Tag: USA

Utopia | Rock Love

“Released just after Christmas in December 1979, (Adventures in Utopia) featured ten songs … as a collection of songs from a group with four writers, it was Utopia’s most balanced songwriting effort to date (MusoScribe) … Time has dimmed some of the band’s recollections about the genesis of Adventures in Utopia, but there’s a general agreement that it was devised in part as a kind of audio answer to the concept of a television pilot. The group had recently built its own multimedia production studio in upstate New York, and had hoped that the album would serve as a calling card for more work in that regard.

Those ambitions aside, Adventures holds together as a suite of songs … credited to the group as a whole, so it’s difficult to know who’s responsible for what … the biggest surprise of all would be ‘Set Me Free.’ The bouncy pop song would be the biggest hit Utopia ever scored; it reached #27 on the U.S. singles charts. On the strength of that single, Adventures in Utopia did well on the album charts as well, making it all the way to the #30 spot in 1980.”

Written primarily in a driving C minor, a contrasting bridge in D minor arrives at 2:08, followed by an instrumental verse in F minor at 2:24. After a grand pause, the tune returns for another pre-chorus and chorus in C minor at 2:59. This live 1982 performance shows the band hitting on all of its power-pop cylinders. The three-part backing vocals are demanding and nearly constant. Bassist/vocalist Kasim Sulton pitches in with a vengeance on guitar and the considerable bass duties are handled by keyboardist Roger Powell, freeing up frontman Todd Rundgren to testify sans six-string from just about every free square inch of the stage.

Chris Tomlin | Crown Him (Majesty)

“Crown Him (Majesty)” is featured on American Christian singer Chris Tomlin’s 2013 album Burning Lights. “I want people to feel it in their guts when they sing a song like “Crown Him” or “Thank You God For Saving Me” or “Whom Shall I Fear?” Tomlin said in an interview with Worship Leader magazine. “I just want that to come out of their guts. That’s what we’re trying to do in these songs and really capture the emotion and write them in a way that is singable for people.”

The track, which also features singer Kari Jobe, modulates from Db up to Eb at 4:20.

Yellowjackets | It’s Almost Gone

A nearly criminally overdue MotD debut for Yellowjackets, a band which was centrally important to the sound of jazz fusion in the 1980s and has continued its work into the 2020s. “Most contemporary jazz or instrumental pop albums released over the past 25 years owe one thing or another to the style and sound advanced by this 1981 (self-titled) debut (AllAboutJazz.com) … keyboardist, composer and arranger Russell Ferrante pulled drummer Ricky Lawson and bassist Jimmy Haslip into his fledgling swarm … ‘It wasn’t like the earlier fusion of the Mahavishnu Orchestra and Return to Forever, which was a very chopped kind of rock sound,’ recalls Ferrante. ‘We were influenced by fusion that was more melodic and compositional.'”

“A leading crossover jazz outfit, Yellowjackets found success combining polished funk and R&B grooves with a strong post-bop- and fusion-influenced sound (AllMusic) … In addition to their commercial success, they picked up accolades including the Grammy for R&B Instrumental Performance for “And You Know That” off 1986’s Shades, and the Grammy for Jazz Fusion Performance for 1989’s Politics. The band’s ability to balance crossover appeal with a dedication to improvisational excellence has attracted top-level players over the years.”

“… Ferrante introduces and closes ‘It’s Almost Gone’ with sadly beautiful solo piano,” (AllAboutJazz) but the tune’s midsection is something entirely different. The track begins in F# minor, with the bass line descending in alternating major and minor thirds. At 0:14, an identical pattern starts, but this time in G# minor. The pattern continues as a rangy melody is added at 0:30. A “B” section provides contrast from 1:33 – 1:53 before the initial F# minor section returns — this time with a 6/8 groove, complete with an insistent syncopated overlay, until a gentle outro mirrors the feel of the track’s opening.

Tori Amos | Happy Phantom

An extremely overdue MotD debut for Tori Amos: “‘Happy Phantom’ was written and recorded during the first phase of creating Little Earthquakes. … (It) was included on both a cassette tape Tori submitted for copyright in June 1990 and the original rejected version of Little Earthquakes in December that year,” (ToriPedia). “In the Little Earthquakes songbook, Tori noted that ‘when the songs began showing up I wrote their names on separate envelopes and made a faery ring in the middle of the house. I’d sit in the middle of the ring to focus on a song’s direction. All of the songs seemed to work toward the completeness of the other. They decided we needed to hang out with death for awhile.'”

Amos’ first major-label release, Y Kant Tori Read, saw her fronting a synth-pop band of the same name during the late 1980s. The album “sunk without a trace; she had to dig deep inside herself, in her search for her true identity,” (Songfacts). “She told Rolling Stone this meant killing her old self: ‘To talk about death was really important on Little Earthquakes because there was a part of me had to die. The image that I had created for whatever reason, had to die.'”

“Happy Phantom,” is largely built in Bb major, but erupts into a surprising instrumental interlude in G major (1:45 – 1:57), then pivots around a bit more until returning to familiar territory at 2:14. Wrapping up by returning to Bb major, the tune then falls off the edge of the earth during a few formless closing bars.

Dusty Springfield | Son of a Preacher Man

Included on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, “Son of a Preacher Man” has been recorded by Elvis Presley, Joss Stone, and Foo Fighters, among others.

English singer Dusty Springfield’s cover, included on her 1968 album Dusty in Memphis, is by far the most well-known. The song tells the story of a young girl who runs away with and falls in love with the preacher’s son. The industry magazine Cash Box wrote in 1968 that “the track is “brim-full of the special southern-combo sound and a vocal strongly influenced by Aretha [Franklin].”

