What's In A Name? (album titles)

Album titles.   A their best, they can help evoke the mood of the music within or announce the band's attitude, be it humorous, agressive, self-indulgent or self-loathing.  At their worst, they simply copy the song title that’s most likely to get radio play (Genesis's Invisible Touch wins the "Most Shameful Album Title" award in my book).

Some album titles are legendary: Exile on Main Street, The Dark Side of the Moon, Blood on the Tracks, Physical Graffiti, OK Computer.  Others are forgettable, like the self-titled debuts of countless bands or the predictable Roman numeral titles that follow (the band Chicago wins the award for this category, their last album titled Chicago XXXII).  Some albums have numbers that have nothing to do with chronology: 90125, 5150.  Others have letters and numbers that represent words: OU812.  Some are lengthy and cumbersome: A Momentary Lapse of Reason, St. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Don’t Shoot Me – I’m Only the Piano Player.  Others are sparse and to the point: Valotte, Imagine, Fragile, Tommy, Graceland, Trust.  Some album titles help define a band’s attitude: Destroyer, Ballbreaker, Pyromania, Lovesexy.  Others are more elusive: In Through the Out Door, Panorama, Green, Skylarking.  Some are funny: Bricks Are Heavy, Got Any Gum?  Others are introspective: Blue, Even in the Quietest Moments…  Some album titles copy other artist's songs and books: Night and Day, Love and Hope and Sex and Dreams, Tales of Mystery and Imagination.  Others have songs that have inspired filmmakers and authors to do the same: Jumpin' Jack Flash, Sweet Caroline, Are You Experienced?

The worst album title I can recall is The Earth, a Small Man, His Dog and a Chicken by REO Speedwagon.  Even Kevin Cronin, the band’s lead singer, regretted this title years later, though that may have had more to do with the album’s poor sales.

As a kid, I was always enthralled with Journey’s album titles (and their accompanying artwork): Infinity, Evolution, Departure, though in hindsight the titles are incongruous with what was basically a solid pop band.  A better pairing of music and album titles is the band Yes.  If a fan was displeased after purchasing the album Tales from Topographic Oceans, a double album that contains only four songs, he couldn’t say he wasn’t forewarned.

But my vote for the greatest album title of all-time: The Ego Has Landed by Robbie Williams.  I've never listened to the album itself, but it hardly matters.  The title is brilliant, and I wish to hell I’d thought of it first.

Musical Clichés: Descending Major Scales

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about music clichés and how – if not overused – they help to anchor the listener in the familiar when digesting a new piece of music. 

One of the tried and true clichés in rock and pop music – and one of my favorites – is a descending major scale in the bass.  There are hundreds of examples, and I’d like to highlight a few.  If you’re not sure what a descending major scale is, consider the familiar Do-Re-Mi scale from “The Sound of Music,” but sing it backward (Do-Ti-La-So-Fa…).  If that doesn’t help you, try singing the first eight notes of the Christmas song, “Joy To The World.”

The Beatles song “For No One” is a good place to start, as the bass follows the B scale backward for five notes (B, A#, G#, F# and E):

John Lennon followed this pattern in his masterpiece, “A Day In The Life,” though he takes the scale down two additional notes (down to “Re”), and did the same as a solo artist with “Mind Games”:

And his son, Julian, showed he wasn’t above using the descending scale in his 1984 song, “Say You’re Wrong.”  Remember this one?

But the descending scale isn’t limited to The Beatles and their offspring.  A classic example is 1967’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale” by Procol Harem.  In this song, clearly influenced by Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D Major (Air on the G String), the bass descends the entire major scale, and as if that wasn’t enough, it goes back up to the fifth and descends again to the tonic:

Other examples include “Mr. Bojangles,” made famous by The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” and “She’s Got A Way,” “Come Sail Away” by Styx, "Changes" by David Bowie, "All The Young Dudes" by Mott the Hoople (but also written by David Bowie) and “Accidents Will Happen” by Elvis Costello:

And lest you think I’m mocking those who use clichés in music, I’ve used it myself.  Here’s a sample of “No Point In Seeing Me Through” from my album, “Pause.”

The descending scale: an oldie but goodie.  If you’ve got some other examples you’d like to share, please comment below.  Don't forget to subscribe to the RSS Feed above for regular updates.

