Modal Chord Progressions on the Guitar

It’s mid-January, the Mondays are biting but music continues. Coming to mixcloud.com/blastocast this month is the Opportunity Inbox Sound of 2016, an introduction to who the big record companies will be funnelling money to, and which acts Chris Imlach and I want to see or hear.

In the meantime, here is the third Twenty. Last fortnight Elvis Presley (who would have been 81 this month if he hadn’t snuffed it) topped the Twenty with ‘Burning Love’, assisted by a massive orchestra. Will Elvis be present in this Twenty, or will someone steal his crown?

Find the link to a Spotify playlist of the Twenty at the bottom of this page.

Lots of new entries, so let’s go go GO!!

20 Sara Bareilles and Jason Mraz – Bad Idea. The first of three from Sara, this one with her male equivalent, in a duet written for a Broadway show. I like the back-and-forth, what writers call ‘stichomythia’, and I like when the voices meet. As in all her songs, the chords are interesting and the lyrics fun, with lots of dramatic tension to resolve. One of the show’s more memorable songs, they’ll be humming it in the aisles. ‘It’s a really good bad idea, wasn’t it though?’ is a cute line.

19 Rhiannon Giddens – Moonshiner’s Daughter. What a voice. She’ll be a durable artist as long as she wants to be. The singer of Carolina Chocolate Drops went solo in 2014, and followed up a strong album Tomorrow is my Turn with an EP. This song, from that EP, has a very contemporary groove, and a super vocal. Rhiannon performed her song ‘Up Above my Head’ as part of Jools Holland’s Hootenanny. Pure and full of character, Rhiannon’s voice leaps out here. Also recommended is her vocal expertise on ‘Mouth Music’, which is like watching a violinist improvise.

18 Virgo – In a Vision. Guardian pop critic Alexis Petridis wrote a piece about a deep house duo from 1990. I am a big fan of house music, so it was great to hear eight songs I had never heard before, each as good as the other. In a Vision leapt out, but next fortnight it could be another. Perfect music to work to, and sounds outstanding even in this Protools era.

17 Cage the Elephant – Mess Around. The mark of a good producer is that you know they’ve had a hand in the track just by listening to it. Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys has shaped the new album of his Kentucky frie(n)ds, the lead single from which is this, an addictive ditty that sounds like a Black Keys offcut.

16 Billie Marten – As Long As. Funny she’s at 16. As Louis Walsh would say on The X Factor before he was retired, ‘You’re 16!!!’ Laura Marling was also a teenage starlet (in 2007, which means she’s still mid-twenties!) but Billie started even earlier. I’m watching a clip of her performing an internet session in 2002, as a twelve-year-old with long hair and a purple guitar. Finally, with GCSEs out of the way, she’s ready to put a full-length album out. She’s just been one of eight acts to play a BBC showcase, having been longlisted for the Sound Of 2016 poll. Her USP is her love of alpacas, but her voice is pretty enough on its own. Every time you read about her you’ll find out Ed Sheeran liked her song ‘Bird’, but I prefer the title track of her 2015 EP, which has some yummy suspended chords.

15 Foxes – Amazing. In 2011 I went to Camden Town to see a set of bands perform ‘Breakout’ sessions. One of these performers was a girl with an acoustic guitar and a sweet voice named Louisa Rose Allen. A few months later she had become Foxes, and was a year away from becoming a staple of radio playlists by guesting on the track ‘Clarity’. In 2014 she was the musical performer at a TV recording I attended, promoting her first album. Her second one, All I Need, is now due for release, and the lead single is ‘Amazing’. If not amazing, it’s a smart dance-pop song with addictive musical E numbers. One of the album’s tracks, ‘Scar’, is a Babyface production, but will that make it to the Twenty?

14 Bloc Party – The Good News. It’s not just choppy guitars any more. Kele has matured in his songwriting, done a ‘Robert Smith from the Cure’ and recruited new band members. This song is very good, with a winning chorus and a lyric about ‘going to the water to pray’. Then comes some slide guitar and a chantalong of the title; sounds like a hit, or an A-listed track on BBC 6Music.

13 Ra Ra Riot – Absolutely. Selected by Chris Imlach for the Sound of 2016 podcast, this is a super tune with multi-tracked vocals, a fun riff and the recurrence of the title throughout the chorus. It’s a banger. Vampire Weekend fans will be sated, as will fans of Mika (whose Radio 2 show over New Year was terrific and is still iPlayerable).

