Unit 7 DB: Multifaceted Performers
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Unit7Music.docxUnit 7
Readings and Resources
Textbook or eBook:
Campbell, M. (2019). Popular music in America. 5th ed. Cengage Learning.
This unit addresses the new sounds and rhythms of rock in the 80s and more commercially dominant music sounds of “Pop” music in this decade. You will read about the positive and negative implications of MTV and how the emergence of the music video brought about changes in the consumption of music.
· Chapter 18: Beyond Rock in the 1980s (pgs. 332-355)
CH. 77
Beyond Rock
77-1 New Directions in the 1980s
The eighties brought new sounds as well as new looks to rock-era music. Much of the commercially dominant music of the eighties sounds as if it could not have been created before 1980, for at least two reasons. One was the use of sounds and rhythms that were not common currency, or even available through much of the 1970s. The other was the integration of style elements from what had been “outsider” styles in the 1970s.
77-2 New Sounds and Rhythms
Advances in electronic synthesis opened up a broad new palette of sounds to the musicians of the 1980s. Digital technology made both the replication of existing timbres and the creation of new timbres easier. It also streamlined the enhancement of conventional sounds through various effects. As a result, music that did not incorporate synthesized sounds became the exception rather than the rule. These sounds are integral to the distinctive styles of acts as diverse as U2 and Madonna.
The music of the 1980s also stands out because of new rhythms. Three were widely used: the energized rock beat derived from punk; adaptations of the afterbeat rhythms of reggae; and, most commonly, the sixteen-beat rhythms first heard in funk, black pop, and disco. These took various forms, often in combination, as in the relentlessly pulsing rhythms in the music of U2 and the syncopated, dance-oriented rhythms in Madonna’s music. As a result, the timeless rock groove of the Stones and others was less common in the middle ground music of the eighties than these new, more active rhythms.
77-3 “Insider/Outsider” Fusions
Punk and disco seem about as easy to blend as oil and water. As they emerged in the late seventies, they seemed to demarcate contrasting ideologies and musical approaches. Punk was real, whereas disco, as experienced in a club, was an escape into a timeless world. Punk was about grit; disco was about glitter. Punk bands hammered out a concentrated rock rhythm on conventional rock instruments; disco featured DJs mixing a string of recordings, most of which combined a strong beat with active sixteen-beat rhythms. The lyrics of punk songs usually said something; disco lyrics often descended into banality.
However, in Christgau’s Record Guide, a 1990 survey of 3,000 recordings from the eighties, Robert Christgau, the “dean of American rock critics,” cited “post-punk/post-disco fusion” as a key development of the decade. He described a synthesis of the two in DOR, or dance-oriented rock , an umbrella term used by DJs in 1980s disco pools to identify an array of eighties styles. Because pools helped spur the sale of nonradio records, some acts made sure there were dance-oriented tracks on their albums.
The fusion of disparate inside/outside styles was nothing new in rock; it had been common practice from the start. However, the innovations resulting from the fusions of the eighties were different from those of the previous generation, for at least three reasons. First, the eighties was the first generation of rock music (and, for that matter, twentieth-century popular music) that was not nurtured by the blues. Second, the outside styles came from within rock-era music. Third, because of the blending of rock styles, the boundaries between rock, rhythm and blues, and pop became more fluid and transparent; the list of the top artists of the eighties hints at that.
Finally, another fusion profoundly affected the dissemination of music. Sound, image, and movement came together in a newly emergent genre—the music video—that became a staple on a new network—MTV—in a new medium, cable television.
77-4 MTV and Music Videos
Cable TV is almost as old as commercial broadcasting. The first cable TV services were launched in 1948; a well-situated antenna brought television signals to homes in remote rural regions. There was some growth during the fifties and sixties, but cable TV as we currently know it didn’t get off the ground until the latter part of the seventies. Two key developments—the launching of communications satellites and significant deregulation of the broadcast industry—made cable television economically feasible. The Cable Act of 1984 effectively deregulated the television industry and in its wake, the cable industry wired the nation. With new revenues came new and more varied programming.
Cable changed the economics of the television industry and transformed it in the process. Networks relied exclusively on advertising for their revenue; the signal was free. Cable TV services charged subscribers a fee and passed on a percentage of that fee to the channels that they offered their subscribers. This new source of revenue made possible the fragmentation of the television market. A network that could command only 1 or 2 percent of the market would have no chance for success against the major networks; but that same 1 or 2 percent of the cable market could provide enough income to make the network viable.
Among the first of these new cable networks was MTV . The network began broadcasting in 1981. Symbolically, the first music video that MTV broadcast was “Video Killed the Radio Star.” The original format of the network was analogous to Top 40–style radio stations. Videos replaced songs, and VJs (video jockeys) assumed a role similar to radio disc jockeys.
Perhaps because cable originally serviced mainly rural parts of the country, MTV took an AOR-type approach to programming. For the first couple of years, programming targeted a young, white audience. Bands were almost exclusively white—Duran Duran, a British pop group with a keen visual sense, was one of the early MTV bands. Black acts cried “racism” with some justification.
It was Michael Jackson who broke MTV’s color barrier. The demand for his spectacular music videos was so overwhelming that the network changed its policy. MTV started VH1 in 1985 and diversified its programming in several ways, adding documentaries, cartoons, and talk shows. In particular, its segments on rap helped bring that genre out of the inner city.
MTV has affected both consumers and creators. The network became a key tastemaker for young people around the world. It has influenced not only what they listen to but also many other aspects of youth culture: dress, looks, body language, vocabulary, and attitudes. However, its most significant contribution was providing an outlet for music videos.
Rock had been a look as well as a sound from the start, but it wasn’t until the late sixties that the idea of using videos as a promotional tool took hold. At the same time, live performances were captured on video or film. Documentaries of the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival and Woodstock in 1969 remain treasures. Further experiments, especially by new wave acts like Devo, moved closer to the integration of sound and image that characterizes contemporary music video. With the arrival of MTV, the music video became a key component of the music industry.
The music video inverted the conventional relationship among story, image, and sound. In musical theater and film musicals, songs were written for the story, ideally enhancing those moments when the emotions a character felt were too much for mere words. In early music videos, the relationship was the opposite: The visual element was designed to enhance the song. Now the music video is such an essential component of pop success that acts create song and video as an integrated whole. In either form, it is a relatively new expressive medium.
The most obvious, and most widely discussed, consequence of music videos was the suddenly increased emphasis on the look of an act, and the look of the video, as a determinant of success. The two artists who leveraged this new, integrated medium to gain overwhelming commercial success were Michael Jackson and Madonna.
