Tag: USA

Barry Manilow | Looks Like We Made It

” … there’s a good chance you’re Facebook friends with your ex. But in 1977, when people still had to run into their exes at parties or whatever, that feeling still got a drippy Barry Manilow ballad dedicated to it,” (Stereogum). “Around the time that Barry Manilow got to #1 with 1976’s ‘I Write The Songs,’ he apparently figured out what the world wanted from him. He could sing silly, frisky, jazzy numbers, but those songs weren’t what the world wanted from him. They wanted big, grand, feelings-on-display adult-contempo ballads full of pianos and woodwinds and showy Broadway notes.

… you can hear that formula at work on ‘Looks Like We Made It,’ Manilow’s third and final #1. As with (his) two previous #1 hits, Manilow didn’t write ‘Looks Like We Made It.’ Instead, the song’s music came from Richard Kerr, the pianist who’d already co-wrote the 1975 #1 ‘Mandy.’ (No surprise that it sounds a whole lot like ‘Mandy.’) The lyrics, meanwhile, were written by Will Jennings, a ballad specialist … Manilow’s got an impressive voice, and he’s not shy about showing it off. He and producer Ron Dante pile on the strings, which makes for a whole lot of big, crashing moments.”

After a start in C major, a short bridge at 2:28 starts sweetly, continues with the piled-on strings mentioned above, and ends with the drummer sounding like the host of an “instrumental petting zoo” at an elementary school. After pulling out all the stops, 2:44 opens the curtains, shines the spotlights, and sounds the figurative trumpet fanfare as the new key of Db major arrives.

Roy Orbison | (Oh) Pretty Woman

Released by Roy Orbison in 1964 and co-written by Orbison and Bill Dees, “Oh, Pretty Woman” was later covered by Del Shannon, Al Green, Van Halen, Chris Isaak, Pomplamoose, and many others across multiple decades. Clocking in at less than three minutes, the tune became a #1 pop hit for Orbison in both the US and the UK. In fact, “in 1964, Orbison was the only American artist to have a #1 UK hit, and he did it twice — with ‘(Oh) Pretty Woman’ and ‘It’s Over'” (Songfacts).

“This was Orbison’s last big hit,” Songfacts continues. “His career faded fast, but was revived in the ’80s when prominent musicians like Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, and George Harrison cited him as an influence and invited him to join various projects. He was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and joined The Traveling Wilburys with Dylan, Tom Petty, Harrison and Jeff Lynne. As he was enjoying this career revival, he died of a heart attack on December 6, 1988 at age 52.”

Starting in A major, the chorus shifts to C major at 1:06 before reverting to the original key at 1:34; the pattern then repeats.

Sub-Radio | Better Than That

“Better Than That” was included on the 2019 EP Dog Years, released by the Washington D.C.-based pop band Sub-Radio. Comprised of six members, the group gained wider recognition during the pandemic after they began live-streaming on Reddit, and they are currently touring.

The song begins in Eb and shifts up to F at 2:22 for the final chorus.

Tommy James + the Shondells | Crystal Blue Persuasion

“Some songs are written specifically for films or TV shows,” (American Songwriter) “Then there are those songs that seem like they’re tailor-made for just about any kind of filmed production. ‘Crystal Blue Persuasion,’ a mellow masterpiece from 1969 by Tommy James and the Shondells, falls into that latter category. … James proved to be a steady hitmaker for Roulette Records from the mid-60s on, deftly straddling the line between garage rock and bubblegum pop like few of his era. ‘As a songwriter, you’re always looking for interesting word combinations and stuff. And the title of this poem was Crystal Persuasion. I just thought that was a fascinating title. I had no idea what it meant, but it sounded very profound.’

Dozens of filmmakers have taken their turns interpreting “Crystal Blue Persuasion” pretty much since it first hit the Top 5 in 1969 … Tommy James is all right with all of it. ‘On Breaking Bad, it meant crystal meth,’ he laughs. ‘But I guess you take it where you can get it. I can’t believe the reach that song has had over the years. It’s really a magical little record …’”

The half-step modulation at 2:27 is preceded only by a hand percussion break — no surprise there, as the track had no drum set in its instrumentation. A feature probably intended for album listeners, as opposed to the radio audience, is a surprising double-time section at 3:36, which amps up the energy just as the volume fades; most DJs likely didn’t play the tune to the very end.

Ariana Grande & Kid Cudi | Just Look Up (from “Don’t Look Up”)

“Just Look Up” is an original single written and performed by Ariana Grande and Kid Cudi for the Oscar-nominated 2021 movie Don’t Look Up. The songwriters and other members of the film’s creative team, including director Adam McKay and Nicholas Brittell, who is also nominated for his score, discussed the song a behind-the-scenes video.

The tune starts out in A and shifts up to Bb major in a standard direct modulation at 2:42.

