“Over their 44-year career, the Pretenders have never chased trends or followed fashions to stay relevant,” (The Guardian). “But they didn’t need to. Their influential jangling sound – helpfully described on their T-shirts as ‘two guitar, bass and drums’ – has become timeless. It’s also still the perfect vehicle for (Chrissie) Hynde’s voice, an instantly recognisable mix of sand and honey, attitude and yearning … “
Seeing this singular band in its prime reveals what a huge blast they were having. Little wonder that Pretenders benefited — more than most bands — from a nascent MTV, accelerating their career via video.
“Message of Love,” from Pretenders’ sophomore release Pretenders II (1981), is built in an up-tuned A major overall, its gears rotating around clanging syncopated guitar chords. A profoundly different extended bridge starts at 1:22; the bassline has shifted to a smooth walking line and the key shifts to C mixolydian and then D mixolydian at 1:55. At 2:09, we’ve fallen back into line for the next verse in the original key. 2:45 brings a mostly instrumental outro in F major.
“Counting Crows have enchanted listeners worldwide for more than two decades with their intensely soulful and intricate take on timeless rock and roll,” (BendConcerts.com). Exploding onto the music scene in 1993 with their multi-platinum breakout album, August and Everything After, the band has gone on to release seven studio albums, selling more than 20 million records worldwide, and is revered as one of the world’s most pre-eminent live touring rock bands.
… Over the last 30 years, the masterful songwriting from frontman Adam Duritz put the band at #8 on Billboard‘s 2021 “Greatest Of All Time: Adult Alternative 25th Anniversary Chart.” After nearly seven years, the award-winning rockers announce their highly anticipated new project, Butter Miracle, Suite One. Produced by Brian Deck, the four-track, 19-minute suite is set for worldwide release this spring.”
Starting in E minor, the unreleased demo track “Bulldog,” featuring an insistent energy throughout, shifts at 0:55 to a chorus that shifts to an alternating B major and B minor. At 1:23, verse 2 returns to E minor. The pattern continues from there until the tune’s end, which features an unresolved F major chord at the end of a chorus — an unsettling tri-tone away from the tonic of the key.
“A lot was expected of Mountain’s second album when it arrived in January 1971,” (Ultimate Classic Rock). “Nantucket Sleighride appeared 10 months after their debut, Climbing!, and 10 months before third LP, Flowers of Evil.” The New York-based band’s release “was another strong offering, highlighted by the nearly six-minute title track.
Referencing the true story of a young man whose whaling vessel became the victim of its prey (which inspired Herman Melville’s novel Moby-Dick), it also drew on a 400-year-old Scottish folk tune … Despite being regarded as one of the world’s first heavy metal bands, there was plenty of prog-rock and psychedelic pop to be found here. And it all felt seamless.”
After beginning in E minor, the tune features a contrasting section in A major, running between 1:07 – 1:42. E minor returns in an instrumental interlude at 1:42. Quite a few more shifts in tonality follow.
“Midnight Oil is, in Monty Python’s phrase, ‘more of an autonomous collective,'” (The Guardian). “For that reason, dealing with Midnight Oil can be infuriating. But their staunch solidarity has kept them together in the face of enormous pressure and their crusade has woven them into Australian history unlike any other artist … When the Oils started in the late 1970s, there was no shortage of disaffected, pimply young men with a Fender and a chip on their shoulder. There was also no shortage of songs bewailing the state of the world. But Midnight Oil did it bigger and better. As (frontman) Peter Garrett wrote in his memoir Big Blue Sky: ‘Midnight Oil’s message wasn’t in the songs themselves, which varied … The message was in joining the music with actions that matched what was being sung. Were we earnest and self righteous? Yes, we were.’
It was there in the songs too – lyrics about apathy in the suburbs, the entropy of dead-end jobs and the hollow Australian torpidity. ‘The Power and the Passion,’ a signature song, is about exactly that. Midnight Oil itself, at that point in 1982, was the opposite of apathy.” Perhaps not surprisingly to anyone who’s listened closely to the band’s signature song, “Beds Are Burning,” Garrett went on to champion indigenous peoples’ rights and work for the Australian Conservation Foundation as well as serving as a government representative. He put a stop to whaling in Australia’s Southern Ocean, among other initiatives, while also still fronting the band … “You couldn’t help but reflect how this band … changed the culture in this country. In 1973, Australian artists were rarely played on the radio or signed to a record deal … very few young Australians were concerned about land rights or environmental destruction, but Midnight Oil put all of those issues front and centre.”