CH. 78
Pop in the Eighties
78-1 Pop in the 1980s
The early eighties ushered in a new generation of pop stars. The stars and their music were dramatically different from the music of the previous decade in several respects. Race, gender, and even sexual preference were nonissues. The leading pop acts of the 1980s were Michael Jackson, Prince, and Madonna. None of them is a white male. Both Jackson and Madonna were multifaceted entertainers. After them, it was no longer enough to be just a good singer or musician; one had to be able to move well, although no one topped Michael Jackson in skill or imagination. Video and film became essential components of stardom. Michael Jackson’s videos broke the color barrier on MTV, and video and film were essential in boosting both Prince and Madonna to superstardom. The three set the tone for the pop music videos of the next decades. Their music was a melting pot. Although the new pop of the eighties and beyond connects most directly to the black pop tradition of the sixties and seventies, the music was certainly open to other influences: disco, punk, reggae, funk, Latin music, dance music, and rap. Synthesizers played an increasingly important role, as rhythm instruments, extra percussion, and string and horn analogs.
This new pop was unprecedentedly popular. Michael Jackson’s Thriller album easily surpassed the sales of the previous best-selling album. As Robert Christgau pointed out, the sheer sales volume of Thriller was part of its significance. Prince and Madonna also had impressive sales figures.
Precisely because its artists drew from so many sources, there was no single “middle ground” style. It was not defined by a distinctive kind of beat keeping, like punk; or a rhythmic feel, like funk; or a special sound quality, like the distortion of heavy metal. Instead, a set of principles, rather than specific musical features, defined the music that topped the charts during the eighties. The songs typically have intelligible lyrics that tell a story—usually about love or its absence or about a slice of life. They are set to a singable melody. The melody in turn is embedded in a rich, riff-laden texture. Most layers—if not all—are played on synthesizers. The songs typically have a good beat, easy to find and danceable, neither too monotonous nor too ambiguous. These features are embodied in the music of Michael Jackson, and especially the nine tracks on Thriller.
78-2 Michael Jackson
Berry Gordy’s vision was a black pop style whose appeal transcended the black community. One branch of its legacy was the post-eighties pop middle ground marked out by Michael Jackson (1958–2009). Jackson is the most direct link between Motown and 1980s pop. As a member of The Jackson 5, he was part of Motown’s last great act. As a solo performer in the late seventies and early eighties, he went beyond Motown by helping to define the new pop middle ground musically, reviving the all-around performer and establishing the music video as a new, integrated mode of expression. Most spectacularly, his dancing went far beyond the stylized choreography of the Motown acts.
Although only 24 when Thriller (1982) was released, Michael Jackson had been a professional entertainer for three-fourths of his life and a star for half of it. He had released solo singles in the early seventies, but Jackson’s solo career didn’t take off until 1978, when he starred in the film The Wiz. During the filming, he met composer/arranger/producer Quincy Jones, who collaborated with him on Off the Wall (1979), his first major album, and Thriller. Jones’s skill and creativity proved to be the ideal complement to Jackson’s abilities.
Jackson was fortunate to be in the right place at the right time. MTV had gone on the air in 1981; Thriller was released a year later. Jackson helped transform the music video from a song-with-video into a mini-film that used a song as the focal point; for example, the video of “Thriller” is over twice the length of the track on the album. Jackson made it work through his exuberant dancing.
Listening Cue
“Thriller” (1982)
Rod Temperton
Michael Jackson, vocal.
STYLE 1980s middle ground pop ⋅ FORM Verse/chorus
Listen For …
INSTRUMENTATION
Lead and backup vocals, electronic analogs to conventional instruments (bass, horns, percussion, chord instruments) percussion, guitar; nonmusical sounds, spoken commentary
PERFORMANCE STYLE
Jackson’s light, not-scary voice balanced by Price’s macabre “rap”
RHYTHM
Active rhythms at march/disco tempo: bass riff at rock-beat speed; busy sixteen-beat percussion parts, fast horn riffs; many riffs syncopated
MELODY
Short title-phrase riff at chorus; verse = longer phrase
TEXTURE
Dense texture formed mainly from layers of riffs: bass, mid-range, vocal, higher range horn-like riffs; sustained sounds behind riffs
Remember …
EXTENSIVE ELECTRONICS
Electronic versions of conventional instruments: bass riff throughout, plus horn-like riffs, sustained chords
EXPANSIVE FORM
In both audio track and video, instrumental interlude; in video, allows the action/dance scene to unfold
MOTOWN INFLUENCE
Bright rhythms, bass-heavy texture, melodic saturation, and verse/chorus form build on Motown formula
Listen to this selection in the unit playlist.
“Thriller” exhibits several distinctive characteristics of post-1980 pop. One is the extensive use of electronic instruments in combination with conventional instruments. Among the most prominent electronic sounds are the repeated bass riff, the sustained harmonies behind Michael’s vocals, and the brash chords of the opening, all played on synthesizers. The basic rhythm grows out of disco. We hear a strong backbeat, a relentless bass-drum thump on each beat, and several layers of percussion marking off a sixteen-beat rhythm. However, the other instrumental parts, especially those played on rhythm section instruments or their electronic counterparts, create a texture that is denser and more complex than that heard in a conventional disco song. Jackson’s vocal line is simply one strand in the texture; in the verse, it is in the forefront, but in the chorus sections the backup vocals and instruments playing the title-phrase riff all but drown him out. It floats on the busy rhythms and riffs that provide much of the song’s momentum—indeed, in the video, the basic rhythm track sustains the flow through the graveyard scene, and, after a short break, through the first part of the extended dance number that is the heart of the video.
Although only three of the tracks were shot as music videos, all of the songs on Thriller have a distinct identity. There is considerable contrast from song to song, as the musical settings capture the tone and content of the lyric. For example, the hard-edged riffs that open “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’” anticipate the lyric’s schoolyard-style provocation. The punk-inspired beat and Eddie Van Halen’s guitar underscore the message of “Beat It.” The loping rhythm (a shuffle beat on top of a rock beat), the use of pre-rock pop harmony, and the soft synth sounds reinforce the friendly rivalry between Michael and Paul McCartney in “The Girl Is Mine,” and a setting that mixes an open middle range—just a simple synthesizer riff—with the irritation of a persistent bass riff and percussion sound, characterizes the emptiness of the groupie-style relationship in “Billie Jean.” Both the songs and Quincy Jones’s masterful settings give the album an expressive range that compensates for the one-dimensional quality of Jackson’s singing.
There is no doubt that Thriller would have been a successful album without the videos. But it also seems certain that the videos, and the fact that the songs were so “video-ready,” played a crucial role in its overwhelming success. Thriller was the crowning achievement of Jackson’s career; nothing before or since matched its success.
78-3 Madonna
In Renaissance-era Italian, madonna was originally a variant of mia donna, or “my lady.” The term eventually came to refer more specifically to Mary, the mother of Jesus. For example, the phrase “madonna and child” identifies those works of art that depict Mary with the infant Jesus. In the eighties, “Madonna” acquired a more contemporary image: the pop star whose given name was enough to identify her to the world at large.
