Tag: UK

Wang Chung | To Live and Die in L.A.

“… A strong case can be made that To Live and Die in LA is (director William) Friedkin’s masterpiece … Friedkin (director of The French Connection and The Exorcist) gave the British pop group, Wang Chung, near free rein and the results chime perfectly with the gritty neon tinted vision of a city enslaved by Reagan era greed,” (Sense of Cinema). “The title track lays down the unsparing tone in the pre-credit opening. A presidential motorcade moves through the sun scorched streets towards a Beverly Hills hotel. Cut to night time; President Reagan can be heard giving a speech advocating tax cuts to a well-heeled banquet room crowd as his security team warily moves through the hotel …

With its fatalistic lyrics (‘I wonder why we waste our lives here / When we could run away to paradise / But I am held in some invisible vise’), the title track is not so much a love theme as a requiem for the casualty rate that ensues in the film. The song makes clear that Los Angeles in the mid-‘80s is a place whose glamour is out of reach for most inhabitants, but addictive all the same … Wang Chung’s music makes the film’s resonance with the grotesque Malthusian tenor of Trump’s America all the more haunting, but mercifully tinged with a hint of grace and absolution.”

Within the overall bounds of 1980s pop, the film’s atmospheric theme song “To Live and Die in LA” (1985) couldn’t be much more different from Wang Chung’s marquee hits (the relentlessly energetic “Dance Hall Days” and “Everybody Have Fun Tonight”). The intro starts in F minor and transitions to a verse in Bb minor (0:32), punctuated by a rapid-fire, percussive keyboard hook. After a grand pause grants us a moment to breathe, a gentler chorus begins at 1:09, shifting among several tonalities. At 1:31, the pattern repeats with another verse, followed by another chorus at 2:16. In the middle of an interlude (2:42), the track climbs up a whole step to G minor, for another verse and chorus (3:05). From 3:27 to the track’s end, we’ve returned back to the original F minor for an outro/chorus.

Limahl | Neverending Story

“In 1983, Limahl was abruptly, unceremoniously fired as the lead singer of Kajagoogoo, only a few months after the British new wave band had scored a massive hit with ‘Too Shy.’ But the following year … Limahl met super-producer Giorgio Moroder at the Tokyo Music Festival and was invited to test his voice on Moroder’s theme song for the epic fantasy film The NeverEnding Story.” (Yahoo Entertainment). “And a new chapter began. ‘The NeverEnding Story’ ended up being Limahl’s only major worldwide solo hit, but it has stood the test of time.

And now the kaleidoscopic pop song is adding yet another chapter to Limahl’s career story and finding new fans of all ages. That’s all due to its placement in an adorable Stranger Things scene … (when) Stranger Things Season 3 premiered, “The NeverEnding Story” shot to No. 4 on Spotify’s U.S. Viral 50 chart, with on-demand audio and video streams for the track surging by more than 2,000% and YouTube views increasing by 800%. Interestingly, this revival (coincided) almost exactly with the 35th anniversary of the film’s U.S. theatrical release on July 20, 1984.”

After a start in C major, the tune shifts quickly to Eb major for the chorus (first heard at 0:28). At 0:44, C major returns while the end of the chorus is still in progress. At 1:47, an interlude starts in G major before shifting to Bb major at 2:02; 2:22 brings a return to the original key with another verse. At times, vocalist Beth Andersen takes over the melody while Limahl harmonizes. Although it only reached #17 in the US, the track was a worldwide hit, reaching #1 in Sweden, Spain, and Norway and top 10 status in a dozen other countries, including Limahl’s native UK.

Tracey Ullman | Move Over Darling

“More often than not, when TV personalities dip their toe in the pop pool, it’s meant as a brief detour from the day job, with little expectation of prolonged success.” (Record Collector). “Comedienne Ullman bucked the trend with some style, going as far as chalking up her label Stiff Record’s only US Top 10 hit. That came with her carbon cope of Kirsty MacColl’s ‘They Don’t Know.” Her UK stats stretch to half a dozen hit singles and an album that hung around the charts for close to six months.

