Module 5

This week’s listenings were all about Motown, The British Invasion, and Rock. The Motown songs we listened to were My Girl, performed by the Temptations, and You Can’t Hurry Love, performed by the Supremes.  My Girl is a love ballad written in a straightforward verse-chorus form.  The other Motown example, You Can’t Hurry Love demonstrates the songwriting abilities of the Motown writers to produce a clever, innovative pop song.

The next four songs, all by the Beatles, represent the British Pop Invasion.  The four songs we heard were Please Please Me, A Hard Day’s Night, Yesterday, and Eleanor Rigby.  Please Please Me was the Beatles’ first top 10 hit in Britain and was rather unsuccessful in America.  Re-released later, it shot up the charts.  This song is an up-tempo love song written in typical AABA form.  A Hard Day’s Night was a number one hit in 1964 and was the title song from the Beatles’ first movie.  This song is also in AABA form but each a section is in a 12 bar blues structure.  Yesterday was yet another number one song and is probably the Beatles song with the most wide-ranging and enduring popularity.  It has been performed by many different artists, and employs the standard AABA form.  Yesterday portrays many similarities to the classic Tin Pan Alley form.  The final Beatles example, Eleanor Rigby, was not as popular as the other three songs mentioned.   This song has an unexpected intro, beginning directly with voices, and has the form of a traditional folk ballad.  Of the four Beatles songs, I did not really find one that I truly could consider a favorite.  I’ve never been a huge fan of the Beatles, though I can admit that their music definitely sticks with you.  The one that sticks with me the most is A Hard Day’s Night because I played an arrangement of it in my middle school band.

My favorite listening example from this week was Good Vibrations, performed by the Beach Boys.  This song has no form and is very unconventional to the time.  It has very memorable melodic hooks and a wide array of chords.  It incorporates both minor and major key melodies that serve as landmarks for the listener.  Good Vibrations was considered to be an important milestone in the history of rock production.  Music from the Beach Boys has always stuck with me because of an episode of Full House that I saw them in as a kid, and then my parents would always play their music for me.

                                     

We also listened to two classics of soul music, Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag, performed by James Brown and the Famous Flames, and Respect, performed by Aretha Franklin.  Both of these recordings represent the intense vocals and use of call-and-response techniques used in soul music.  Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag uses the 12 bar blues as a base, breaking up the patterns every once in a while.  Respect was a cover done by Aretha Franklin after it was already a big hit for its composer Otis Redding.  This is a song that Aretha Franklin made her own, easily gaining the respect of everyone who listened to her,

One of our final examples this week was Like a Rolling Stone, written and performed by Bob Dylan.  This recording was one that put an end to existing restrictions on song length, subject matter, and poetic diction.  Like a Rolling Stone also has a very distinct sound, incorporating both keyboard and organ.  Written in strophic form, the lyrics provide a sense of continuing development.