Madonna (born Madonna Ciccone, 1958) was born the same year as Michael Jackson. In 1978, while Jackson was starring in The Wiz, Madonna moved to New York to further her career as a dancer. She soon became active in the club scene, while she struggled to pay the rent. However, her star rose quickly. Her first records, released in the early eighties, gained her a following, mainly among clubbers. Although these songs didn’t cross over, they created enough of a buzz that she received a contract to record her first album, Madonna, which was released in 1983.
In 1984, she took one of the many bold steps that have characterized her career, releasing the video of “Like a Virgin.” Shot in Venice, Italy, the video rapidly juxtaposes images of Madonna in a white wedding dress with her in street clothes and a provocative evening dress—attire that suggests she is anything but a virgin. The video established a formula that would set the tone for her subsequent work: combine provocative, shocking, and controversial themes and images with bright, accessible music.
Madonna combined provocative, shocking and controversial themes and images with bright, accessible music.
Listening Cue
“Like a Prayer” (1989)
Madonna,
Patrick Leonard
Madonna, vocal.
STYLE 1980s middle ground pop ⋅ FORM Verse/chorus
Listen For …
INSTRUMENTATION
Vocal, choir, organ, guitar, multiple percussion instruments, bass, keyboards
PERFORMANCE STYLE
Madonna’s straightforward, plain singing; guitar distortion
RHYTHM
Busy sixteen-beat rhythms at dance tempo
MELODY
Abundance of riffs in verse and chorus
TEXTURE
Contrast between sustained harmonies under vocal and active, dense, percussion-rich texture
Remember …
SIMPLE SONG/POP HOOK
Simple melody offers easy point of entry
CONTRASTS
Striking contrasts in sound, rhythm, and texture: melody plus sustained chords form dense texture, with Madonna, choir, and lots of rhythm, including distorted guitar
FROM PRAYER TO POP
Melody, choir, organ connect to religious service; pop sections have no religious overtones musically
Listen to this selection in the unit playlist.
Among her most controversial projects of the eighties was the video for “Like a Prayer.” The song was the title track from her 1989 album of the same name. The video conflates religious images (e.g., a scene in which she grasps a knife, and it cuts her in a way that evokes the stigmata of the crucified Christ); symbols of racism (burning crosses); numerous incongruities and impossibilities (a black gospel choir in a Catholic chapel; the statue of a black saint who comes to life, then doubles as the black man wrongly accused of murdering a woman); and the one constant—Madonna in a revealing dress. All of this outraged numerous religious groups, who threatened to boycott Pepsi, which had recruited Madonna as a spokesperson. The controversy served as free publicity—the album topped the charts.
The video for “Like a Prayer” dramatically evidences the emergence of the music video as an entity distinct from the song that spawned it and from other expressive forms that merge song, image, and movement. The messages of the song—among them, that racism is wrong, that we are all brothers and sisters in Christ, and Madonna is sexy—come through mainly in the rapidfire series of images/scenes/song fragments. There is little sense of continuity in the narrative, visually or in the lyric, and there are long stretches where Madonna makes no attempt to sing in the video, even as we hear her voice in the song. This shows the rapid evolution of the music video, not only in Madonna’s own work but also in the medium overall. It has moved well beyond simply capturing a live performance, as was the case in “Everybody,” her first video; at this point in her career and in the brief history of the medium, such videos seem a distant memory.
Musically, Madonna’s winning formula has been to combine a simple, catchy melody with trendy sounds and rhythms and skillful production. The melody of “Like a Prayer” flows in gently undulating phrases, with little or no syncopation. When isolated from its setting, the melody bears a closer resemblance to a children’s song or a folk melody than to a dance-inspired song from the eighties. And like a folk melody, it is easily absorbed and remembered. The support for this melody oscillates between sustained chords sung by a choir and played on an organ, and a Caribbean-flavored background that bears a striking resemblance to Steve Winwood’s 1986 No. 1 hit “Higher Love.” As with much post-1980 pop, the active accompaniment is dense, rhythmically active, and rich in both electronic and conventional instrumental sounds. The steady flow of Madonna’s melody connects the dance-like sections with those sections containing only sustained harmonies and extremely light percussion sounds. “Like a Prayer” breaks no new ground musically, but it does merge disparate and seemingly contradictory musical features into an effective song, just as the video does.
The most ground-breaking aspect of Madonna’s career has been her ascension to a position of complete control of her career: writing her songs, producing her recordings, choreographing her performances, and making the key decisions about every aspect of production and promotion. This owes more to her ambition, business acumen, and chutzpah than it does to her musical talent. In achieving elite celebrity status—single-name recognition, tabloid fodder for the better part of two decades—as she directed her career, she has become a role model for a new generation of women performers.
Many have found her public persona liberating. Without question, her success added a new dimension to sexual equality within the pop music business. Women, or at least women like her, no longer had to be front persons for men. Cynical observers have dismissed the provocative images that she presents, such as those encountered in the “Like a Prayer” video, as attention-getting stunts whose shock value obscures a lack of talent and imagination. It is true that Madonna is not spectacularly creative in any artistic dimension of the music business. She is not Michael Jackson’s equal as a dancer, Prince’s equal as a songwriter or an instrumentalist, or Tina Turner’s equal as a vocalist. However, to dismiss her talents out of hand would be to ignore the sense of conviction with which Madonna presents these controversial juxtapositions and to dismiss their role in challenging value systems that have grown rigid over time.
Neither Jackson nor Madonna has been a musical innovator. Their most influential and innovative contributions have come in other areas: the reintegration of song and expressive dance; their role in establishing the music video as a new expressive medium; their sheer star power; and in Madonna’s case, her business acumen. All have become key components of popular music since the mid-1980s.
CH. 79
Post-Punk/Post-Disco Fusions: The Music of Prince
79-1 “Sign ‘O’ the Times”
“Sign ‘O’ the Times,” one of three singles from the album to chart, presents a bleak vision of contemporary life: gangs, AIDS, drugs, and natural disasters, interlaced with anecdotal accounts of the fallout from drug use. The music is correspondingly bleak. The track begins with an intricate rhythm formed from a syncopated synthesizer riff and two electronically generated percussion sounds, and this texture continues throughout the song. The repetition seems purposeful; it seems to suggest a despair that knows no end. It substitutes for a standard rhythm section and supports Prince’s vocal in the verse section. Other consistent elements include a strong backbeat and a synthesized bass riff that often provides a response to the vocal line. Funky, jazz-influenced guitar figures, then sustained synthesizer chords, which provide the first harmonic change, highlight the buildup to the crux of the song: one finds release only in death. To underscore this difficult idea, Prince brings the music back to the empty sound of the opening—an abrupt and disconcerting return to reality. Only a blues-tinged guitar solo, again over the relentless synthesizer riffs and intricate percussion rhythms, provides relief from the misery portrayed in the lyric. This is interrupted by percussion sounds that evoke the fire of a machine gun.
