef Abdel Hamid,” (Egypt Today). “He further excelled at playing the piano and created a small band, performing covers of songs by the late singer Abdel Halim Hafez in major hotels around the country.”

During his career, the late artist accomplished 12 albums and enjoyed an acting career which spanned several popular films. Mounib passed away from cancer in November 2011 at the age of only 48.

Mounib’s release “Allah Alaik,” (God Bless You) shifts up a half step at 2:42. Many thanks to regular contributor Ziyad for this submission!

Madonna | Vogue

“The underground — any underground — tends to find peculiar and unintended routes into the spotlight,” (Stereogum). “Madonna was always a creature of New York club culture, and it wasn’t particularly out of character for her to get interested in a particular facet of that culture, which kept evolving after she got famous. But it was pretty weird that Madonna managed to take a small slice of the deep underground and mainstream the absolute hell out of it. And it was also pretty weird that Madonna pulled this off with a would-be B-side that got stapled onto the hoochie-coochie retro-cabaret album that she’d recorded as a tie-in with her big summer-blockbuster movie … Madonna was prescient about a lot of things, but she can’t have predicted the ripple-effects of all the moves that she made. ‘Vogue’ wasn’t even supposed to be a single, but it became one of the defining smashes of a hall-of-fame career. That happens sometimes.” The single reached #1 in the spring of 1990 and remained there for three weeks.

The Guardian further describes the drag scene of the late 1980s: “Contrary to popular belief, Madonna did not invent voguing. (Her hit song) was a euphoric celebration/appropriation of a dance form that emerged from the Harlem ballroom scene in the 80s. ‘Balls are part of a broader history of black queer performance and spectacle that stretches back at least to the early days of the 20th century,’ says Madison Moore, assistant professor of gender, sexuality and women’s studies at Virginia Commonwealth University. Poet and playwright Langston Hughes described these balls in his 1940 autobiography The Big Sea as ‘spectacles in color’.”

After an intro and a verse in Ab major, the chorus shifts to Ab minor at 1:40, with a brief but dense series of syncopated compound piano chords layered over the bass, which never migrates away from the tonic throughout the entire tune. Since the melody also centers around the tonic, the harmonic variety of those compound chords is pivotal. At 1:56, verse 2 reverts to Ab major; the pattern continues from there.

Britney Spears | I’m Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman

Featured on Britney Spears’ third studio album, Britney, “I’m Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman” is a coming-of-age song that Spears says is one of her favorites to perform. Writing a review for the Yale Daily News in 2001, Catherine Halaby said the song “comes across as a hybrid of advice to her young female fans on how to deal with puberty, and an explanation of her girly but not childlike attitude.”

The song was not a big hit in the United States, but was more successful in Europe, reaching the Top 10 in Australia, Germany, Ireland, Sweden and the UK.

The tune begins in Eb and shifts up to F for the last chorus at 2:40.

Shelby Flint | Cast Your Fate to the Wind

In 1962, pianist Vince Guaraldi created that rare thing, a hit jazz instrumental, “Cast Your Fate to the Wind”, which reached #22 on the Billboard chart. The recording won a 1963 Grammy for Best Original Jazz Composition. A few years later, Guaraldi enshrined himself in American popular culture as the composer of the songs for the Peanuts TV specials.

On their first date, lyricist Carel Werber went with her future husband Frank, then manager for the Kingston Trio, to a club in Sausalito, where Guaraldi played the song for her. She loved it, and wrote the lyrics during trips over the Golden Gate Bridge.

Singer Shelby Flint had her own Billboard #22 hit, “Angel on My Shoulder”, which she wrote, in 1962. Her vocal version of Guaraldi’s song was released in 1966, reaching #61 on the Billboard charts.

The song starts in Db major, with a modulation to D in the instrumental section at 0:51, closing with another half-step shift up at 1:14. The verse then resumes in D-flat.

Here’s Guaraldi’s instrumental original:

Amy Grant | Baby, Baby

Amy Grant ruled the Contemporary Christian genre when she released her decidedly secular 1991 album Heart in Motion. She’d become “the Michael Jordan of Christian Pop,” according to Stereogum: “When Grant was working on ‘Baby Baby’ she’d only just become a mother. Her daughter Millie was six weeks old … Grant talks about driving around, trying to come up with lyrics, and then coming home and seeing Millie with her babysitter: ‘I sat down at the kitchen counter, and in less than 10 minutes wrote the song to her. Suddenly, all the little silly phrases fit with the music because it was all to her.’ Backstories for #1 hits don’t come much cuter than that …

‘Baby Baby’ topped Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart, as well as the Hot 100. The song also made a respectable dent in the Dance Club Songs chart, and I am really enjoying the mental image of a club DJ trying to find just the right moment to throw on ‘Baby Baby.’… Grant had already won five Grammys before ‘Baby Baby,’ but they’d all been in the gospel categories. But ‘Baby Baby’ got nominations for Song and Record of the Year, and Heart In Motion was in the Album of the Year mix, too.”

The tune starts in F# major, then bounces and sparkles its way until 1:33, when most of the groove falls away, making plenty of room for Grant to glissando her way up to G# major. 2:22 serves up a keyboard solo which feels like another upward modulation, but actually falls back to F#. A 2:52, we slide back up to G# major for the duration.

Westlife | My Love

“My Love” is the the Irish boy band Westlife’s most viewed song on Youtube, currently sitting at 304 million views. The track, which was the second single released from the group’s 2000 album Coast to Coast, was Westlife’s seventh consecutive #1 hit, tying a record originally set by The Beatles. It debuted at #1 on the UK Singles chart and won Record of the Year. There is a modulation from C up to D for the final chorus at 3:11.