This question derived from a thought experiment I ran through in my head. I go in for an interview for a music teaching job. In the interview, I argue that popular music needs to be taught to students because it is relevant, engaging, and meaningful. The principal looks at me and says, “Prove it. Show me a pop song that is valuable.” Below are 5 possible answers I could give. It is by no means a definitive or all-inclusive list. These are just songs that came off the top of my head that are familiar to me. I tried to pick songs that vary in style, complexity, and listenability…though I am missing a few genres (50s rock, 80s pop, etc).
I am going to use the criteria from my previous post to analyze these pop songs. More specifically: rhythm, timbre, and lyrical content. Does that mean I’m not going to talk about things like form, harmony, and counterpoint? No, because these things will surely exist in pop music even though they are not the focus. And I apologize in advance if my analysis seems to be coming through a classical music lens (i.e. if I sound too pretentious). This is my way of expressing how much I love listening to this music. All that I am trying to do is take the things you already hear subconsciously and bringing them to light, and I might enlist the help of some fancy music theory terms in the process. And no, I don’t think it is wrong to break apart these pop songs like I am doing. Some people have a major problem equating pop music with thinking. Since when is it wrong to ask questions and dig a little deeper into something, even with something that’s billed as being simple and easy to listen to? Isn’t there value in finding out how and why the artist makes the songs the way they do? And I really don’t believe it will make you love the music any less in the end.
By the way, I might create some lesson plans to go along with these songs later. It would be cool to figure out specific activities to help engage students in the critical listening process. (Yes, this is what I do for fun apparently).
1. Britney Spears, “Hold It Against Me”
In terms of well-produced pop music, Britney is at the top of the pile. Listen to the treatments on her voice. There is a subtle echo delay starting at 0:29, tight harmonies at 0:42, and a cool effect where her voice shifts from the center of the mix to the very outside (left and right) edges of the speakers during the chorus at 0:58. Listen to how “colorful” the song is in terms of sound effects and timbres. I love the “twinkling” synthesizer sound at 2:24 that pans left and right through the speakers (it’s hard to hear, but it’s there). Oh, did you hear that little shift in the bass line at 1:52? I haven’t even talked about the mind blowing section at 2:45. All of this is the “music production” aspect of pop music I talked about in my previous post. Even with the melody being ridiculously simplistic, do you see how complex this production makes the music? If you want to hear another incredible example of music production, check out her song “Toxic”.
(As a side tangent, don’t even give me the “Britney doesn’t produce or write her own songs so that makes her music less valuable” spiel. If you want to fight me on this, wait. I promise I will dedicate an entire blog post about that very issue.)
The music production isn’t the only thing that makes this song great. It has an incredible build to it. When the first chorus hits at 0:57, you expect a huge beat to drop. You can just feel it. Instead, the song plays with our expectations and the beat practically evaporates. The beat doesn’t drop when the chorus comes back around at 2:09 either. At 2:45 comes the standard section in every pop song: the bridge. The goal of the bridge is just as it sounds: to provide some transitional material to link the 2nd chorus with the 3rd chorus. If anything, 2:45 sounds like Britney missed the bridge and fell off a cliff. The song takes a stylistic left turn and breaks down into a heavy, dub step influenced section. It’s practically a whole new song. After becoming weightless at 3:29 the song starts to rev up at 3:43. Finally at 3:58 the song hits the big climax; the massive beat we have been waiting for all along drops in for the 3rd and final chorus. This is not how a normal pop/club/dance track works. Not to hate on Katy Perry, but compare the structure of this song to the structure of “Firework”. See the difference?
One last thing (this is turning into a dissertation on Britney). On their own, the lyrics of the song seem straightforward: a girl in a club wants to leave and fool around with a dude. Now watch the music video and put the lyrics in this context. I think the song takes on a much deeper meaning. Look at all the cameras and TV screens engulfing Britney. Also look at the blatant product placement. It is an exaggerated metaphor of the celebrity culture that surrounds Britney, and it’s almost as if Britney is being apologetic about it. Britney is asking if we will “hold it against her” if she acts the way she does in front of the camera (“you might think I’m crazy, but I’m just your type”). I sense that to a certain degree she is conflicted over herself. She desperately wants to “escape the crowd somehow” and leave her celebrity life. This struggle between her celebrity self and her “real self” is literally depicted as she fights her doppelganger towards the end of the video. The video ends with the image of a big, colorful question mark, asking us for the final time if we (as the outside observers of the celebrity world) will “hold it against her”.