“Sign ‘O’ the Times” gains its impact as much from what’s missing as from what’s present. There is no rhythm guitar, no bass line, and no routine timekeeping on a drum set. There is no hook at the highpoint of the chorus to latch onto. There are no familiar chord progressions and few other clues that help us navigate through the song. The rhythms are complex, as in funk, but disciplined; the texture is spare, not dense. These features help create a sound world that is as vivid and powerful as a black and white photograph of a gray day in the ghetto.
“Sign ‘O’ the Times” shows how Prince mixed disparate elements into a coherent and effective whole. From punk, via rap, he took reality—there is no fantasy, or escape, in this song. From funk, he took complex layered rhythms, which he pared down to convey the mood of the song. He adapted blues-influenced rock guitar to the context, supporting it unconventionally with the minimalist synthesizer riffs and rhythms.
Almost any other Prince song will sound quite different in many respects; that is one reason for his commercial and critical success. The most consistent elements are likely to be the mix of synthesized and conventional instruments; an open-sounding, intricately worked-out texture that puts a different spin on the conventional interplay between regular timekeeping and syncopated patterns; and a few distinctive features that help set the song apart from the sources that inspired it. In this song, it is the absence of bass and drum set and the rich sustained harmonies in the first part of the chorus. But the distinctive element can be anything. “U Got the Look,” another top hit from Sign ‘O’ the Times, offers a radically transformed version of the twelve-bar blues progression.
Even by rock standards, Prince was an eccentric. Still, the odd, often contradictory aspects of his personal life and death cannot obscure or diminish Prince’s remarkable musical achievement. He remains one of the most multitalented, multidimensional musicians in the history of rock.
CH. 80
The Maturation of Black Pop
80-2 Tina Turner
If anyone were entitled to be cynical about love, it would be Tina Turner (born Annie Mae Bullock, 1939). In 1956, as a young woman still in her teens, she connected with Ike Turner, eight years her senior and already a music business veteran. The connection soon became personal as well as professional. They married in 1962, and for more than a decade they prospered professionally as the Ike and Tina Turner Revue. They had a huge hit in 1971 with a cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Proud Mary.”
However, for much of their relationship, Ike abused Tina emotionally and physically. The abuse grew worse as their career declined. Ike’s alleged drug use and almost paranoid distrust of outside management were main factors. Their professional relationship complicated any personal breakup. When she finally broke free of Turner—in the middle of a tour—she also broke contractual obligations. Because of this, the divorce settlement devastated her financially; she retained only her name.
It took Tina half a decade to get her solo career on track. Her break came in 1983, when she covered Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together” for B.E.F. (British Electric Foundation), the production side of a synth-pop group doing some serious soul searching. (B.E.F. would eventually record not only with Turner but also Chaka Khan, Mavis Staples, and other major black artists.) The next year saw the release of Private Dancer; “What’s Love Got to Do with It” was one of three singles from the album that charted. The song would win three Grammys the following year. It was Turner’s first No. 1 hit as a solo act.
Ike & Tina Portrait
“What’s Love Got to Do with It” (1984)
Terry Britten and
Graham Lyle
Tina Turner, vocal.
STYLE 1980s black pop ⋅ FORM Verse/chorus
Listen For …
INSTRUMENTATION
Vocal, bass, drums, percussion, synthesizers (sustained chords, riffs)
PERFORMANCE STYLE
Turner’s soulful, passionate singing
RHYTHM
Slow rock beat, more active rhythms in background, including reggae-like rebound backbeat
MELODY
Long phrases in verse; repeated title-phrase riff highlights chorus
TEXTURE
Several layers, but open sound (sustained chords, subtle riffs) encases Turner’s rich voice
Remember …
ANTI-LOVE SONG
Lyric speaks directly and honestly about the hurt of a broken heart
TURNER’S PASSIONATE SINGING
Turner’s singing is comparatively direct; it makes the lyric emotionally credible
1980S POP SOUND
Instrumental accompaniment dominated by synthesized sounds; rhythm features open texture with light rock-rhythm timekeeping, more active rhythms darting in and out
Listen to this selection in the unit playlist.
The song, and Turner’s singing, project an embittered view of sex; any excitement found in the physical aspects of a relationship is tempered by the foreknowledge that the relationship will never mature into love. She sings from the heart; close to two decades of pain spill out in her soulful singing.
The song uses the verse/chorus template as a point of departure. The verse builds inexorably to a magnetic hook, which Turner’s gritty voice invests with deep feeling. By contrast, the musical setting is muted—almost arid. Synthesizer sounds are prominent: sustained synthesizer chords and obbligatos. The rhythm shows the influence of reggae in the persistent rebound pattern on the offbeat, the open texture, and a free-roaming bass in the chorus. The accompaniment never matches the intensity of Turner’s singing; it is almost as if the accompaniment is indifferent to her despair. This has the effect of casting Turner’s pain into relief; in the song, she grieves alone.
80-3 Race and Romance in Popular Music
The rebirth of Turner’s career was not only a personal triumph but also a symbolic milestone for mature women of all races, and especially black women. Only four decades earlier, Ethel Waters, then 47, portrayed Petunia in the 1943 all-black film Cabin in the Sky. From the late 1920s, she was one of the top black pop singers. She could sing, “My man and I ain’t together” (from Harold Arlen’s bluesy standard “Stormy Weather”) to Cotton Club audiences and on disc, but she couldn’t act it out on screen. In Cabin in the Sky, she sings another great pop standard, “Taking a Chance on Love,” to Eddie Anderson, who would later become famous as Jack Benny’s servant Rochester. But she is dressed dowdily and simply rolls her eyes back and forth as she sings. The song and the singing are great, the message is romantic, but their interaction is anything but. Indeed, the scene reminds contemporary viewers that minstrelsy was not ancient history in 1943; Hollywood refused to portray blacks in a romantic relationship. In the late forties and fifties, Nat Cole thrilled black and white audiences with beautiful love songs like “Unforgettable,” but his appeal was limited to his voice, at least among white audiences.
The personification of romantic song in popular music began to transcend race in the sixties, with the popularity of the girl groups and Motown acts. By the time Turner recorded “What’s Love Got to Do with It,” her sex appeal was certainly not delimited by her age or her ethnicity in North America. This was even more the case in Europe, where she has had an ardent fan base (and where she currently resides). By the end of the century, race and ethnic heritage were nonissues in romantic music, as a parade of contemporary pop divas evidences.
The grittiness of the lyric and of Turner’s singing was exceptional in the black pop of the 1980s and 1990s. Younger stars like Whitney Houston favored love-related themes closer in tone to typical Motown and Philadelphia songs. However, the musical changes, especially in sound and rhythm, were widespread throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s.