Ullman excelled at aping bygone girl pop sounds, be it the Shangri Las, Sandy Shaw, or Blondie … a strong of memorable videos clearly boosted her music profile, but that’s taking nothing away from Tracey’s own ability to inhabit the material with wit and radio-friendly pizazz.”

“Move Over Darling” (1983), originally recorded in 1963 by Doris Day for a movie of the same name, begins in A major, shifts up a half step at 1:02, and then drops another raise of a half step at 1:37.

Ross Miller | The Drunken Man from Kalabakan

“Ross hails from Linlithgow, West Lothian in central Scotland,” (artist website). “He is a member of the world famous Red Hot Chili Pipers. A world champion piper, Ross began piping aged 7 and was the Pipe Major of the National Youth Pipe Band of Scotland. He is currently a member of the Grade 1 Inveraray and District Pipe Band.

He graduated with a First Class Honours Degree in Traditional Music – Piping from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in 2017. Ross was a finalist in the 2019 BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician of the Year competition. Ross has performed in many countries such as: New Zealand, Australia, USA, Ghana, Russia, and all over central Europe, as well as appearing on BBC Hogmanay Live and performing solo on the roof of Murrayfield Stadium. In 2021, Ross performed along with a group of pipers on the soundtrack of the OSCAR & BAFTA award winning film Dune.“

“The Drunken Man from Kalabakan” (2025), combining traditional and rock influences, starts in Bb minor. At 1:18, accompanied by a completely new groove, the track shifts to Eb major via a common-tone modulation.

Please click the image below to access the track.

Duran Duran | The Reflex

“All too often, transformative acts don’t score their first #1 singles until the party is almost over,” (Stereogum). “Duran Duran may have been the peak early-MTV group, the band whose flashy and pouty and colorful visual presence came to stand in for a generational shift in pop-music tastes. Perhaps because of that radical newness, it took a little while for American radio to embrace Duran Duran — or, at least, to embrace them tightly enough that one of their singles finally fought its way to #1. By the time that happened, Duran Duran had already started to bloat, and the giddy charge of their best records had begun to dissipate … already well into their tax-exile phase, spending too much money to overthink their drum sounds and to wonder whether they really wanted to cause any more teenybopper mob scenes …

Readers of this column have informed me that Birmingham, the town that birthed Black Sabbath and Electric Light Orchestra and Dexys Midnight Runners, is not, in fact, a Northern town, that it’s really a Midlands town. But wherever Birmingham exists on the English map, it’s not a particularly glamorous place. Thankfully, nobody told Duran Duran … ” (The band’s third studio album, 1984’s Seven and the Ragged Tiger), “isn’t breezily, gloriously ridiculous, the way that Rio was. Instead, it was ridiculous in some of the wrong ways.”

“The Reflex” begins in G minor, shifting to D major for the chorus (first heard from 1:22 – 1:51. Well, D major … more or less, since at several points during the section, there’s a prominent F major chord. In fact, F major is the final chord of the chorus, functioning as a bVII to the G minor verse as the bass line walks chromatically back up into its original key. As Stereogum summed it up: “… grand, ultra-produced, too big to fail.”

Jacob Collier | Summer Rain

“Now five albums into his career, it’s clear Jacob Collier is a once-in-a-generation musician,” (Undertone). “For anyone that’s been following him since he broke out via harmonically complex a capella covers on YouTube, that’s old news. In reality, it was clear from that very first album – Hideaway, toured solo with Jacob jumping around stage from drums to keys to double bass with the help of a loop pedal – that Collier isn’t like your average singer-songwriter, not even your average jazz musician. He plays everything brilliantly and effortlessly, all with Herculean powers of humility, and has an immense grasp of musical harmony in all its nuances. His insatiable urge to learn new instruments is matched by his appetite for a dizzying array of genres and a rare respect for music in all its nebulous forms: Djesse Vol. 4 (2024) has everything from choral ambience to cinematic pop and oppressive death metal – and that’s just track one. As a result, Djesse Vol. 4 is in turns awe-inspiringly virtuosic and discombobulating, as has Collier’s entire career up to this point.