Harold Hopkins | Glamour Girl

RareSoulMan.com describes Harold Hopkins as “a mysterious artist with a sublime vocal style … Texas Northern Soul offering not one but two sides of slick finger-snapping … showcasing an expressive vocal … only recording this one record under the name Harold Hopkins.”

“Where most soul genres are named for either the region that the music where the music was created, or for the sound of the music, Northern Soul is named after where the music was played — in dance clubs in northern Britain,” (AllMusic). “During the early ’70s, once the Mods had run out of steam and prog rock was ruling the landscape, there were a handful of underground dance clubs that played nothing but ’60s soul records, and they weren’t any ordinary oldies. Instead, the DJs at these clubs were obsessive collectors, finding the most obscure American soul singles. Usually, these records sounded like Motown, Chicago soul, or New York soul, but they were records by unknown or underappreciated performers.”

“Glamour Girl” (1965) might not have received much notice, but it is quintessential mid-1960s soul nonetheless. The key change is at 1:40.


Grace Potter | Love Is Love

American singer Grace Potter released her third solo album, Daylight, in 2019, featuring “Love Is Love” as the first track. “Daylight is an incredibly unfiltered musical expression of who I want to be,” Potter said in an interview with Billboard. “It’s a journal. It’s really personal. It’s a very powerful feeling to become a mother, to fall in love and also to watch and experience love falling apart and say goodbye to an entire era of your life.”

The tune begins in Ab and shifts up a step to Bb following the second chorus at 1:54.

The Reign of Kindo | The Man, the Wood + the Stone

“Play with Fire is The Reign of Kindo’s third full length record,” (CandyRat Records). “… music that pinpoints the middle ground between a respect for past greats and a boldness to pave tomorrow. This is, quite modestly, the definition of The Reign of Kindo. Citing influences from Dave Brubeck to Ben Folds to Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto to John Mayer, there’s not a degree of pomposity in this sound, just an honesty in the group’s craft to blend such diverse influences into an identity.”

Perhaps some of the highest possible praise for this eclectic indie/prog/jazz/rock/etc. band comes from Sputnik Music: “… me and my dad can listen together in the car without one of us saying ‘God, this sucks.'”

Starting in A minor, “The Man, the Wood and the Stone” (2013) is full of harmonic pivots. At 2:01, we’ve shifted to Db major; 2:19, C major; 2:30, A major … accelerating and building from there. Other than a difference in meter, the final melodic phrases of the album-closing track (3:24) mirror the first phrases of the opening track, “The Hero, The Saint, The Tyrant, & The Terrorist” — weighty bookends for a wide-ranging album.

Belinda Carlisle | Heaven is a Place on Earth

Belinda Carlisle, lead singer of the girl group synonymous with early 1980s pop, The Go-Go’s, later left for a solo career. Stereogum reports that in December 1987, “Carlisle had the #1 single in America, and she had it with a fiercely, fervently, almost defiantly mainstream song. Carlisle’s big hit is a simple, straightforward love song built around terms so overstated that they cross over into actual religious territory. In the video, Carlisle makes out with her husband, a Hollywood scion who was once part of the Republican political machine … (In the decade proceeding the hit), Belinda Carlisle went full normie. Along the way, though, she made a hell of an impact.”

“‘Heaven Is a Place on Earth’ is a glimmering, expensive-sounding pop record, with that shiny-synth/big-drum thing that you hear on practically every successful record of the era … On his Hit Parade podcast a couple of years ago, Chris Molanphy points out that (songwriters Rick Nowels and Ellen Shipley) took that trick from Bon Jovi, who’d used it on ‘You Give Love A Bad Name.’ Later on, that chorus-up-front move became a go-to trick for late-’90s boy-band producers. It’s some effective shit! When a chorus is big enough, there’s no need to be subtle about it. You can just bludgeon it directly into somebody’s brain before the song even starts.” Songwriter Ellen Shipley sang backup on the song, as did Diane Warren and Michelle Phillips (of The Mamas and The Papas fame); synth-driven songwriter and music tech groundbreaker Thomas Dolby served as a session keyboardist for the track. Stereogum continues: “You almost certainly can’t pick out those individual voices or keyboard tones … but you can definitely hear that there’s money in the song … it’s the sound of ’80s blockbuster pop cranked all the way up to full power. It sounds like Top Gun.”

After a start in E major, 3:23 brings an unprepared shift upward to F# major — if “unprepared” is a broad enough term to include a bombastic instrumental chorus (starting at 3:09), plenty of percussion pyrotechnics, an insistent re-statement of the keyboard hook, and a 2/4 bar thrown into the 4/4 mix to bring us to the key change with the g-force of a hairpin rollercoaster turn.

Charlie Puth | Through It All

“Through It All” is the last track on American singer Charlie Puth’s 2018 album Voicenotes. In an interview with Billboard, Puth described the sound of the album as “like walking down a dirt road and listening to New Edition in 1989 — and being heartbroken, of course.” The album was nominated for a Grammy and reached the #4 spot on the Billboard 200.

The track begins in A and has a standard direct modulation up to B at 2:39.