The 1980s were the final flourishing of post-Motown black pop. As the century drew to a close, R&B in general and black pop in particular acquired a harder edge, mainly through the infusion of themes and sounds from rap and electronica.
CH. 81
Punk-Inspired Pop
81-1 Van Halen
Among the bands to utilize this new approach was Van Halen, an excellent second-generation heavy metal band. Two brothers, drummer Alex (b. 1953) and guitarist Eddie (b. 1955) formed the band with bassist Michael Anthony (b. 1954) and lead vocalist David Lee Roth (b. 1954). Their 1978 debut album, simply titled Van Halen, showcased Eddie Van Halen’s breathtaking virtuosity. The appropriately titled “Eruption,” a free-form solo by Van Halen, immediately raised the bar for guitarists. The album was an immediate success and one of the most spectacular debut albums in rock history. It would be the first of an almost unbroken string of platinum albums by the band.
Listening Cue
“Jump” (1984)
Alex Van Halen,
Eddie Van Halen, and
David Lee Roth
Van Halen.
STYLE Punk-influenced pop rock ⋅ FORM Mainly opening section (A), which serves as intro, first vocal statement, and outro. Vocal bridges and guitar and synth solos interpolated
Listen For …
INSTRUMENTATION
Vocal, synths, electric guitar, drums
RHYTHM
Basic rhythm: bouncy rock beat at moderate tempo; time kept in bass; signature riff syncopated
MELODY
Instrumental riffs most prominent melodic strand; different versions of same rhythm
HARMONY
Fresh approach to I-IV-V throughout most of song; bridge uses more wide-ranging harmony
TEXTURE
Open sound: strong bass, high synth riff, vocal, drums in middle; bridge = sudden shift in texture—more fluid rhythm, thicker texture in mid-range
Remember …
HAPPY SONG
Good mood in lyrics echoed by syncopated riff, guitar and synth solos, and clearly outlined rhythm at a moderate tempo
FROM PUNK TO POP
“Saturated” rock rhythm (bass repeated note/drums) recontextualizes more aggressive punk approach to rock rhythm
1980S POP ROCK SOUND
Prominent synths: main solo voice, as well as bass line support, dominant riff, and background color augment traditional rock instrumentation
Listen to this selection in the unit playlist.
David Lee Roth and Eddie Van Halen
Although associated with heavy metal because of the guitar-centric songs and Eddie Van Halen’s playing, Van Halen was, from the start, more than a heavy metal band. During the early eighties, in the latter part of Roth’s tenure with the band, Eddie Van Halen sought to move more toward the mainstream, in part by incorporating synthesizers into their sound—he is also a skilled keyboardist. Among the fruits of this particular direction was “Jump,” from their sixth album, 1984; it was the band’s first No. 1 single.
“Jump” exemplifies the new sound of punk-inspired and pop-oriented rock that emerged in the early eighties. Among the features that most clearly identify this sound are prominent synthesizer parts, an open texture, and the contemporary approach to rock rhythm. For most of the song, including the opening signature riff, synths rule. In addition to replacing the lead guitar as the source of the opening instrumental hook, they provide most of the accompaniment for Roth’s vocal. Van Halen plays guitar only in the contrasting section and in a brief tantalizing solo, which only hints at his technical mastery and sonic imagination. This soon gives way to a synthesizer solo that is more extended but less virtuosic. The synth riff lies mainly in a medium-high register; it is in a higher range than Roth’s vocal line much of the time. By contrast, the bass line, played by Anthony (on bass) and Van Halen, is in a low register. What’s missing—or very much in the background—most of the time are chords played by a rhythm guitarist. By omitting this typically prominent part of the texture, Van Halen gives the song a more spacious sound.
Underpinning Roth’s vocal and the synthesizer and guitar parts is a bass line that is mostly a single note repeated at rock-beat speed. It changes infrequently in the heart of the song—mainly at the end of phrases, in the contrasting section, and during Van Halen’s guitar solo. By presenting the rock-rhythm layer most prominently in a repeated-note bass line, Van Halen (and the other eighties bands that also used this strategy) further concentrates this already distilled form of rock rhythm. Here, the bass part turns rock rhythm into a musical trampoline on which the rest of the texture bounces. In this form, the rhythm is vibrant, not aggressive. Indeed, “Jump” is a good-humored song; we can almost see Roth smirking as he sings the song. Shortly after recording 1984, Roth left the band. Sammy Hagar (b. 1947) replaced him for the better part of a decade. He too left, in 1996. Gary Cherone (b. 1961) then began his brief tenure as lead vocalist. The band, inactive since 2004, undertook a reunion tour with Roth in 2007.
The sounds and rhythms popularized in songs like “Jump” were one of the freshest trends in rock during the eighties. Other acts—including the Eurythmics, Cyndi Lauper, and the Smiths—also featured it in their music. The livelier, cleaner rhythmic textures and the expanded sound palette created by the new synth timbres make the music sound distinctly different from almost all of the music of the seventies and before. A similar approach underpins some of the most significant rock of the decade.
CH. 82
Significant Rock
82-1 Making Rock Relevant
Among those who saw Buerk’s broadcast was Bob Geldof (b. 1954), the lead singer with the Irish new wave band the Boomtown Rats. Geldof was so moved that he resolved to organize a musical event to raise money for famine relief and to raise people’s awareness of the crisis; he would call his project Band Aid. He enlisted the help of Midge Ure (born James Ure, 1953), a member of Ultravox, another U.K. new wave band. Together they wrote the song “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” then recruited an all-star cast to perform it, and obtained 24 hours of free studio time to record it. Among the guest performers on the recording were Paul McCartney, Bono, Sting, Boy George, and Phil Collins. The recording was released on December 15, less than two months after Geldof viewed Buerk’s broadcast. It quickly topped the charts in the United Kingdom. Geldof donated all the revenues from its sale to assist the Ethiopian people through the Band Aid Trust, which he formed for that purpose.
Around the time “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” was released in Great Britain, another equally bleak news report of the famine aired in the United States. After viewing the broadcast, Harry Belafonte (b. 1927), a singer and actor who had parlayed his spectacular success as a calypso singer in the fifties into a long and distinguished career in entertainment, called his manager Ken Kragen, who also managed several other top entertainment stars, about organizing a project for famine relief. Within short order, Lionel Richie, Stevie Wonder, and Michael Jackson were on board; Jackson and Richie wrote the song “We Are the World.” The principals scheduled a recording session right after the American Music Awards ceremony. An all-star cast—including Paul Simon, Tina Turner, Diana Ross, Willie Nelson, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, and Ray Charles—recorded the song on January 28, 1985; Quincy Jones produced the session. The single came out in March. On Good Friday (April 5 that year), 5,000 radio stations played the song simultaneously. The single, and an album spun off from the single, both went multiplatinum. The project, called USA (United Support of Artists) for Africa, raised over $50 million for famine relief.
