Tag: USA

Plush | Soaring and Boring

“Liam Hayes is an accidental perfectionist. In hindsight, the Chicago-bred/Milwaukee-based songwriter’s disjointed two-decade trajectory — under his nom de pop Plush and, now, his birth name — was pretty much spelled out in the title of his early signature “Soaring and Boring”: high expectations followed by agonizingly long periods of inactivity,” (Pitchfork). “On the surface, Hayes’ backstory boasts all the hallmarks of a contrarian eccentric genius, whether he was answering the orch-pop promise of Plush’s splendorous 1994 debut single “Three-Quarters Blind Eyes”/”Found a Little Baby” with 1998’s starkly somber solo-piano effort More You Becomes You; tinkering with the symphono-soul follow-up Fed so much he had to release it in two different versions; or issuing certain albums in Japan only. But the uncommon lags between albums have mostly been a factor of Hayes losing his money rather than his mind, and trying to find sympathetic label backers to support a vision of tastefully constructed, soft-focus pop music that’s always been out of step with both mainstream and underground orthodoxies.”

“While it’s hip for contemporary pop acts to toss out Burt Bacharach’s name as an influence, few even remotely approximate the master’s melodic savvy, emotional resonance and simple elegance; Plush’s Liam Hayes comes much closer to the mark, with his debut More You Becomes You — an intimate, often gorgeous collection of piano ballads — recalling the handful of solo records Bacharach cut during the late 1960s,” (AllMusic). “Gentle yet disarming, the record’s only hint of irony is in its title — Hayes smartly favors a less-is-more approach, stripping his music of virtually everything but piano and vocals; both are more than adequate to convey the somber beauty which lends the album its seductive powers.”

Starting in A minor, “Soaring and Boring” (1998) drifts down to Ab minor at the 0:17 mark before rebounding at 0:26. The alternating pattern continues until 0:44, when the track settles into a longer patch of G minor during the chorus. More harmonic shifts continue from there.

Many thanks to regular contributor Ari S. for yet another distinctive submission to MotD!

Eagles | Already Gone

“Eagles were an ascendant country-rock band by 1974, with a handful of hits to their name,” (Ultimate Classic Rock). “With their third album, On the Border, they began courting the rock listeners they so desperately wanted to win over — beginning with the LP’s lead single, ‘Already Gone.'” The tune was “built around a rousing guitar riff from their newest member, Don Felder, and his and Glen Frey’s dueling solos.

… Released on April 19, 1974, ‘Already Gone’ peaked at #32 on the Billboard Hot 100 — no small feat, but one that paled in comparison to On the Border’s third single, the chart-topping ballad ‘Best of My Love'”

The track is built primary in G major, but after two verses, two choruses, the guitar feature, then another verse and chorus, 3:18 brings a late key change up a fourth to C major for the chorus-based outro.

The Jaggerz | The Rapper

“From the ‘Club Naturale’ in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, to Dick Clark’s American Bandstand, the homegrown band The Jaggerz paved their way to success … Among the band’s accolades, the Jaggerz received a gold record for having the number one song in the country,” (TribLive). “With sales exceeding 5 million copies, ‘The Rapper’ found itself being blasted all over the country.” The Jaggerz have performed with artists including The Beach Boys, The Temptations, The Supremes, The Dells, Tommy James, and B.J. Thomas and released four albums.

After a nominal start in A major, the entire verse of “The Rapper” (1970) is constructed from major chords (A, B, D, and E), so it’s essentially a parade of keys of the moment. From 0:35-0:51, there’s a shift to F# major for the chorus before a return to the next verse’s cavalcade of keys.

The Slim Kings | We’ll Be Alright

“Hailing from the most acclaimed corners of the music industry, Brooklyn-based supergroup The Slim Kings — comprised of iconic drummer Liberty DeVitto (Billy Joel), renowned singer/guitarist MSB (40+ syncs), and top R&B session bassist Andy Attanasio (Black Thought) — come together with a vintage soul sound that takes you on a journey,” (Rough Trade).

