“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.
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).
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.
“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).
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‘ 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.
“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.
“So Lonely” was the third and final single from The Police‘s debut studio album,Outlandos d’ Amour(1978). Bassist and frontman Sting has this to say about the band’s unique sound:
“People thrashing out three chords didn’t really interest us musically. Reggae was accepted in punk circles and musically more sophisticated, and we could play it, so we veered off in that direction. I mean let’s be honest here, ‘So Lonely’ was unabashedly culled from ‘No Woman No Cry’ by Bob Marley & The Wailers. Same chorus. What we invented was this thing of going back and forth between thrash punk and reggae. That was the little niche we created for ourselves.”
AllMusic adds: “Although Sting, Andy Summers, and Stewart Copeland were all superb instrumentalists with jazz backgrounds, it was much easier to get a record contract in late-’70s England if you were a punk/new wave artist, so the band decided to mask their instrumental prowess with a set of strong, adrenaline-charged rock, albeit with a reggae tinge.”
The video features the not-yet-famous UK trio strolling through Hong Kong and riding around on the Tokyo subway. A whole-step modulation hits at 2:04.
Our seasoned mod scout JB’s latest contribution: “Shine On,” by UK indie rock band The Kooks, was released in 2008. Deemed a “mid-tempo ’60s-tinged number” by AllMusic, the track reached only #63 in the UK Singles Chart but has nonetheless had plenty of staying power, receiving steady airplay over the years.
Starting in F# major, the tune transitions at the chorus (0:40) to G# major, then pivots back and forth throughout.
“One of my ten year old girls has become completely besotted by Kate Bush after watching a BBC TV documentary on her, and finds her completely inspiring. As a result, I was listening to ‘Wuthering Heights’ (1978) thinking ‘this has to be my favourite key change/chord change moment in music.'” (2:14)
Bush’s unique bio is nicely summarized by AllMusic: “One of the most successful and popular solo female performers to come out of England during the second half of the 20th century, Kate Bush was also one of the most unusual, with her keening vocals and unusually literate and complex body of songs. Bush‘s music is an ambitious and idiosyncratic melange of folk rock, art rock, prog, and pop, often performed with the bold brio of a West End stage production; her lyrics are artful meditations full of drama, fantasy, danger, and a sense of wonder at the human and natural worlds.”
Quick key-of-the-moment (KotM) shifts are a hallmark of this tune, a flagship within Bush’s catalog and the first single of her career. Starting in A major (more or less!), plenty of KotMs flash by as the fast harmonic rhythm hits us relentlessly (a good example being the repeating 4-chord passage from 0:08 to 0:15, which presents a contradictory jumble harmonically). As the chorus begins at 0:47, we transition to C# major. At 1:12, we’re back to A major (ish), etc. At 2:14 – 2:39, the brief bridge could be heard as a shift to A# major — or merely a huge passing emphasis on the iii chord of F# major. Unusual harmonic progressions and ambiguity of tonality are often part of the fun when it comes to Bush’s catalog.
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