Tag: UK

Emily Linge | All By Myself (Eric Carmen cover)

Emily Linge is a prolific YouTube contributor and a British-Norwegian singer songwriter born and raised in Dubai. She sings and self-accompanies on piano and guitar, sometimes with other instrumentalists, including her two brothers. Despite her young age (she was 13 when this video was posted), many of the songs she performs are from decades past, with lots of Beatles covers in particular.

“All By Myself” is a power ballad written by Eric Carmen, with elements taken from Sergei Rachmoninoff’s 2nd Piano Concerto. (A version by male vocal group Il Divo appeared previously on MotD). Emily’s rendition largely follows Carmen’s, including the expressive piano interlude featured on his album edit.

Linge’s cover begins in G major; from 2:41 – 3:12, a brief interlude takes leave of the key, moving in several directions before a return to G. At 4:24, a common-tone modulation to B major takes a page from Céline Dion’s gutsy version, including a soaring high vocal line at 4:21. A few more keys are briefly visited before Linge lands in A major at 4:47.

Nik Kershaw | L.A.B.A.T.Y.D.

After his polished New Wave/sophistipop sound gave him a fast ascent to the top of the UK pop charts and some notoriety in the US as well, Radio Musicola (1986) “was Nik Kershaw’s chance to … deliver a big-budget, endlessly-fussed-over studio ‘project’…” (MovingTheRiver). “Perhaps unsurprisingly, given his meteoric rise to fame, the main themes of the album are press intrusion and tabloid sensationalism … in a neat irony, the rise of technology-led, assembly-line music was also in Kershaw’s sights, despite Musicola making liberal use of all the latest sampling and synthesizer technology …

An interesting album which clearly fell between the stools of art and commerce, Radio Musicola reached a barely believable #46 in the UK album chart, just over a year after Kershaw had played Live Aid. It disappeared without trace in the US … But Kershaw didn’t seem bothered about his new ‘selective’ popularity; in fact, he seemed genuinely relieved, but wondered how MCA were going to sell him now that he was focused on being a musician rather than a pop star.

‘LABATYD’ (Life’s a Bitch and Then You Die) is pure class, a half-time shuffle …” Starting in E minor and marching in place for nearly an entire minute, the track’s initial focus is its infectious groove. But at 0:53, Kershaw throws a spanner in the works, tumbling the chorus into an improbable Eb major. 1:21 brings us back to E minor for another relatively static verse, this time dressed up with a few additional flourishes from the horn section. At 2:13, we jump the tracks again into Eb major for the next chorus. At 2:48, an instrumental chorus wafts up into E major; as the groove is finally extinguished, a C lydian chord closes the tune at 4:00.

Jacob Collier (feat. Tori Kelly & John Legend | Bridge Over Troubled Water

MotD favorite Jacob Collier released the seventh and final single from his upcoming album, Djesse Vol. 4, last week. His cover of Paul Simon’s classic song features vocalists Tori Kelly and John Legend; the full album will be released on Friday.

The track begins in Ab, modulates to Eb at 1:27, and to B at 3:25. The final chord ultimately resolves back in Ab major.

XTC | Sgt. Rock (Is Going to Help Me)

“For decades, British art-rock chameleons XTC occupied an awkward space in the musical landscape; underappreciated songwriting geniuses too quirky for mainstream success but not edgy enough for alternative acceptance,” (LouderSound). “Slowly, over the years, this opinion changed. Dozens of artists began to list them among their songwriting inspirations, and their music became accepted as some of the most influential and innovative in rock’s history. Now, thanks to a glut of glorious sounding remasters courtesy of prog posterboy Steven Wilson, along with recent Sky documentary XTC: This Is Pop, XTC and their catalogue of incredible music have been propelled back into the public eye.”

