pop – Page 47

Ariana Grande | Pink Champagne

Ariana Grande recorded the demo for “Pink Champagne” at 17. The track didn’t make the cut for inclusion on Yours Truly (2013), but Grande promised her diehard fans that “when she hit 10 million followers on Twitter she would release the studio version. Upon reaching the magic number on October 1, 2013, Ariana popped the champagne and dropped the song,” (Songfacts).

“Grande wrote the song with Pebe Sebert: ‘I knew Ariana well enough because I feel like it’s all about trying to know the person to know what’s going to be a real look for them,’ she said … ‘She was 17 and portraying this kind of goody-two-shoes on the Nickelodeon series. We didn’t want to go too far from that image at that age … You almost have to have a little movie that you’re writing in your head.'”

After a 30-second spoken intro from Grande, the effervescent, bouncy track unfolds amid Grande’s trademark upper-range ad libs and embellishments. Very close to the tune’s end (3:24), a half-step modulation hits between two choruses. Many thanks to regular contributor Ziyad for this submission!

Lauren Spencer-Smith | All I Want

Canadian singer/songwriter Lauren Spencer-Smith released her debut album, Unplugged, in 2019, and appeared on the 18th season of American Idol in 2020. Her big break came in 2022 with the single “Fingers Crossed,” which charted in the top 20 in the United States and other countries. “All I Want” is featured on her 2020 EP Mixed Emotions. The tune, a plaintive song with just piano and voice, begins in Db and deceptively transitions to Eb at 2:14, with the vocal reaching up to the fifth scale degree. It stays in Eb till the end.

Rickie Lee Jones | Last Chance Texaco

“With her expressive soprano voice employing sudden alterations of volume and force, and her lyrical focus on Los Angeles street life, Rickie Lee Jones comes on like the love child of Laura Nyro and Tom Waits on her self-titled debut album (1979),” (AllMusic).

The personnel on the album leaned heavily towards players from the jazz genre, creating a sound that “follows the contours of Jones’ impressionistic stories about scuffling people on the streets and in the bars. There is an undertow of melancholy that becomes more overt toward the end, as the narrator’s friends and lovers clear out … But then, the romance of the street is easily replaced by its loneliness. Rickie Lee Jones is an astounding debut album that simultaneously sounds like a synthesis of many familiar styles and like nothing that anybody’s ever done before.”

“Last Chance Texaco” starts out with an apparent focus on auto maintenance — and its elevated importance as one’s location grows increasingly remote. But it later becomes clear that the focus is much broader, even though the automotive euphemisms endure throughout. Intermittent swelling and fading hints of a lonesome highway are evoked instrumentally during the verses, joined by Jones’ own multi-layered wordless backup vocal around 3:30. The easy 6/8 feel of the F# major chorus transitions to a poignant, restive chorus in E minor (first heard from 1:01 – 1:39). Make sure to check out the gorgeous lyrics, as Jones’ delivery varies hugely in both volume and clarity.

It’s her last chance
Her timing’s all wrong
Her last chance
She can’t idle this long
Her last chance
Turn her over and go
Pullin’ out of the last chance Texaco
The last chance

Backstreet Boys | Everyone

Written by Swedish producer/songwriters Kristian Lundin and Andreas Carlsson, “Everyone” was featured on the Backstreet Boy’s 2000 album Black & Blue. Rolling Stone critic Barry Walters described the song as “a celebration of the [group] and the power of their audience.” The album was hugely successful, selling over 5 million copies in its first week of sales.

The tune remains in C minor until shifting up a step to D minor for the final chorus at 2:33.

Jacob Collier (feat. Lizzy McAlpine + John Mayer) | Never Gonna Be Alone

“For ‘Never Gonna Be Alone,’ his first single since the award-winning Djesse Vol. 3, Jacob Collier enlisted the help of Lizzy McAlpine and John Mayer to create a celestial soundscape that spans the depths of isolation, loss and memory,” (NPR).

“There’s much to experience over the course of this one multifaceted and emotional song. ‘It speaks to my experience of the world as a hugely beautiful and fragile place,’ Collier writes in a press statement, adding that the song ‘has helped me process some of the grief I think we’re all feeling for our pasts and futures, in a myriad of different ways.'”

From the video description on Collier’s YouTube channel: “After eighteen months of FaceTime and virtual collaboration, we got to play this song in real life! Performed live at Lizzy’s show at the Troubadour on October 7th 2022.” After a few verses and choruses in C major, 2:21 brings a masterful but understated guitar solo from Mayer. At 3:02, the end of the solo intersects with a few chords outside the key, but the overarching key is unchanged. McAlpine’s crystalline soprano leads a soft-spoken mid-phrase modulation up a half-step to Db major at 3:19.

Dakota Moon | Looking For a Place to Land

“Dakota Moon is an unusual urban R&B group, one that’s equally influenced by Boyz II Men and ’70s soft rock, such as Eric Clapton and James Taylor … The quartet met at a recording session in Los Angeles for producers Andrew Logan and Mike More. The musicians had such a chemistry that they decided to form a band,” (AllMusic). ” … Before they made their debut album, they toured as Tina Turner’s opening act in 1997. By the end of the year, they had recorded their debut … the resulting record, entitled Dakota Moon, was released in April 1998.”

A Place to Land (2002), the band’s second release, features a “somewhat uncanny synthesis of early-2000s urban pop and ’70s soft rock. The album-opening title track (sounds) like half Backstreet Boys and half Eagles.”

“Looking For a Place to Land” certainly does inhabit territory somewhere between pop, rock, and r&b — with even a few brief country touches thrown into the mix. The verses feature several singers taking turns on lead; the choruses are a mix of vocalists combining for richly stacked vocal harmonies. A short drum break hits the re-set button before a half-step modulation kicks in at 2:49.

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.