Frontman Garrett, 6.5 feet tall and “big in every way,” is made even moreso by his rangy, frenetic stage presence. Other than the lyrics of “Power and the Passion,” which are always at the center of attention, the clash between drum machine and analog percussion might be the track’s most compelling factor. After a start in B minor, there’s a shift to E minor for the pre-chorus (0:32), followed by a chorus in a very improbable Eb minor (0:49). 1:12 returns us to B minor for the next verse; the pattern continues from there.
“In spring 1968, George Harrison found himself eager to play the guitar,” (Financial Times). “This may not sound like a particularly illuminating observation about the lead guitarist of the world’s biggest rock group, but the recording sessions for what became known as The Beatles’ White Album marked the first time in a while that he had approached his instrument with anything more than grudging professional obligation. For the past three years he had been fixated on mastering the sitar, but now he was finding joy in his six-string again … (it) was one of The Beatles’ best compositions — a perfectly balanced mixture of elegiac vocals and electrified solos; of West Coast dream-rock and eastern philosophy.
Prior to writing the track, Harrison had immersed himself in the teachings of the I-Ching, which posits that there is meaning inherent in ostensibly random events. Putting this idea into practice, he contrived to write a song based around two words plucked arbitrarily from a nearby book: ‘gently weeps.’ But perhaps there was nothing incidental about the choice of this emotive phrase; Harrison was, after all, in a fragile state, alienated from his own band … Things had become so fraught that Harrison asked his close friend Eric Clapton to help out. Not only would his presence cajole the other three into pulling their weight, but he was, handily, one of the best guitarists in the business; his uncredited playing on ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ became one of the greatest moments of individual virtuosity on any Beatles track.”
The tune was later covered by a broad array of artists: Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, and Prince (at Harrison’s posthumous 1988 induction into the Rock + Roll Hall of Fame); Peter Frampton; Jeff Healey; Carlos Santana, India Arie, and Yo-Yo Ma; and Regina Spektor. “For most, the song is unmistakably Harrison’s personal triumph; ‘Only a guitar player could write that,’ Mick Jagger noted.” There is probably not much need to time slate this tune; the verses (in A minor) and choruses (in A major) are about as clearly delineated as any tune we’ve featured!
“Peaking at No. 21 on the national charts in the spring of 1970, ‘Little Green Bag’ scores a bounty of brownie points for being one of the most enigmatic songs ever placed on plastic,” (Something Else Reviews). “Driven by cheesy surf guitars, the zippy little tune sounds a bit like ‘She’s A Woman’ by the Beatles, accompanied by a sprinkling of bossa nova styled rhythms. The vocals are rather theatric, and the hooks are jarring and jaunty. The lyrics of ‘Little Green Bag,’ which are somewhat muddled, are just as quirky as the tone and structure of the song itself. Subtle references to pot are easy to imagine, but the truth is the theme is money.
A Dutch band, George Baker Selection went several years before courting the airwaves in a serious way. Early in 1976, the catchy and danceable ‘Paloma Blanca’ seized the Top 30. But that was that, making George Baker Selection a two-hit wonder. Released in an era when pop music was all for taking chances and nothing seemed too odd or alien for public consumption, ‘Little Green Bag’ still proved to be quite daring, different and downright curious at the time.”
The tune starts in G minor, but a shift to G major for the chorus is hinted at during a short pre-chorus instrumental section (0:46; the first several repeating choruses run from 0:55 – 2:00). At 2:01, another verse returns us to G minor; at 2:29, we revert back to the major chorus. 3:08 brings a wholesale shift up a half step to Ab major for another chorus, but 3:30 brings us back down to the original key.
“On the one side stood their proggy past; on the other, pop stardom. Even the album itself – released in tandem with a film of the same name on June 1, 1982, it chronicles the tours in support of 1980’s Duke and 1981’s Abacab – seems to be peeking ahead,” (Ultimate Classic Rock). “The fourth side features a handful of sleek tracks left over from the Duke sessions and 1982’s 3×3 EP.
‘The direction we took is very obvious, having started off in a very complex and technical background,’ (guitarist) Mike Rutherford told the Oklahoman in 1982. ‘If you want to progress and change, where do you go? You don’t want to get more technical and complex. You have to go simpler in the sense you get more into feeling … you’ve got to do what you enjoy doing. It’s as simple as that. There’s no other way to do it and be honest with yourself.’ Three Sides Live (is) a recommended entry point for anyone who came to Genesis via the MTV-era hits, and is now curious about what came before. It’s a perfect bridge to the past.”
