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koganbotOther than "Day By Day," my song of the summer has been Flashe's "Drop It," which instructs us precisely to drop it, pop it, shake it, move it. Is on the unknown-to-me CGM Entertainment label, and unfortunately since dropping in early July it hasn't moved anywhere near the charts. But it is a perfectly constructed piece of dance pop.
If I knew more about harmonic progressions I'd tell you how it was constructed. As it is, I'll just flail a bit, toss forth some adjectival descriptions: there is caught-in-a-carousel accompaniment to the original spare dance instructions, nursery-rhyme-style sing-songiness in the first half of the verse, followed by dreamy call-and-response, then all voices on deck for the pre-chorus, as the music jumps a couple of steps and rises up the rigging.
Okay, trying for specificity, I'll say we seem to be in A-Flat Major,* with the melody in the first half of the verse (1:02 on the embed, the part I'm calling the nursery sing-song) running a fa-sol-la-sol twist in the second and third bars, then, in the fourth bar, mirroring itself down in the re-mi-re-do, except she's singing mi as a blue note rather than a major (so we've got an indeterminate major or minor). This gives way to what I'm calling the dreamy call-and-response (1:17), where the accompaniment fools around with do, sol, and ti, the last again suggesting minor, and the melody wafts down the upper notes of the scale. Then, in the prechorus (1:32) — where in full voice we climb the mast, set the sails, and catch the wind — we've jumped to B Major,** which would have been merely the relative major to A Flat Minor, except that we'd been in something less determinate than minor. So (for some reason) this jump has the effect of opening up the sound. Actually, what I'm calling the "pre-chorus" is located where you'd normally put a chorus — except it clearly isn't the chorus, the drop-it-pop-it-shake-it-move-it chant functioning as the actual chorus. Actually, it doesn't feel like a pre-chorus either, just a nice big release. But I don't know what else to call it.
Have nothing else to say about the structure, except that the rap break (3:05) is set excellently, to the part that had previously been the nursery sing-song — it's also performed excellently, somewhere between talk and rant. Then Flashe go into the drop-it chant (3:13) but this time with the same accompaniment as the rap, chugging right along. Then a dramatic pause, and we leap directly to the pre-chorus but this time with only one lone singer (3:23), the nakedness being as powerful for its contrast as the collected voices had been previously.
*I know that there's a philosophical difference between a A-Flat and G-Sharp, but I don't know what it is. So I've arbitrarily chosen A-Flat. Correct me if I'm wrong.
**EDIT: Which I believe is functioning as a new key for the length of the pre-chorus, so it (B-Major) is the tonic, with E-Major and G-Flat-Major showing up as its IV and V.
If I knew more about harmonic progressions I'd tell you how it was constructed. As it is, I'll just flail a bit, toss forth some adjectival descriptions: there is caught-in-a-carousel accompaniment to the original spare dance instructions, nursery-rhyme-style sing-songiness in the first half of the verse, followed by dreamy call-and-response, then all voices on deck for the pre-chorus, as the music jumps a couple of steps and rises up the rigging.
Okay, trying for specificity, I'll say we seem to be in A-Flat Major,* with the melody in the first half of the verse (1:02 on the embed, the part I'm calling the nursery sing-song) running a fa-sol-la-sol twist in the second and third bars, then, in the fourth bar, mirroring itself down in the re-mi-re-do, except she's singing mi as a blue note rather than a major (so we've got an indeterminate major or minor). This gives way to what I'm calling the dreamy call-and-response (1:17), where the accompaniment fools around with do, sol, and ti, the last again suggesting minor, and the melody wafts down the upper notes of the scale. Then, in the prechorus (1:32) — where in full voice we climb the mast, set the sails, and catch the wind — we've jumped to B Major,** which would have been merely the relative major to A Flat Minor, except that we'd been in something less determinate than minor. So (for some reason) this jump has the effect of opening up the sound. Actually, what I'm calling the "pre-chorus" is located where you'd normally put a chorus — except it clearly isn't the chorus, the drop-it-pop-it-shake-it-move-it chant functioning as the actual chorus. Actually, it doesn't feel like a pre-chorus either, just a nice big release. But I don't know what else to call it.
Have nothing else to say about the structure, except that the rap break (3:05) is set excellently, to the part that had previously been the nursery sing-song — it's also performed excellently, somewhere between talk and rant. Then Flashe go into the drop-it chant (3:13) but this time with the same accompaniment as the rap, chugging right along. Then a dramatic pause, and we leap directly to the pre-chorus but this time with only one lone singer (3:23), the nakedness being as powerful for its contrast as the collected voices had been previously.