Musical Cliches, part 1

All musical genres, be it classical, jazz, folk, rock or pop, use musical clichés.  Clichés aren’t evil; they’re necessary.  Yes, they can be overused (and by definition they HAVE been overused), but the commonalities we perceive in music help anchor us in the familiar and allow us to digest a forty minute symphony or a new rock record without feeling completely overwhelmed.  

When an artist goes out if his way to avoid the familiar, (Rufus Wainwright’s latest album, “All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu” comes to mind) it can be difficult for the listener to truly absorb the songs upon first rotation (or even second or third).   Ultimately, these songs might end up having lasting power, the ones that provide a deeper and more interesting musical experience, but there’s still something to be said about instant appeal, when a song achieves that spine-tingling perfection. 

Paul McCartney’s song “Wanderlust” from 1982 comes to mind.  It employs all of four chords, and I’m still amazed that the guy could continue to discover excitement and beauty in the same chords he’d been playing for over twenty years.  Tracy Chapman’s “Give Me One Reason” from 1997 is another example.  It’s a simple 12-bar blues, but it’s oh, so good, and I never tire of hearing it.

In the weeks ahead, I’d like to highlight some of my favorite clichés in pop music and how artists have used them in ways that still capture our attention.  If you’ve got any you’d like to mention, please chime in.  First up for me will be the descending major scale bass line.  It’s an oldie but goodie, and I’ll address it in two weeks.

Next week: a review of Rufus Wainwright’s Friday night show at the Chicago Theatre.

Who's Not In The Hall

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  A more subjective institution there has never been, and few take it seriously, but it is interesting to note the performers not currently represented in Cleveland.  A friend of mine recently provided me with a list of acts he thinks should be included in the Hall, and I’d like to highlight a few (and add a few of my own).   Consider the following:

The Cars, Cheap Trick, Dire Straits, Yes, ELO, Peter Gabriel, Randy Newman and Rush (the latter two, incidentally, just had stars dedicated on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame).

Not sure about that list?  Well, how about:

Kiss, Steve Miller, INXS, Heart, REO Speedwagon, Boston, Kansas, Styx, Journey, The Cure, Supertramp, Chicago, Three Dog Night, Neil Diamond, Pat Benatar, The Moody Blues, Foreigner, The Replacements, XTC, Joe Jackson and Def Leppard.

Not sure they deserve to be included with the likes of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who and Led Zeppelin?  I’m not either.  Do you base it on sales?  Hits?  Longevity?  Inventiveness?  Impact on the music around them? 

Comment below and let me know who you think should be in the hall.  To check a list of who’s in, click here.

When Less Is More

From time to time in my blog I’d like to highlight music that contributes something of interest.  This week, I’m including a clip of one of my all-time favorite solos, provided by The Dave Matthews Band’s saxophonist Leroi Moore, who died tragically in 2008 from complications after an all-terrain vehicle accident. 

Providing a solo in a rock and roll song can lead to numerous outcomes: it can be electric, momentous, mind-baffling, stimulating, tear-inducing, dull, messy, sloppy, and – on occasion – absolutely perfect.  Although there's a time and a place for nearly every type of solo, the ones that typically appeal to me are melodious and sparse rather than infused with a gazzilion notes, which is why I’ve always preferred David Gilmore to Alex Lifeson, David Brubeck to Art Tatum and John Helliwell  (you might have to look him up) to say…Charlie Parker (which is an unfair comparison since they’re from different genres, but what the hell).

The solo from Leroi Moore below is from “What Would You Say,” the second song off The Dave Matthew Band's debut album, Under the Table and Dreaming.

Leroi spends almost a full four measures on only three different notes (concert E, G and A), a beautiful example of restraint for an accomplished musician, and it raises the tension of the song as the listener awaits a more conventional solo, which Leroi eventually provides.

When I’m playing, I’ve often found myself in the midst of solo and instead of coming up with something melodious, I've ended up just ripping through a blues scale as fast as my tension-filled fingers can muster.  But playing as fast as you can not only isn’t necessary, it’s far less interesting in most cases from a carefully selected group of notes that could serve as a sort of secondary melody. 

Consider the lead guitar Neil Schon plays in "Don't Stop Believing":

How much less of a song would it be if he hadn't added that memorable phrase?

Do you have a favorite solo you'd like to highlight?  If so, please post a comment and I'll try to mention it or provide clips for it in a future post. 

In the meantime, rest in peace, Mr. Moore.