“With fans like Jimmy lovine and Mark Ronson, and producers like Nick Movshon (Bruno Mars) and Steve Jordan (The Rolling Stones) – it’s music for people who just love music. With a recent boom on TikTok and a full length album, SUPERLOVE … The Slim Kings are proof that good vibes are contagious.”

2025’s “We’ll Be Alright” features a sepia-toned soul sound overlaid with a small side order of psychedelic wah pedal. The track starts in an E minor which briefly steps out of line here and there. At 2:25, a primarily instrumental bridge pivots us into F minor at 2:39.

Charlie Rich | A Very Special Love Song

“Charlie Rich did not start his career in country music,” (Saving Country Music). “After leaving the Air Force in 1956, he purchased a 500-acre farm in West Memphis, Arkansas, and would drive over the Mississippi River bridge at night to play piano in jazz and R&B outfits in Memphis clubs. Eventually he ended up at Sun Studios in Memphis as a studio musician. Sam Phillips didn’t see him as a performer though, chiding that Rich was too jazzy. At one point, Sam Phillips handed Charlie Rich a stack of Jerry Lee Lewis records and told him, ‘Come back when you get that bad.’

For years Charlie Rich struggled as a performer since he wasn’t dirty enough for rockabilly or country, and not distinctive enough to make it in the world of pop. But when the Countrypolitan sound became all the rage in country music, it gave Charlie Rich an opening. Where some more hard country artists struggled to perfect the more genteel Countrypolitan approach, Charlie Rich’s balladeer style and smoothness fit the era perfectly.”

Though it didn’t reach the popular heights of his biggest single, “Behind Closed Doors,” 1974’s “A Very Special Love Song” is among Rich’s best-known tracks. After starting in C major, the tune features a bridge in Bb, running between 1:16 – 1:44. After the bridge, the original key returns.

Jonatha Brooke | Landmine

“Jonatha Brooke started off as one half of The Story, with Jennifer Kimball,” (Tuesday Morning 3 a.m.) “The duo made lovely, complex acoustic pop music, but the best songs were Brooke’s, so it was no surprise that when she went solo with Plumb, she made a perfect pop record … It was her fourth album, 10 Cent Wings, however, that truly established her as a formidable songwriting voice. It’s one of those records on which each song, as it’s playing, is your favorite. It takes retrospection to find a standout track.

MCA Records had no idea what to do with an album this good … 10 Cent Wings languished unpromoted, a common story with an increasingly common result: Brooke bailed on major labels all together. (in 2000) she followed Aimee Mann, another literate pop songwriter with a history of uncooperative record companies, into the realm of independent distribution … Despite how difficult it must have been to watch an album like 10 Cent Wings wither on the vine, Jonatha Brooke has delivered on her own confidence. She’s proven throughout her career that if one group of songs doesn’t bring her the recognition she deserves, she can always write more that are just as good. That’s something no label executive could ever do.”

“Landmine,” a doleful track from 1997’s 10 Cent Wings, begins in D minor. The chorus shifts to D major at 0:46. But not before travelling through a short pre-chorus in E minor (0:31 – 0:46) featuring little more than a tritone bass line (’nuff said) and vocal melody. Starting at 1:21, the pattern repeats. Even when chorus’ sunnier tonality arrives, the lyrics are still downcast:

Was it that you wanted that I didn’t understand
The boomerang of expectation’s back to bite the hand

And I give my love to you
And you / You walk away too soon

Hall + Oates | Love You Like a Brother

Psychologists say that contempt is the #1 indicator of a future divorce. For anyone wondering why Hall and Oates (the best-selling pop duo of all time) broke up a few years ago, here’s an excerpt from an Popdose interview (September 2009):

“Me (interviewer): You two have been making music together for nearly 40 years. What do you consider to be the secret to your success?

Oates: Well, Daryl and I have a healthy balance of give and—

Hall: (interrupting) Take one-fourth of John and three-fourths of me and you’ve got the winning formula. We’re the Beatles of the post-Woodstock generation, no question. It was the same with them in their day: three-fourths Lennon and McCartney, one-fourth George, and one-fourth Ringo.” …

The interview continued along these lines, with Oates walking out at one point. You do the math.