‘Summer Rain’ is the pick of the ballads, Collier showcasing the depths of his lovesick tenderness before a soaring, delightfully uncomplicated finale that evokes Coldplay in ‘Fix You’ mode. It’s more proof that when Collier can successfully harness his immense talents into developing a single strong idea – like the Hulk trying not to smash everything he holds – the result can be stunning.”

Collier is joined by mandolinist/vocalist Chris Thile (best known for his work with Punch Brothers and Nickel Creek) and singer/songwriter/guitarist Madison Cunningham on vocals. Beginning in D major, the tune runs along a largely uncomplicated course for its first three-plus minutes. At 3:30, a bridge shifts to D minor before dropping into an unexpected C minor (3:58). By 4:29, the tonality has been pulled gradually back to its ultimate resting place — a return to D major.

Many thanks to Ellie D. for submitting this memorable track to MotD — hopefully not her last!

Renaissance | Touching Once (Is So Hard to Keep)

Renaissance is a prog rock band which frequently has amibtions which were symphonic in scope. Founded in the late 1960s, it’s been intermittently active through the present day; in fact, it’s currently on tour as of this writing! Its sound has centered primarily around the voice of Annie Haslam.

“Their album Prologue, released in 1972, (featured) extended instrumental passages and soaring vocals by Haslam,” (AllMusic). “Their breakthrough came with their next record, Ashes Are Burning, issued in 1973 … their next record, Turn of the Cards … had a much more ornate songwriting style and was awash in lyrics that alternated between the topical and the mystical. The group’s ambitions were growing faster than its audience, which was concentrated on America’s East Coast, especially in New York and Philadelphia — Scheherazade (1975) was built around a 20-minute extended suite for rock group and orchestra that dazzled the fans but made no new converts … The band’s next two albums, Novella and A Song for All Seasons, failed to find new listeners; as the 1970s closed out, the group was running headlong into the punk and new wave booms that made them seem increasingly anachronistic and doomed to cult status.” Several breakups and revivals followed over the next decades.

“Touching Once (Is So Hard to Keep),” a track from Novella (1977), starts with a short intro in E minor before settling into a verse in B minor (0:09). Plenty of quickly passing keys of the moment, further adorned and obscured with plentiful chromaticism, lead us to the next notable shift in tonality at the chorus (1:10), which starts in F major. 1:35 brings us back to the next verse in B minor. Pace yourself: the 9.5 minute track unfolds from there with an extended midsection loaded with twists and turns, then unfolds some more before ending with a half-time restatement of some of the opening sections.

Dexys Midnight Runners | Come On Eileen

“Context is a funny thing. In the UK, Dexys Midnight Runners were a troubled institution — a chaotic young band who couldn’t stop breaking apart and reforming and who still managed to tap into some dizzy zeitgeist more than once,” (Stereogum). “In the US, Dexys are classic one-hit wonders: Scraggly and goofy-looking British weirdos in overalls who were all over MTV for a couple of months and who then disappeared forever. On two sides of the Atlantic, this one band has two vastly different legacies.

But where ‘Come On Eileen’ is concerned, the greater context of Dexys Midnight Runners almost doesn’t matter. The effect was the same. ‘Come On Eileen’ was a #1 hit in both countries, and it remains a fondly remembered piece of pop-music history. You could revere “Come On Eileen” as a classic, or you could see it as an embarrassing little short-lived gimmick. Either way, when you’re three drinks deep and ‘Come On Eileen’ comes on at the bar, you’re singing along.

A big part of the charm of ‘Come On Eileen’ (1983) is Rowland’s voice. He’s clearly not the soul singer that he wants to be, but he doesn’t let that stop him. He yelps and wails as hard as he can, and his Northern English honk bulldozes through all the strings and horns around him. When “Come On Eileen” turns into a big mass singalong, it finds a certain drinking-song grandeur … it’s an elegantly written song about real, intense feelings, and it’s got a monster hook. Besides that, a mass singalong remains a joyous thing. I’ve had nights that were greatly improved by the existence of ‘Come On Eileen.’ You probably have, too.”