Capitalizing on the goodwill generated by the Band Aid project, Geldof organized Live Aid, the most massive fund-raising event in the history of the music business. His idea was to create a “global jukebox” with broadcasts of concerts from stadiums in London and Philadelphia. The concerts—over 22 hours between the two venues—and live performances from other venues throughout the world—for example, Moscow, Sydney, the Hague—would be broadcast throughout the world via satellite. The roster of acts performing at the multiple venues reads like a Who’s Who of rock. Live Aid, performed July 13, 1985, drew a worldwide audience estimated at over 1 billion viewers. At one point during the broadcast, Billy Connolly, a Scottish comedian and actor who was opening for Elton John, announced that he had been informed that 95 percent of the world’s television sets were watching the event. Live Aid eventually raised over $260 million for famine relief in Africa. Even more important, the events and the recordings called attention to the plight in Africa. Shipments of grain surpluses from the United States and elsewhere soon alleviated the suffering in Ethiopia.
These events and others like them (such as Farm Aid) put the “we” back in rock. In the sixties, rock had defined itself as a “we” music: first in the bands themselves (names like the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Who, the Rolling Stones gave bands a collective identity), then in the bond between music and audience. The “we” in rock was a generation that didn’t trust anyone over 30. The seventies, by contrast, have been dubbed as the “me” decade; in music, self-involvement (what about me?) and the pursuit of success seemed to negate the sense of community created in the sixties.
The massive fund-raising events of the eighties signaled the return of rock’s conscience, but with a huge difference. In the sixties, rock gave voice to a generational revolution. It provided the soundtrack for an assault on the establishment and, by overthrowing the pop music establishment, it led by example. In the eighties, rock was the establishment, the dominant segment of the music industry. As a result, it could leverage the celebrity of its artists in projects that served a greater good. In the eighties, “we” in rock not only included the musicians, the music industry, and the audience, but also those whom they sought to help.
Through a series of spectacular “-Aid” events, altruism returned to rock in the mid-1980s. We might think of these events as a successful response to a mid-life crisis, as if a man asked himself where the idealism of his youth had gone and resolved not only to recapture it but also to convert those ideals into positive actions. The sense of purpose that these events symbolized was one sign of a renewal in rock. Leading this renewal were Bruce Springsteen and U2.
82-2 Bruce Springsteen
Asbury Park is a New Jersey beach town about an hour’s drive from New York City. Bruce Springsteen (b. 1949) grew up in and around the town. Early on, he forged the musical split personality that has been his trademark. He worked with bar bands close to home and also played solo gigs in Greenwich Village clubs, where he mingled with Patti Smith and other early punk rockers. This helps account for the huge swings in his music, from the all-acoustic Nebraska album to the hard-rocking Born in the U.S.A.
His enormous success comes in part from his ability to integrate seemingly contradictory aspects of his life and work. He is a superstar and a man of the people, a musician who plays to sold-out arenas and shows up unannounced to sit in with local bands. Throughout his career, he has stayed close to his working-class roots and has written songs that reflect their concerns. At the same time, he is larger than life—the “Boss” to his fiercely loyal fans.
Bruce Springsteen, 1985
In 1974, rock critic Jon Landau went to a Springsteen concert at the Harvard Square Theater. In a long, rambling review, he wrote, “I saw rock and roll’s future and his name is Bruce Springsteen.” Landau turned his words into action, becoming Springsteen’s manager.
Landau’s evaluation was right on the mark in the sense that Springsteen became the biggest star of the next two decades to consciously continue the core tradition of rock. While others branched off in new directions, Springsteen stayed close to his rock-and-roll roots, even as he updated and expanded the sound. For example, his first big hit, the 1975 song “Born to Run,” features an oversized band (several guitars, saxophone, keyboards, bass, and drums), an extended guitar hook, a sprawling form, and a powerful, obvious beat.
After “Born to Run,” Springsteen’s career was primed for takeoff. However, a drawn-out legal battle involving Landau and Springsteen’s first producer, Mike Appel, kept Springsteen out of the studios for about three years. He returned with a string of critically acclaimed and mildly (for 1980) popular albums: Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978), The River (1980), and the acoustic Nebraska (1982). He finally broke through to a mass audience in 1984 with Born in the U.S.A. It was in this album that Springsteen fully realized the big conception first expressed in songs like “Born to Run.”
In the title track, Springsteen mixes a strong story line, simple riffs and rhythms, and subtle details. The lyric paints a brutal portrait of a Vietnam War veteran through powerful, almost posterized images: “sent me off to a foreign land/to go and kill the yellow man.” The verses telegraph defining moments in the protagonist’s life, from early childhood to his inability to get a job and the insensitivity of the government in supporting veterans. Springsteen’s words put an ironic spin on the title phrase. In this context, what could be a prideful affirmation of patriotism becomes a jingoistic mantra—a badge of shame for a country that sends its less fortunate off to fight in a senseless war, then does little to help those who return.
Springsteen sets his trenchant lyric in an almost minimalist musical environment. The song begins with only a single octave on the piano, a heavy backbeat, and a synthesizer riff. The spacing of these three elements—low, middle, high—and a judicious amount of reverb (which makes the backbeat sound uncomfortably close to a rifle shot) give the introduction a big sound by defining a wide open space waiting to be filled in. As the song unfolds, Springsteen fills in the middle; the most prominent of the additional parts either strengthen the bass or fill in the upper range—most notably, the piano part presents a more active version of the synthesizer riff. These and other instruments weave in and out of the texture, but the riff and backbeat are constants—even through Max Weinberg’s “war zone” drum solo.
Listening Cue
“Born in the U.S.A.” (1984)
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen, vocal, with the E Street Band.
STYLE 1980s serious rock ⋅ FORM Verse/chorus, but with the instrumental accompaniment keeping the same riff throughout
Listen For …
INSTRUMENTATION
Vocals, synthesizers, drums, keyboard, bass
PERFORMANCE STYLE
Springsteen’s strained vocal sound = intense conviction
RHYTHM
Rock rhythm at moderate tempo with overpowering back beat; rock timekeeping off and on
MELODY
Main melodic feature: title-phrase riff, played, then sung, dominates song
TEXTURE
Open sound dominated by high riff, strong backbeat, low sustained bass notes
Remember …
ANTIWAR SONG
Lyric a scathing indictment of war and its costs
SIGNIFICANT ROCK
Open texture with Springsteen’s raspy voice in the middle conveys a sense of importance
SPRINGSTEEN STRATEGY
Combine easily grasped features (riff, backbeat) with subtle touches (piano doubling synth riff)
SYNTHS AND 80S ROCK
Dominant presence of synthesizer sounds = fresh sound in 1980s rock
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Springsteen is at once simple and subtle. The prominent elements in “Born in the U.S.A.” stand out vibrantly, whereas the spacing of the texture and the balance between the prominent features and background support is more sophisticated. Springsteen has maintained this strategy in his subsequent music, most notably in The Rising, his response to 9/11. He remains one of the few artists in rock music with a truly powerful presence.