2. The Beatles, “Here Comes the Sun”
Like much of The Beatles’ music, this song has an instant likeability factor. It is happy, warm, and optimistic. As a matter of fact, it is such a breezy and carefree song you might mistake it for being simplistic. Beneath the surface, however, there are a lot of clever things happening.
First, put some headphones in and listen to how the instruments are panned. The guitar is all the way to the far left. The synthesizer at 0:59 is also on the far left and combines with the sound of the guitar to make a complex timbre. The drums are placed slightly to the right. The strings are placed 50% right, George Harrison’s vocals are placed 70% right, and the harmony vocals sung by John and Paul are placed to the far right (100%).
The part starting at 1:30 has numerous things going on. There is a sequence of tricky time signature changes: three bars of 3/8, one bar of 2/8, one bar of 4/4, and one bar of 7/8. Normally this kind of sequence would mean a giant guitar solo from John Petrucci was on the way. But that wouldn’t fit here, would it? The secret lies in Ringo’s drumming: he makes the time changes sound effortless (props for Ringo). Another thing about this little sequence is that it repeats six times in a row. Our interest is held because a new element is added each time. The instruments are alone the first time and the singing is added the second. During the last four times, synthesizer sounds with radically different timbres are added for each repetition.
At 2:12 there is a cool web of counterpoint going on. George is singing the melody line. The guitar is playing the melody line along with George, but it is ever so slightly altered. This slight discrepancy, combined with the unique voice-guitar timbre combination, is pretty nifty. (Obviously, vocals and guitar together are nothing special. But the fact that the guitar is playing the melody and not accompanying with a different part is kind of unique. The Beatles did this a lot…a great example is on “I Want You”). On top of all this, there is a counter melody woven in with the high pitched synthesizer. All of this taken as a whole is moderately complex, but it sounds so carefree we don’t even notice. And that’s the way it should be.
3. Talking Heads, “(Nothing But) Flowers”
Another light hearted, island-y sounding song. Unlike “Here Comes the Sun”, however, there is a discrepancy between the music and the lyrical content. On the surface, the lyrics are describing a paradise or a utopia (“waterfalls, Garden of Eden”). The meaning begins to shift with lines such as “there was a factory, now there are mountains and rivers”. We come to learn the song is about a man coming to grips in a post-apocalyptic, society-less world. Although the world is beautiful in a return-to-nature sort of way, the man longs for trivial things from his past (“I miss the honky tonks, Dairy Queens, and 7-Elevens”). He ultimately concludes that he can’t handle life in the wilderness, remarking “don’t leave me stranded here, I can’t get use to this lifestyle”. There is an even darker message that serves as a clear warning for the future of our own culture: “and as things fell apart, nobody paid much attention”. This juxtaposition of the carefree music with the ominous lyrical content is a very powerful way for the song to convey its message.
There are some very strong musical elements in this song too. First and foremost, listen to all of the rhythms going on. Try to soak in all the different parts occurring at once. In the beginning you have drumset, bongos, and a shaker producing a very dense web of rhythm. At 0:28 the guitar adds yet another layer. To make matters even more complex, it is not just one guitar part. I can hear 3 distinct guitar parts overlapping with each other (guitar 1 enters with pickup notes at 0:26 in the right speaker, guitar 2 enters at 0:28 with another rhythmic part in the left speaker, and guitar 3 begins to shine at 0:34 with a melodic part). This isn’t even the most rhythmically complex part of the song. The section at 3:48 is mind-numbingly intricate in terms of the layering of different parts.
There are many funky key changes, too. The song starts off in the key of C Major, but at 1:16 it migrates to B Major. It quickly flips back to C Major to lead into the chorus, but at 1:48 we have another shift up to D Major. This C-B-C Major sequence is repeated at 2:44, however the song has another interesting twist up its sleeve before we return to the chorus. At 3:00, the song unexpectedly flips into D Minor and then uses an F Minor chord (the bIV for you theory geeks) to link back to the chorus (starting in the key of C Major again). “So what” you’re probably thinking. Listen to the overall mood of the music and lyrics at the points of these changes. The tone of the song shifts dramatically at these points, especially at 3:00 with the lush voices and the heavy minor key sound. David Byrne is using the underlying harmony to tweak the meaning and message of the song.
4. Jurassic 5, “Freedom”
The message of this song is pretty easy to decipher. It addresses the historical struggles that African Americans have faced in order to gain their freedom. It also calls for future action that will allow them to gain even more freedom and “hold on to this feelin’”. Parts of the song are optimistic in their outlook, such as “one universal family, one God, one aim, and one destiny”. Other parts are very cynical, such as, “my forefathers hung in trees to be free, got rid of slavery but kept the penitentiary”.