After beginning in C major for the intro and first verse, the chorus shifts up to D major at 1:07. At 1:28, the original key returns for an interlude mirroring the intro, then another verse. The two keys continue to alternate from there.

Jeff Beck + Rod Stewart | People Get Ready

“Jeff Beck and Rod Stewart played together in a band for roughly two years in the late ’60s, enjoying two Top 20 albums and several tours as part of the Jeff Beck Group,” (UltimateClassicRock). “But like a great many high-profile bands, success on the outside didn’t always translate to the inside. Riddled with disagreement among band members … the Jeff Beck Group split up in 1969. Stewart, for his part, found Beck to be an astounding musician but an incapable leader … ‘I never felt he was going to put an arm around someone and check that they were all right,’ Stewart wrote in his 2013 book, Rod: The Autobiography … Stewart continued with his solo career, as well as with a new band, Faces (which also included Wood), while Beck re-formed the Jeff Beck Group with new players and released solo music.” It was apparently a a musical break-up that was short on acrimony — just a mutual decision to go separate ways.

Years later, the two reunited and recorded a cover of Curtis Mayfield’s 1965 track “People Get Ready.” The cover “stalled at No. 48 in the U.S. and didn’t make the chart at all in the U.K. The album the song appeared on, Beck’s Flash (1985), reached No. 39 on the Billboard 200. Still, “People Get Ready” was “a moment of resolution for Stewart and Beck. ‘I was glad about doing [it],’ Beck later recalled. ‘Because people could see we didn’t hate each other. That it was all good, so to speak.’ … When Beck died in January 2023, Stewart shared his condolences online. ‘Jeff Beck was on another planet. He was one of the few guitarists that when playing live would actually listen to me sing and respond. Jeff, you were the greatest, my man. Thank you for everything.'”

Leading into a protracted guitar solo late in the tune, the track shifts up a half-step at 3:29 as Beck states the simple but compelling four-note hook. The amusing opening to the video shows Stewart writing a quick note to Beck: “Jeff, why not come to L.A. and take up the guitar professionally?”



Yes | I’ve Seen All Good People

“Yes’ ‘I’ve Seen All Good People’ (1971) is an unlikely rock masterpiece. The song, an arrangement of two separate pieces (‘Your Move’ by Jon Anderson and ‘All Good People’ by Chris Squire), contains many elements not commonly contained in rock music,” (Something Else Reviews). “The combination works in this case, however, producing the most-played Yes song in the band’s cannon.

‘I’ve Seen All Good People’ starts with a compelling three-part harmony a capella opening by Anderson, Squire and Howe. The Yes choir has never sounded so resolved … Instead of an electric power-chord introduction, Steve Howe utilizes a Portuguese guitar in a fleet-fingered opening to accompany Jon Anderson. His vivid lyrics are in turn buoyed only by the bass drum of Bill Bruford. In another unusual move, Yes utilizes a non-band member in Colin Goldring, whose recorder adds additional colors to the song. By this time, Anderson’s lyrics shift from person to spiritual: ‘ … ’cause his time is time in time with your time’ … The harmonies build to a powerful wave of voices … Tony Kaye’s Hammond organ joins over a background chorus, which references John Lennon’s classic ‘Give Peace a Chance’ … Howe provides a now-classic electric guitar solo … while Bill Bruford and Chris Squire continue to amp up Yes’ energy. By the coda of ‘I’ve Seen All Good People’ … you’ve experienced one the very best songs recorded by the world’s greatest progressive rock band.”

Beginning in E major, the track grows from the a cappella intro to a gentle first verse and onward from there, eventually expanding to an expansive pipe organ accompaniment. At 3:32, the second movement begins — at first apparently also in E major and built around a hard swing feel. The bass motion wanders all over the place, with passing hints that we’re continuing in E major, A major, or B major. But the most prominent feature is bass motion from E down to D natural and then down to C natural, ruling out any of those options. At 5:58, the grooveless outro features multiple downward modulations as the volume fades — along with any chance for a clear guidline on the tonality of the second movement!