In any case, “Love You Like a Brother” from 1977’s No Goodbyes, was clearly released during better times. The intro (0:00 – 0:16), in D minor, repeats as an interlude (1:20 – 1:32). But the majority of the tune is in G major.

Pablo Cruise | Love Will Find a Way

“For the longest time I assumed Pablo Cruise took their name from an obscure Mexican revolutionary leader. This is not the case,” (The Vinyl District). “Others assumed there was a guy named Pablo Cruise in the band. This is also not the case. When asked ‘Who’s Pablo Cruise?’ the quartet said simply, ‘He’s the guy in the middle.’ I like a band with a sense of humor and I like Pablo Cruise (in a very small measure) and I am not ashamed.

Robert Christgau of Village Voice fame wrote of Pablo Cruise’s 1975 breakthrough album Lifeline, ‘You can take the Doobie Brothers out of the country, but you can’t turn them into Three Dog Night.’ I haven’t the slightest idea what this means, but I’m pretty sure it’s an insult … But if Pablo Cruise get no respect, that’s not to say they don’t deserve a smallish modicum of the commodity … The Pablo Cruise sound was a melting pot of faux soul, power pop, standard issue Yacht Rock, funk, fusion, Latin music, and New Wave even.” The critics might have panned the tune, but the public loved it: the track reached #6 on the pop charts in 1978.

The intro and verses are built in G mixolydian; the verse melody, given its repeated prominent flatted-seventh degree of the scale, is practically a poster child for the mixolydian mode! The sunnier choruses (first heard from 0:47 – 1:07) are in D major.

Jackson 5 | Mama’s Pearl

“Let’s go back to the end of the 60s. Motown needed to modernize their sound. The company had been showing its first hairline fractures as public mores shifted to albums rather than the singles on which it had built its reputation,” (BBC). “But then, the Jackson 5 came along and became the label’s big thing for the new decade. Well drilled in performance for several years previously, they burst on to the world stage with eagerness and vitality – and genuine youth.”

“‘Mama’s Pearl’ was the fifth single released by the Jackson 5 and the first release by the boys for 1971. 1970 proved to be the year of success for the Jackson 5.” (J5 Collector). “With four back-to-back number one hits, three top pop albums, numerous TV appearances, and a successful tour, what more could the boys ask for?” Here’s the most profoundly 70s pop trivia you’ll see today: “Mama’s Pearl” was kept from the #1 slot on the pop charts by the Osmonds’ “One Bad Apple”!

The intro is initially in F major, with a second section in Ab major, complete with an eighth-note walking bass pattern so compelling that it could drive the whole tune by itself. At 1:19, there’s a shift back to the original key as the verse starts. The alternating pattern continues from there.

Utopia | Mated

“Todd Rundgren’s music has always been an acquired taste. His chart hits have felt like flukes, strange cracks in the system,” (PopShifter). “You aren’t supposed to know who Todd Rundgren is. He leads a cult that resides so far underground, they may as well be Morlocks. One of the reasons for this status is Rundgren’s musical twitchiness. He jumps from style to style, from Philly white-boy blues to synth-pop, from down and dirty rock and roll to salsa. Never knowing what he’ll do next is exciting for some, laborious for others.

In the late Seventies, Rundgren formed a band called Utopia. It was designed to be his big foray into progressive rock, exploring grand concepts and incorporating deep philosophical lyrics. As it gradually shrank from seven members to four, Utopia became one of the sharpest New Wave bands of its time, delivering perfect three-minute pop songs, deliciously textured with soaring, shifting harmonies. Utopia was never as gritty as The Cars or as raunchy as Blondie. It’s feasible to consider them as a bridge between New Wave and the New Romantics, with their ‘Shape of Things to Come’ fashion sense and lyrics ranging from sweet to snappy.”

1985’s POV featured cover art with a theme of military world domination; unfortunately, that was a concept completely at odds with reality. As the band faced flagging sales and the confusion and frustration of sustained troubles with several floundering and even failing boutique record labels, the album became Utopia’s last. “Mated” begins with a verse in F minor; the first chorus (0:52) shifts to Eb major. That pattern continues through the second verse and chorus; from 2:32-2:55, the bridge climbs to a new chorus in F major.