“Sgt. Rock (Is Going to Help Me)” was included on XTC’s best-of compilation Waxworks (1982) and otherwise available only as a single. Andy Partridge, XTC’s lead vocalist and a principal songwriter, provided this capsule review for the album: “Spooky, unreal, dripping and unstable. The thrills and horrors of modern life in three-minute scenarios,” (Chalkhills.org). “Sgt. Rock” doesn’t inspire any affection from Partridge: ” … All the instruments in the track mesh nicely enough, but the lyrical sentiment, oh dear. It was supposed to be ironic, you know, nerdy comic fan imagines two-dimensional hero can help him with his unsuccessful chat-up technique. It did not work.”

But even a throwaway track, by XTC’s standards, still made for catchy college/indie radio material. The stiff guitar-driven swing somehow fits the mockingly martial lyrics. The track begins in F major but shifts to a bridge in Ab major between 2:10 and 2:27. The performers are miming to the studio track, not playing live, in this Top of the Pops-style performance.

Laura Mvula | I’m Still Waiting

“The word ‘comeback’ is overused, but in Laura Mvula‘s case, it really does hold true,” (NME). “Though her impressive second album, 2016’s The Dreaming Room, earned her MOBO (the UK’s Musician of Black Origin award) and Mercury Prize nominations plus an Ivor Novello award, she was unceremoniously dropped by RCA Records six months after it came out. The supremely talented Birmingham-born musician later revealed that she received the bad news in a forwarded seven-line email.

Having dusted herself off – writing the music for the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 2017 production of Antony & Cleopatra must have helped – Mvula is back on a new label, Atlantic, with an overhauled sound. Where her 2013 debut Sing to the Moon largely blended soul with orchestral pop and The Dreaming Room introduced a touch of funk and disco to the mix, Mvula has called Pink Noise (2021) an album ‘made with warm sunset tones of the ’80s’. She isn’t overselling it.”

“I’m Still Waiting,” was first a #1 UK hit released by Diana Ross on her 1971 album Everything is Everything. Mvula’s cover starts in C major; the second half of the first verse features an unprepared modulation at 0:18, settling into Eb major at for the duration. With an accompaniment full of sighing pauses and comprised only of keyboards and feathery layers of backing vocals, the focus falls all that more squarely on the storytelling of Mvula’s poised lead vocal.

Ross’ original, in Eb major, features no key changes and a gentle but more consistent groove throughout.

Susan Boyle | I Dreamed a Dream

Scottish singer Susan Boyle rose to fame as a contestant on the third season of the reality singing competition Britain’s Got Talent singing “I Dreamed a Dream” from the blockbuster musical Les Miserables. Her debut album of the same name, released in 2009, quickly became the UK’s best-selling album of all time, and with over 10 million copies sold is now one of the best-selling records of the 21st century. Boyle has gone on to release seven additional albums.

The tune begins in Eb and dramatically modulates up a whole step to F at 1:44.

Seal | The Beginning

“… on his debut album (1991), Seal is an ambiguous, mercurial entity—not so much a singer as a pure source of heat and light,” (Pitchfork) “For all the marvels of his voice, the music surrounding him is just as opulent; his singing is just one thread in a vast tapestry of crushed velvet, raw silk, and spun gold. (To paraphrase Project Runway host Heidi Klum, who was married to Seal from 2005 until 2012, it sounds expensive.)

… Though Seal had already written some of the album’s songs on guitar, in (producer Trevor) Horn’s hands, the material became far more ornate. (On) ‘The Beginning,’ the album’s most straightforward club-centric cut … Horn manages a more multidimensional sense of space; light-years stretch between the string pads, funk guitars, and layered percussion … From the first moment we hear Seal arcing upward across the stereo field, it’s clear that Horn knew exactly how precious this particular instrument was … Seal may have idolized literary writers like Dylan and Mitchell, but you don’t come to Seal for poetry; you come for that voice and the way it navigates Horn’s productions, like a bird surfing springtime’s swirling air currents.”

