Tag: rock

Steely Dan | West of Hollywood

The unique rock/jazz fusion sound of Steely Dan is well known to most. But their 2000 album, Two Against Nature, featured a more experimental focus than most of the band’s other releases. The tune “West of Hollywood” has a multi-minute outro which kicks the modulations into high gear starting at about 4:30.

A poster on the website Music in Practice and Theory sought insight on the complex outro: “Many, many modulations–this song must surely have set some kind of record with the sheer number of tonal-center changes during the outtro. Often, the tonal center is established only for a few measures, and the transitions happen so quickly that the listener barely notices.”

Elton John | I’m Still Standing

1983 found Elton John in a period of re-invention after riding out the Disco and Punk eras. He came back strong with a rock-fueled single, “I’m Still Standing,” from his platinum-selling album Too Low for Zero. EltonJohn.com reports that the video’s opening shots “were an homage to a popular movie series…the establishing shots of Elton driving through southern France were a tip of the martini (shaken, not stirred) to the 007 movies’ opening sequences…”

Starting in Bb minor, the tune shifts to Bb major for the verse (0:12), back to minor for the chorus (0:39), back to major for verse 2 (1:11), etc. The booming 4-on-the-floor groove is rivaled only by the strong sense of tonality: the pedal point Bb repeats throughout much of the tune while a variety of chords change over it.

Vulfpeck | Outro

Another suggestion from R&B/funk fan Aaron Martin: From Jambands.com‘s review of the keyboard-driven funk quartet, Vulfpeck: the Ann Arbor, Michigan group features “a rhythm section in the vein of The Meters…without much in the way of press or blog buzz, the band has built a growing cult thanks to hook-driven, toe-tapping, laid back jams recorded with an analog sheen and performed by a band that is, as one commenter put it, ‘so deep in the pocket, they just found your grandfather’s watch.'”

Hard to say if the many modulations on 2014’s “Outro” were created by the musicians, recording engineers, or a combination, but we can’t argue with the result. One thing’s for sure: this is the best-sounding spinet piano in recent history.

Joan Jett + The Blackhearts | Bad Reputation

“Bad Reputation,” an uptempo guitar-fueled tune which clocks in at well under three minutes, was the title track of a 1981 album by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. Thanks to MotD fan Rob Penttinen for submitting this track!

Music Connection Magazine reports that “Jett took the record to a number of major record labels, none of which were interested in releasing the project. Rather than continue to hunt for a willing label, Laguna (the producer) and Jett decided to fund the pressing of the album themselves … (and) sold directly to concert-goers and record stores out of Laguna’s car trunk.”

Typical of Jett, (also known as “The Godmother of Punk”), the track is a classic 3-chord rocker — with the exception of a full-step modulation at 1:07.

Steven Page | Wilted Rose

Here’s a submission from busy mod scout JB: The Vanity Project, a 2005 solo album by Barenaked Ladies‘ frontman Steven Page, featured the track “Wilted Rose.” Sputnikmusic describes Page’s solo material as compared to BNL’s: “more serious in its lyrical overtones and more experimental in approach. However, the catchy style of lyrical phrasing and light, head-bobbingly poppy choruses continue to carry to the light, honest voice of the other half of a generation.”

The verses are in minor, transitioning to major for the chorus (for the first time at 1:11) and then back to minor for the next verse (1:37).

Lenny Kravitz | American Woman

Our Twitter follower @tomstandage submitted “the semi-tone downward modulation for the solo (1:32) and back up again (1:43) in Lenny Kravitz‘s 1999 cover of The Guess Who‘s ‘American Woman’ (1970)”.

Kravitz’s cover went into the top 20 in Australia, Finland, Iceland, New Zealand and Spain, #26 in Canada, and #49 in the US.

Cardigans | Lovefool

“Lovefool” was the breakthrough hit (1996) for Swedish band Cardigans. The tune saw broad success, including reaching #15 (Swedish Pop), #5 in Finland, #1 in New Zealand and Scotland, and #1 on the US Mainstream Top 40 chart. Pitchfork Magazine ranked it #66 on its “Top 200 Tracks of the 1990s”.

According to Billboard, “The song’s upbeat feel wasn’t the band’s initial intention. ‘Before we recorded it, it was slower and more of a bossa nova,’ frontwoman Nina Persson says. ‘It’s quite a sad love song; the meaning of it is quite pathetic, really. But then when we were recording, by chance, our drummer started to play that kind of disco beat, and there was no way to get away from it after that.'” The verses are in A minor, shifting to A major for the choruses (0:44).

Weezer | Undone / The Sweater Song

After a long vamping intro (through 0:40), “Undone / The Sweater Song” (1994) by college radio favorites Weezer starts in F# major, modulates up to A major for a guitar solo from 1:51-2:16, then reverts back to F#. In John Luerssen’s biography of the band, frontman Rivers Cuomo says of the band’s debut single, “It was supposed to be a sad song, but everyone thinks it’s hilarious,” and was his “attempt at writing a Velvet Underground-type song.” From AllMusic‘s review: “meticulously crafted…smart, quirky, poignant, and insanely catchy — all characteristics that would go on to define Weezer as a band and their debut as one of the most successful alternative rock records of the ’90s.”

Pretenders | I Hurt You

Pretenders‘ breakthrough third album Learning to Crawl (1984) spawned six singles, but also the devastating non-single track “I Hurt You.” For the album’s re-issue in 2004, Rolling Stone‘s Kurt Loder wrote of the band’s founder and frontwoman Chrissie Hynde: “To say that Learning to Crawl reconfirms Hynde as the most forceful female presence in rock already demeans her achievement: The matter of gender aside, she is the most unaffectedly personal of contemporary singer/songwriters, and surely the most astringently intimate lyricist working within a real rock & roll context.”

Starting in D minor, a series of unconventional modulations starts at 1:53 with a switch to Bb minor. Later, the mournful tune returns to D minor at 2:28 and ends in Bb minor with a spare, jagged guitar solo outro at 3:37.

Astral Drive | Sing to the World

“SIng to the World” (2019) by Astral Drive is a track from “a long lost album from the 1970s that only existed in (songwriter / performer Phil Thornalley‘s) own mind. A labor of love that is very much the statement of a lifelong music fan living in the modern world,” reports Thornalley’s label, Lojinx.

Along with a sustained career as a sideman and/or producer for bands such as The Cure, The Psychedelic Furs, Duran Duran, and Paul McCartney, Thornalley also co-wrote Natalie Imbruglia‘s smash hit “Torn.”

The tune is based on G major until the bridge shifts us to Bb major at 1:29 before returning to G at 1:51.