The song begins in E and modulates up to A for the last chorus at 1:44

Jay and the Americans | She Cried

“Early-’60s rock & roll albums are a funny animal — no one, not critics or fans, ever really knew what to make of them, mostly because they were usually so superfluous to how we knew and understood the artists involved,” (Qobuz). “Except for Elvis Presley, who still commanded a lot of attention even as he began what ultimately proved to be the downward arc (in terms of quality) of his movie career, no one ever heard the album tracks except the most serious, dedicated fans, who were a tiny, almost microscopic portion of the audience. It wasn’t until the Beach Boys began surprising people with album cuts that were almost good enough to be singles that audiences started to given them a wider listen, though it took the Beatles — who stirred insatiable demand from fans and whose albums met the same standard as their singles — to drive the sale numbers up to significant levels.

Until then, you had fine LPs like She Cried (1962), Jay & the Americans’ debut LP, fine efforts that most fans never heard or even knew about. A Leiber & Stoller production, it reflected their other work of the period, including the group’s covers of then-current Drifters/Ben E. King hits, and also reflected the influence of Phil Spector …”

The title track was the group’s first major hit. Built around a I major / bVII major vamp, the track’s slightly off-kilter instrumental verse (1:45 – 2:02), with strings front and center, leads us to a late whole-step modulation. The single reached #5 on the US pop charts and was the first of four US Top 10 hits for the group.

Patti Page | [How Much Is That] Doggie in the Window

“[How Much Is That] Doggie In The Window?” written by composer/lyricist Bob Merrill, was made famous by Patti Page, the best-selling female vocalist of the 1950s. The track stayed at number one on the Billboard charts for eight weeks and was the third best-selling song of 1953. It begins in G, slides up to Ab at 1:37, and A at 2:00.

The Offspring | Self Esteem

“The Offspring is perhaps the quintessential SoCal punk band of the 1990s — survivors of the 1980s hardcore scene who revamped themselves for the heavier alt-rock era … ” (AllMusic). “The group released their second album, Ignition, on Epitaph in 1992 but it was 1994’s Smash and its accompanying singles ‘Come Out and Play (Keep Em Separated)’ and ‘Self Esteem’ that pushed the band toward blockbuster national success.

Shortly afterward, the Offspring made the leap to the major labels and continued a streak of snotty, satirical alt-rock hits such as ‘Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)’ and ‘Why Don’t You Get a Job?’ that kept the group squarely in the hard rock mainstream through the 2000s.”

“Self Esteem” spends most of its runtime in A minor, including its “snotty” wordless a capella intro, verses, and choruses. But a bridge (1:59 – 2:35) suddenly jumps up to D minor before reverting to the original key. At 3:39, the D minor section repeats, seemingly falling back into A minor only for the last beat (the tune cuts off abruptly on the first beat of a measure).

Steely Dan | Two Against Nature

“When Steely Dan released Two Against Nature on a leap year’s February 29 (2000) … (then their first album in two decades), critics instantly adored it,” (Esquire). “‘What makes [the album] work isn’t its cerebral ellipticity but its stunning musical clarity,’ Rolling Stone wrote in their review at the time. ‘It is a showcase for what Steely Dan’s core twosome can do—reluctant guitar god Becker remains a fluid, precise player, while Fagen covers the keyboard waterfront with a variety of jazz and R&B styles.’ ‘We might just want to jump into the disc and let the duo take us away from all this teen choreography,” Entertainment Weekly mused in their own take. ‘Even if their particular Shangri-la is peopled by perverts, creeps, miscreants, and clavinets.’

The album, dark, strange, and a near 180 musical degrees from plastic pop that was dominating the charts at the time — think Britney Spears, *NSYNC, Backstreet Boys, and Destiny’s Child — cracked the Top 10 on the all-genre Billboard 200 and the Top 20 on the UK counterpart.”

The angular title track is built in either a very big, very subdivided 3/4 or a swiftly-flowing 6/8, relentlessly accented and driven by two handclap-like hits in the last third of each measure of the intro and verse. The percussion smooths out during the chorus, which shifts from Ab up a tritone to E (first heard at 1:24 – 1:40). Both sections keep the color of the keys somewhat fluid, with both major and minor third degrees mixed in. The pattern continues from there, with the exception of a meandering interlude/instrumental bridge from 2:36 – 3:28. Some neat harmonic tricks for sure, but considering the source, they’re more like routine.

Selena | Dreaming of You

“Selena Quintanilla-Pérez’s first album featuring songs in the English language was conceived to establish the young ‘Queen of Tejano’ music, who already at 23 was a Latina icon, as a star in the mainstream American market,” (UDiscoverMusic). “When it was released, Dreaming of You surpassed even the wildest of expectations. It became the first album by a Latin artist to debut at number one on the Billboard 100. Sales in its first week, according to Soundscan, made Selena second only to Michael Jackson as the artist with the fastest-selling album of 1995. The headline on one Associated Press article soon after the album’s release proclaimed that Dreaming of You ‘finally makes Selena a national star.’ All of this success came in the wake of tragedy.” Selena was murdered by a colleague in March 1995 just shy of her 24th birthday.

“Dreaming of You was packaged as a tribute, with the inclusion of the Tex-Mex-flavored pop hits in Spanish that brought Selena Latin music stardom while she was alive, like ‘Amor Prohibido,’ ‘Bidi Bidi Bom Bom,’ and ‘Como la Flor.’ With those songs, Selena had already refreshed the mariachi and Mexican polka styles of South Texas for a bicultural generation of young Latinas who recognized them as their own.”

Two verses and two choruses in Ab major pass before a bridge in Eb minor, heavy on syncopation, changes up the mood a bit (2:22 – 2:46). Another verse and chorus arrive via a prominent rising bassline, delivering us into Bb major.