The lush percussion layers of “The Beginning,” repeated nearly to the point of trance, suddenly disappear as an unexpected downward modulation kicks in between 3:30 and 3:46, returning as the tonality returns to the original key.

Howard Jones | Hide and Seek

UK native songwriter/performer Howard Jones’ career blossomed with his signature single, “Things Can Only Get Better.” That uptempo tune, which acknowledges life’s complexities but maintains an infectiously positive attitude, seems to have set the tone for Jones’ career. From a 2022 interview with 48Hills: “‘From the first album, the first single, I wanted the music and the lyrics to be of use to people to help them get through difficult times in the same way that music helped me. It had been such a comfort and an inspiration to me as I was growing up … I was consciously writing the music for the times when people, including myself, needed a boost, to get over some really difficult situation that life is constantly throwing at us … we need everyone on this planet to be functioning at their highest, most positive level if we’re going to overcome the difficulties we’re facing.'”

“Howard looks at the big picture in this song, where he goes back to the big bang and asks us to remember a time when there was ‘nothing at all, just a distant hum,'” (Songfacts). “Howard Jones performed ‘Hide and Seek’ at Live Aid in 1985 on Freddie Mercury’s piano.” Stepping the tempo up noticeably compared to the studio version of this ballad, Jones somehow gathered the courage to perform this track solo at the piano amidst Live Aid’s otherwise saturated aural textures and huge bands. The transatlantic concert was witnessed by 70,000+ audience members in London and 80,000+ for the US set; “an estimated audience of 1.9 billion, in 150 nations, nearly 40% of the world population” viewed the broadcast on TV or listened via radio (CNN).

After an intro and a verse in D minor, the chorus lifts the mood with a shift to D major (first heard from 1:52 – 2:23) before reverting to the hook-driven minor interlude and verse. The connective tissue in the transition from minor to major is a prominent Dsus4.

Pretenders | Mystery Achievement

“Like (the Clash album) London Calling, Pretenders came out in the U.K. in 1979 and here in the U.S. in 1980,” (Medialoper). “So while it’s technically a 1979 album, all of its impact — however you define that slippery term — came in 1980. Therefore, like London Calling, I really think of it as the first of the great albums of the 1980s, not the last of the great albums of the 1970s.

Which made sense: while both albums couldn’t have existed without punk rock, both albums were also signposts towards what was going to happen after punk rock, as punk rock became just one more bit of musical history upon which to draw upon when creating a sound … Kicking off with a simple, unstoppable double-time backbeat by Martin Chambers and a Pete Farndon bassline that was its own instant hook, ‘Mystery Achievement’ was hooky, dancey and fun as all hell … “

After this musical perpetual motion machine revs up in C# minor, driven by its iconic bass line, 1:22 brings an unconventional modulation to D major for the chorus. At 1:50, the key reverts to C# minor for the next verse, alternating back and forth through the rest of the tune.

Marion Ryan | Hot Diggity (Dog Ziggity Boom)

Marion Ryan, born in 1931 in Yorkshire, England, was a “popular singer with a vivacious style, was successful in the UK on records, radio, and television in the 50s and early 60s (AllMusic) … (she) first appeared on the UK music scene in 1953 and became a favourite on UK television … In the late 50s, Ryan covered several big hits, including Perry Como’s ‘Hot Diggity (Dog Ziggity Boom).'”

From The Independent: “In 1967 (Ryan) retired after a second marriage (to) the millionaire impresario Harold Davison, who handled Frank Sinatra. … Ryan’s personality may be gauged by her entry in the 1962 Radio Luxembourg Book of Record Stars. ‘Pet likes: lounging casually at home. Pet hates: rude, loud, ill-mannered people. Favourite food: Chinese. Hobbies: reading.'”

The carnival-like instrumentation of “Hot Diggity” (1956) somehow provides no competition for Ryan’s confident vocals. At 1:29, a half-step modulation kicks in.