Springsteen’s “significant” sound, as evidenced in “Born in the U.S.A.,” was one of several musical options that he would employ in his music from the early eighties on. Other tracks on the album range from the punk-drenched “No Surrender” and the country-flavored “Darlington County” to the synth rock of “Dancing in the Dark” and the moody ballad “My Hometown.”
In similar fashion, another significant band of the eighties would define themselves musically by developing and refining one of the truly distinctive styles of the decade.
82-3 U2
From the start, U2—lead vocalist Bono (born Paul Hewson, 1960), guitarist-keyboardist The Edge (born David Evans, 1961), bassist Adam Clayton (b. 1960), and drummer Larry Mullen (b. 1961)—have had a sense of their destiny. In 1981, three years after the group came together, Bono told Rolling Stone, “Even at this stage, I do feel we are meant to be one of the great bands. There’s a certain spark, a certain chemistry, that was special about the Stones, The Who, and the Beatles, and I think it’s also special about U2.” They have fulfilled their destiny because they have stayed together and because they have never lost their passion for rock and what it can be. In 2000, after more than two decades of touring, recording, and sending their message out into the world, Bono told USA Today that “There is a transcendence that I want from rock…. I’m still drunk on the idea that rock and roll can be a force for change. We haven’t lost that idea.”
U2 soon made Bono a prophet. In their first two albums, Boy (1980) and October (1981), the group addressed personal issues, among them relationships and their faith. By 1983, the year that they released War, their third album, the band had defined its purpose, found its audience, and begun to define its sound. With this album, their music took on the politically and socially aware edge that would characterize it through the rest of the eighties. “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” a track from War and their first No. 1 hit in the United Kingdom, for example, recounts an especially bloody incident in the ongoing strife between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, and the musical setting reinforces the message of the lyrics; the five-note bursts played by the entire band underneath Bono’s vocal line evoke the sound of gunfire.
The following year, U2 began their long and fruitful collaboration with Brian Eno (b. 1948)—a founding member of Roxy Music, an electronica pioneer, the father of ambient music, and by 1984, a much-in-demand producer. (More recently, Eno has identified himself as a “sonic landscaper,” a label that applies readily to his work with U2.) Eno brought a polish to U2’s music while preserving the distinctive sound world that they had begun to create. Their first album together was the 1984 release The Unforgettable Fire; he would collaborate on four of their albums. By 1985, Rolling Stone had dubbed them the band of the eighties, but it wasn’t until Joshua Tree (1987) that they achieved the overwhelming commercial success to match their critical acclaim.
Virtually from the start of their career, U2 cultivated a sound world that made their music sound significant. They put the essential components in place in their first albums, enhanced them with the help of Brian Eno, and maintained them through the eighties. The sound grows out of punk but already has a distinct identity in songs like “Gloria” (1981) from their second album. Surrounding Bono’s vocals is a four-strand texture, separated into low, middle, and high:
· Two low-range sounds: repeated notes at rock-beat speed in the bass and beat keeping on the bass drum
· A mid-range percussion sound: a rock-rhythm layer on the sock cymbal
· A medium-high–range sound: the angular guitar line, also moving at rock-beat speed
The insistent rock rhythmic layer, played by the entire band, derives from punk, but U2 has already put their personal stamp on it in the spacing of the instruments and in The Edge’s asymmetrically patterned single-line guitar figures. Because of the registral openness and the angular guitar lines, the effect is quite different from punk. Whereas the sound of Ramones-style punk rams the listener head on, the sound of U2, even at this early stage, envelops the listener.
This distinctive sound world is built on contrast: between high and low and between slow and fast. As the band’s music evolved during the eighties, the contrast deepened. One significant change came from within the band. The active rhythms doubled in speed, from rock rhythm to a sixteen-beat rhythm, while such features as chord rhythm often moved at even slower speeds. In his work with U2, Eno enriched the “sonic landscape” by deepening the contrast between slow and fast with sustained synthesizer sounds and by introducing stronger textural contrasts. These changes gave U2’s music an even more sharply defined profile, as we hear in “Where the Streets Have No Name,” a hit track from their 1987 album Joshua Tree.
“Where the Streets Have No Name” continues U2’s predilection for meaningful words encased in meaningful-sounding music. The lyrics describe a universal longing for the harmony that can be created when divisions by class, race, and wealth disappear. They are general enough to have spawned multiple interpretations. Some connect the song’s message to Ethiopia, where Bono and his wife had done relief work. Others link it to Los Angeles, where the video of the song was filmed. Still others associate it with Dublin, where the street one lives on could identify one’s social and economic status. And most connect it to the world beyond.
Bono presents the lyric through a melody whose simplicity is obscured by the rich instrumental backdrop. If we tune out the instruments and simply listen to Bono’s voice, we hear a folksong-like tune: short phrases that gently rise and fall within a narrow range. Like folksongs from the British Isles, this melody is coherent even without accompaniment, and it would work with a simple folk guitar accompaniment.
It is U2 and Eno’s grand setting that relocates this simple melody from the front porch to the stage. The extended instrumental introduction—almost 2 minutes in length—begins with sustained organ and synthesizer sounds. The Edge’s busy guitar pattern slowly emerges out of this sound cushion. At first it is in a rhythm that oscillates once for every six notes, like a jig in slow motion. Imperceptibly, he converts the pattern to the sixteen-beat rhythm that is sustained through the rest of the song. The rhythmic patterns range from the sustained synthesizer chords, which may last four measures before changing, through the beat-speed thump of Mullen’s bass drum, Clayton’s rock-beat–speed repeated note, and the sixteen-beat rhythms of the guitar(s)—there are two guitar sounds much of the time—and drums. All of this encases Bono’s singing in a musical halo.
The sound world that U2 created in “Where the Streets Have No Name” was the band’s musical signature during the eighties. It is heard in many of their hits during that decade, and it becomes progressively more sophisticated from album to album. It has the effect of elevating the simple melody that lies at its center, investing it with a power and impact that it could not have had in a simpler setting. In this sense, the music of U2 is the ultimate folk rock, one in which the power of the words is matched by the power of the music.
“Where the Streets Have No Name” (1987)
Adam Clayton,
Dave Evans,
Paul Hewson, and
Larry Mullen, Jr
U2.