This song opens with a jazzy sample. They use a sound effect that resembles the fuzz you get when you play a vinyl record. This cool little effect immediately gives the song a rustic or nostalgic feel. The full vocal sample comes in at 0:21. Listen to how it ever so slightly lays back on the beat.
There is an interesting dialogue that happens when the rappers come in at 0:41. There are three very short verses before the chorus repeats. First, listen to how the rhythmic feels change from rapper to rapper. The first verse (rapped by Chali 2na) has a straight feel, the second verse (rapped by Akil) has a shuffle/swing feel, and the third verse (rapped by Marc 7) goes back to the straight feel. The lyrical content is also very different. While the second verse is hopeful and discusses “love, peace, and harmony”, the first and third verses are more cynical with the rappers saying “[I’ve been] given no hope without a voice at all”. After the chorus repeats, another verse featuring the rapper Soup starts at 1:34. Notice yet again a completely different rhythmic feel. This one for me by far has the most groove; I think it has to do with the way the rhymes and accented words interlock with the sampled drum rhythm.
There are a lot more things going on in this song, but I’m only going to talk about one last thing. Starting at 1:34 the vocal sample in the song starts getting manipulated. The best example is at 2:36, where the sample gets cut up and stretched out over time to twice its normal length. This creates a call and response format between the rappers and the sample itself. It is almost as if the modern generation is having a conversation with the older generation, in a way.
5. Radiohead, “How to Disappear Completely”
I know I’ve mentioned this before, but Radiohead is incredible. You could name 20 Radiohead songs that would be worthy of this list. I happened to pick this one.
Overall, I feel this song is about the lack of ability to cope with the world. More specifically (and taken within the context of the album “Kid A”), it demonstrates one reaction to the way technology consumes our life. The main character is desensitized by technology and has disconnected himself from the world. A lot of Radiohead’s music conveys this tension created between us and technology (look at their name: Radio + Head). Their music sometimes works on a meta-level: their music contains a strong message about technology, yet it is self-aware that it is dependent on the medium of technology to convey its message (recording technology, electronic instruments, CDs).
The song opens with a very odd collision of sound. A weird soundscape begins that resembles the distant fires in the mountains on the album cover (watch the video). It is a mass of notes, but I clearly hear the note Bb sticking out in the high strings. The guitar comes in at 0:05 and is much more intimate and nearer to the listener in terms of sonic space. The first chord is a D Major chord, which clashes with the note Bb like a train wreck.
The drum pattern at 0:05 is created using snare brushes, which is more stylistically consistent with a jazz ballad than a rock ballad. The bass line at 0:21 is very nifty and melodic. For some reason, I get the visual image of a puzzle (maybe like a Rubik’s cube) when I listen to it. While the rest of the song is rhythmically in a 3 feel, the bass line is rhythmically in a 2 feel. Another nice contrast.
The song is basically one giant crescendo. It starts to really build up steam when the drum pattern becomes more active at 2:15. This is where the flowing strings start to become prominent too. At 2:59, a very strange synthesizer noise enters in the right speaker. Like many other things in the song, it seems completely at ends with what is going on musically. What is really interesting about it is how it flows tempo wise. It ever so slightly speeds up and slows down almost like it is a breathing organism.
The song kicks the intensity up another notch at 3:30. I love how the phrasing is so long and beautiful. The vocal melody line has such strong direction and really yearns to push forward. The strings only add to the motion. This sense of phrasing shows a lot of musicality. Side tangent: the word “musicality” can be very ambiguous and elusive. For me, something is “musical” if it pushes or pulls in a certain direction (“music is either coming from, or going to, somewhere”).
At 4:38 an interesting thing happens. Up until this point, the main focus of the song (as with many pop songs) was on the lead singer; the instruments and other sounds were there just as accompaniment. At 4:38, however, the lead singer “disappears” from the foreground into the background. They stops singing lyrics and instead sing on the neutral syllable “ahhhh”. The voice turns into purely an instrument (a unique concept in itself) and blends in with the other instruments to create a neat timbre (voice + guitar + strings).
So here is a song that blends many influences together: a rock ballad, ambient soundscapes, a jazz ballad with brushes, synthesized electronic sounds, romantic strings, contemporary classical music (Penderecki especially). I don’t sense that the song is straddling these multiple styles, however. I feel that the song is in its own world entirely. The song loses itself just like the person the lyrics are describing: “That man, that’s not me, I go where I please”.
Being the Byrne geek, I am obviously overjoyed that (Nothing But) Flowers is included in your list of valuable pop music. Just thought I'd mention it.
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