*I know that there's a philosophical difference between a A-Flat and G-Sharp, but I don't know what it is. So I've arbitrarily chosen A-Flat. Correct me if I'm wrong.
**EDIT: Which I believe is functioning as a new key for the length of the pre-chorus, so it (B-Major) is the tonic, with E-Major and G-Flat-Major showing up as its IV and V.
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no subject
Date: 2012-09-15 04:17 pm (UTC)(It's just a convention, and on a piano they're obviously identical -- but the reason for the convention is so that when you move from a mjor to its relative minor, you're not suddenly confronted on a score with a great slew of new sharps and un-flatted flats which turn out to be much less surprising than they look. A good professional sightreader would not be thrown -- a bad, non-professional one, ie me, might...)
no subject
Date: 2012-09-15 05:25 pm (UTC)In any event (tell me if I'm wrong), the song never goes to B-Minor/C-Flat-Minor, but rather to B-Major (C-Flat-Major?). And that's a total key shift (right?), B-Major now being the key for the pre-chorus (B-Major the tonic, with E-Major and G-Flat-Major showing up as its IV and V). And since my A-Flat (G-Sharp, whatever) has played with being both major and minor, heading from the former to the latter, the relationship I'm pointing out (or flailing in the direction of) is that A-Flat-Minor is B-Major's relative minor. Or, if "relative minor" is the wrong terminology, A-Flat-Minor is vi to B-Major's I.
Or — if we want to take A-Flat/G-Sharp as our baseline standard, since that's where we started — then B-Major/C-Flat Major is its III, but only if our A-Flat/G-Sharp is minor. Damned if I know what the relationship
betweenof B-Major/C-Flat Major is to A-Flat Major/G-Sharp Major.Bear in mind that I was last instructed in (rudimentary) music theory in 1973.
Of course the song seems very simple; the description is what's complicated. Maybe the description would be simple as well, if I knew what I was talking about.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-15 06:14 pm (UTC)And yes, you're also right that a shift from A flat major to C flat major (aka B major if you break convention) is a significant key shift, from the tonic to the flattened mediant: you'd write it as its IIIb (if I can use bs for flats). The mediant is a relatively distant key to modulate to, as 19th century harmony textbooks measured such things: the most distant being IV# = Vb, the sharpened subdominant or flattened dominant, which a six degrees away in a cycle of fifths: mediant and flattened mediant are both only four away, though in opposite directions. Anyway, four is enough for you to feel it, even in music that's less tightly harmonically bound than an 1820s textbook would accept.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-15 06:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-15 06:41 pm (UTC)Ricky's also a writer on Evol's "We Are A Bit Different," a passionate bit of dance pop about the dance floor and the party. I'm borderline thumbs up on it.
I find Kim Hee Jun credits on acts such as Dance Project, DJ Cooler, D Plan, etc., though no songs I recognize. (But the English-language part of the Copyright Association's Website is difficult for me to use, since lots of it is turned into Romanized transliterations of Hangul, sometimes including when the word is actually an English word. So I don't know what I'm reading. E.g., "Dance Project" is my guess at the meaning of "DE NI SEU PHEU RO JEG THEU.")
no subject
Date: 2012-09-16 05:23 am (UTC)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypn_m9Yct6c
"Drop It Pop It Pop It Shake It" sounds like "So Cool":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYK-c5KuDlg
I dun recognize and really like the parts after that. (Well, and the Brave Brothers soundalike parts before that, which for all I know came from somewhere else, in turn.) The girls singing the chorus sound awesome. Is that a studio effect, or do they really sound like that?
no subject
Date: 2012-09-16 03:30 pm (UTC)[Error: unknown template video]
no subject
Date: 2012-09-28 12:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-28 05:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-16 04:07 pm (UTC)Another similarity — again, not exact, and almost certainly coincidental — is between the part I'm calling "the nursery sing-song" and the riff to Cinderella's "Gypsy Road":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6j7E7pvLxmI
no subject
Date: 2012-09-16 04:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-16 05:12 pm (UTC)I also really like the rapper! Kinda like Hyuna before Hyuna became an aegyo monster/retreated into baby talk ala Britney Spears.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-28 12:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-28 06:42 pm (UTC)Which Google Translate renders as:
But the person who posts as TheCGMEnterTainment did link it with a "like" on his or her site.