STYLE 1980s significant rock ⋅ FORM Verse/chorus, but with extended instrumental intro and outro
Listen For …
INSTRUMENTATION
Vocal, synths, guitar, bass, drums
RHYTHM
Steady timekeeping at moderate tempo in bass (eight-beat) and drums (sixteen-beat); steady rhythm in guitar but irregular patterns; contrast with slow-moving vocal line, sustained chords
MELODY
Tuneful, simple melody
HARMONY
Slow-moving melody
TEXTURE
Open sound: low bass, bass drum, mid-range timekeeping on cymbal, guitar upper mid-range, vocal in center
Remember …
POSITIVE MESSAGE
Lyrics that send a message of hope: for a world that is not divided by class, wealth, race, or any other arbitrary criterion
IRISH BARD
Simple, folklike melody; Bono’s singing: Irish tenor with blues-like grittiness
U2 SOUND
Characteristic 1980s U2 sound: slow-moving, tuneful vocal melody, steady rock-speed bass line; sixteen-beat rhythm on drums; complex patterns at sixteen-beat speed in guitar; sustained synth harmonies in background
SIGNIFICANCE AND SYNCOPATION
Persistent rhythms at several speeds, with very little syncopation (except in melodic pattern of guitar part) plus spacious texture send message that this is important music
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82-4 Significant-Sounding Rock
For many, Bruce Springsteen and U2 were the only two truly important acts of the eighties. Both confronted difficult problems in which they had a deep personal involvement: the Vietnam War, the conflict in Northern Ireland, and the suffering in Africa. And both wore their hearts on their sleeves—they would rather be too passionate than too reserved.
In the two examples discussed above, the power of their music comes from applying two principles: simplifying and highlighting basic rhythms and creating a full, yet open sound. By emphasizing regular timekeeping over syncopation, and maintaining the same basic texture with only subtle variation through long stretches of time, the instrumental settings convey both simplicity and seriousness. Their function is to enhance the power and presence of the lyric.
The rhythmic approach used by both Springsteen and U2, although realized in strikingly different ways, has the same effect: It cuts the cord with good-time rock. As we have noted in earlier chapters, the rock groove that makes people want to get up and dance grows out of the interplay between regular rhythms and rhythms that conflict with it or transcend it. Both of the songs discussed in this section minimize or all but eliminate this interplay. In “Born in the U.S.A.,” it is confined almost exclusively to the dominant riff and the backbeat; in “Where the Streets Have No Name,” it occurs only in the irregular patterns of The Edge’s active accompaniment, not in the rhythm itself, which is regular. It is as if both Springsteen and U2 are saying that they want listeners to hear the message in the lyrics. Listeners can draw power from the music, but they should not be distracted by rhythms that are too playful for the lyric. In post-punk rock, a serious message virtually demands music with minimal syncopation.
CH. 83
Renewing Rock and Roll
83-1 Neo-Traditional Trends of the Eighties
The Wilburys’ collaboration was one branch of a neo-traditional movement within rock during the eighties and nineties. The Rolling Stones breathed life into their career in the early eighties, while boogie bands such as ZZ Top kept trucking along. Also, many newer rock acts—such as John Mellencamp, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and Dire Straits—carved out a niche in the rock marketplace.
Flashing back to an even more distant past was a jump-band revival led by the Stray Cats; it would gain momentum in the nineties in the music of groups such as the Brian Setzer Orchestra. Fresh voices breathed new life into two of rock’s most influential antecedents: the blues and the socially conscious song. The blues revival that began in the mid-eighties gave a boost to the careers of established bluesmen and introduced new stars, such as Stevie Ray Vaughan and Robert Cray. Later in the decade, a new generation of socially aware female singer-songwriters, among them Tracy Chapman and Suzanne Vega, would evoke the spirit of early Bob Dylan.
83-2 John Mellencamp
Perhaps the most down-to-earth of the newer rock acts was John Mellencamp—literally. “Rain On The Scarecrow” (1986), one of his most powerful songs, presents the plight of the small-time farmer through a tale about a family that’s losing their farm. So it’s not surprising that Mellencamp was one of the main forces behind the Farm Aid benefits.
Mellencamp, known as John Cougar at the beginning of his career (“Cougar” was his first manager’s invention; Mellencamp learned about it only after seeing the name on the cover of his debut album), began his career in the mid-seventies, but it didn’t take off until the early 1980s. His breakthrough album was American Fool (1982), which included the No. 1 single “Jack & Diane.” It was the first of five Mellencamp albums released in the 1980s to reach the Top 10 on the album charts and go platinum. Mellencamp’s “Paper in Fire,” a hit single from the 1987 album The Lonesome Jubilee, shows his connection with, and expansion of, the American rock-and-roll tradition exemplified by Creedence Clearwater Revival, the Grateful Dead, and the Band. Mellencamp encases an excellent story, which unfolds slowly and suspensefully, in a well-grooved rock-and-roll setting. The lyric tells a cautionary tale about the fate of those who get but don’t give. Mellencamp sets up the chorus beautifully by presenting the verse with a subdued, static accompaniment, then exploding with siren-like syncopated chords at the chorus.
Through the instrumentation of the song, Mellencamp deepens the country/blues fusion that typified the “American” sound, ca. 1970 by drawing on both sound worlds. Among the backup instruments are a banjo (bluegrass), slide guitar (deep blues), fiddle (country), and accordion (zydeco); the tambourine shaking out a double-time rhythm throughout the song was a staple in the minstrel show and in numerous rock bands of the 1960s.
“Paper in Fire” (1987)
John Mellencamp
Mellencamp, vocal.
STYLE Neo-traditional 1980s rock ⋅ FORM Verse/chorus
Listen For …
INSTRUMENTATION
Lead and backup vocal, lead guitar, slide guitar, violin, harmonica, accordion, electric bass, banjo, drums, tambourine
PERFORMANCE STYLE
Mellencamp’s husky voice ideal for storytelling
RHYTHM
Rock rhythm at fast tempo, with double-time rhythm in tambourine and abundant syncopation, especially “fire siren” riff
MELODY
Abundance of riffs in verse and chorus
TEXTURE
Sharp contrast between verse and chorus, mainly because of subtraction/addition of instruments
Remember …
COMPELLING STORY
Three vignettes relate in different ways how those who take without giving get burned
SOUND PAINTING
Musical setting amplifies impact of lyric: verse = suppressed energy; chorus explodes, with siren-like sounds
AMERICAN SOUND
Mellencamp’s down-home vocal style, solid rock rhythm, bluegrass and blues instruments (banjo, slide guitar, fiddle, and so on) all project an “American” rock sound, ca. mid-1980s
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“Paper in Fire” is an especially successful continuation of the storytelling tradition within rock that dates back to Bob Dylan. Like Dylan, Mellencamp uses the musical setting to amplify the sense of the text; the music behind the words and melody are integral to the impact of the song. It demonstrates that fresh approaches to the by-now-timeless rock style produce memorable music.