The “single side of studio tracks from the double album” conceit only worked during the vinyl era, which in 1982 was within five years of its end. “You Might Recall,” one of the tracks from the studio side, starts in C minor with an energetic, arpeggiated keyboard hook, prominently out front in the mix. As the verse begins at 0:19, keyboardist Tony Banks’ marshy comping texture lets the lavish chord progressions and Phil Collins’ rangy vocal melody shine. At 1:01, the three-section chorus arrives with a shift to C major, rich in compound chords, supported by a pedal-point G in the bass throughout. After eight measures (1:21), part two arrives with a shift to Bb major and a pedal-point F. Finally, part three features eight measures of F major with C in the bass (1:43). At 2:04, a C minor interlude mirroring the hook-centric intro returns, and we cycle through the pattern again. As a parting gift, the second interlude (following verse 2 and chorus 2) shifts up to to new territory — G major with D in the bass (3:47 – 4:08) — before the 3-segment chorus returns and fades.
“Combining a love for British guitar pop songcraft with crunching power chords and a flair for the absurd, Cheap Trick provided the necessary links between ’60s pop, heavy metal, and punk,” (Qobuz). “Their sound provided a blueprint for both power pop and arena rock; it also had a long-lived effect on both alternative and heavy metal bands of the ’80s and ’90s (and beyond), who often relied on the same combination of loud riffs and catchy melodies.
The band’s early albums were filled with highly melodic, well-written songs that drew equally from the crafted pop of the Beatles, the sonic assault of the Who, and the tongue-in-cheek musical eclecticism and humor of the Move.” From most accounts, the mid-80s was a bit of a lull for the band creatively, but one strong single resulted from its 1985 album Standing on the Edge: “the silvery-sounding ‘Tonight It’s You,’ which peaked just outside the Top 40 at number 44 in the fall of 1985.”
Starting in F# major, the tune’s long pre-chorus in B major appears at 0:59 leading us to a chorus in D major (1:19 -1:41). The pattern continues from there.
“Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings of The Guess Who were aiming for a rock hit to follow their first gold record, the ballad ‘These Eyes,'” (Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame). “They found it in the contrasting hard-driving rocker ‘No Time.’
They had been impressed by the new country-rock sound of Buffalo Springfield, of which their Winnipeg friend Neil Young was a member. The inspiration for (the) opening guitar riff came from one in Springfield’s ‘Hung Upside Down’; Bachman said he ‘turned it upside down and made my own riff out of it,’ … by early 1970 it was another million-seller.” In February and March 1970, the track was a top 10 hit in the US and Canada alike. “The Guess Who were chosen as the Junos’ top group in 1970 and again in 1971.
… The BMI award-winning No Time is, in essence, a break-up song:
No time for a summer friend / No time for the love you send Seasons change and so did I / There’s no time left for you.
The intriguing lyric ‘No time for the killing floor’ is anti-war slang that Cummings and Bachman had heard in San Francisco, equating the Viet Nam war – accurately – with a slaughterhouse.”
The tune’s intro and verse are in D minor; the chorus shifts to G major (heard for the first time from 0:37 – 1:04). Throughout, the track’s energetic feel runs counter to the heartbreaking lyrics.
“Retreating from the collapse of the (band) Teardrop Explodes to his hometown of Tamworth UK, Julian Cope produced his first solo effort,” (World Shut Your Mouth, 1984) … “The result is a surprisingly vibrant, rich album that shows Cope easily moving on from his group days while retaining his unique powerful and natural gifts for singing and songwriting,” (AllMusic). “If there’s something about the sound of World that suggests its early-’80s recording dates … Cope’s own particular, heavily psych-into-pop-inspired goals aren’t lost in it.
Some of his songs are so inspired that one just has to wonder how in the world they didn’t end up as hits somewhere … Throughout World, Cope demonstrates why he’s one of the best, most unaffected singers in rock around, his vocals carrying sweep and passion without sounding like he’s trying to impress himself or others.”
Built in an uptuned B major overall, there’s a brief key-of-the-moment shift (2:28 -2:36) up a whole step to C# after verses and choruses 1 and 2, an instrumental break, and another chorus before a return to the original key. But at 3:06, C# major is back to accompany us through the instrumental outro.
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