12 Sara Bareilles – Never Ever Getting Rid of Me. She may pop up later, so I’ll save the precis of The Waitress for then. In brief, this is a song that bops and shimmies and will please fans of musical theatre. Some of the chords are Cole Porter-inspired, while I can imagine the lead witch in Wicked singing this in her warm-ups. The second verse is all about a cat, while the chorus is about ‘doing this right…wherever you go I won’t be far to follow’. Only after a few listens did I notice that the verse is in the key of G, while the chorus is in F, a real Porter-type chord shift that merits my applause!

11 Frankie Ballard – Young and Crazy. ‘How’m’I ever gonna get to be old and wise if I ain’t ever young and crazy?!’ Good point well made. Another one of these young men doing good things with country music, this song chugs along like a country-rock song from 1973. One of the bit 50 hits counted down in the Country Top40 Hits of the Year, this is a ‘weekend’ song dedicated to having fun. ‘I gotta do a little wrong to know what’s right’. Also includes enjambment, a run-on line, so he can rhyme ‘porch’ with ‘glory days’.

10 David Bowie – Lazarus. Bizarre, waking up at 6 and then following breaking cultural news even before it was confirmed. I listened to Bowie’s final album Blackstar on Monday morning, as millions of others did, and found it tough in places. I liked ‘Dollar Days’ but was locked into the groove of a track from the new Broadway musical. This is the track which had clues in its first verse that Bowie was not long for the world. Read my piece on Bowie, written as I was listening to BBC 6music prove it should never have been earmarked for closure, on the site.

9 Cam – Hungover on Heartache. She started the year playing the Ryman Auditorium in her home town of Nashville, after the massive success of album Untamed. ‘Burning House’ has been the hit, but the album’s full of potential ones. This one has the pop sheen of Taylor Swift’s country songs. I’m a sucker for syncopation and good melodies; this tune has both. Make it a hit!!

8 Chairlift – Romeo. From a new album released in January, Chairlift are one of those ‘Pitchfork bands’, appealing to hip music fans who like beats and rhymes. This song sounds very contemporary, with a chorus that goes ‘Put on your running shoes, I’m ready to go’, but has some fun chords to match a really driving riff played through an effects box. Chris Imlach chose this for the Sound of 2016 podcast, so if you like this, you’ll like the hour.

7 Julius La Rosa – Eh Cumpari. ‘Oh this is just ‘I am the music man!’ I shouted when Paul Gambaccini played this song as part of ‘A Matter of Life and Death’ during his successful Radio 2 show America’s Greatest Hits. Julius, who just turned 86, was born in Brooklyn and was infamously sacked live on air from his job as a singer on the popular Arthur Godrey show; Gambo pointed us towards the Youtube clip of it, where Julius talks of his tyrannical and jealous boss, defying him by getting himself an agent. This song, a US ‘terrific two’, is familiar to those who loved the movie The Talented Mr Ripley. It’s a ‘smile to the face’ song in Italian whose lyrics are easy to work out: the guy says to the cumpari ‘What’s that sound over there?’ The guy replies ‘It’s the flute/ saxophone/ mandolin/ violin/ trumpet/ trombone’. The inquisitor-narrator says ‘And what’s it sound like then?’ To which Julius makes a noise with his mouth, be it whistling, ‘chinga’, ‘doo-doo’, ‘bah-bah’, adding a newinstrument each time, before finishing with ‘dippity dippity dot’. It’s life-affirming, and more fun than Benjamin Britten as a guide to the orchestra for young people. Arthur Godfrey is dead; Julius La Rose is alive!!

6 Vant – Parking Lot. Guitars are dead etc, but some kids still know how to rock. Vant have built a big following through lots of live gigs in 2015, and 2016 sees them play a sold out London show under the NME tour banner. This song gets going instantly, with some talk of vampires, and reminds me of Foo Fighters and Air Traffic, the latter of whose ‘Just Abuse Me’ combines melody and power like the best work of The Hives. ‘Wait a minute cos your heart’s not in it’ is the hook, with a close harmonic interval. Fans of bands like Sloan and The Cars will find stuff to love here, the best of the four tracks put out so far.

5 Jellyfish – Too Much, Too Little Too Late. Last year I wrote a long piece on Acolytes of McCartney, singers who write melodic rock songs in the manner of Macca. One of these men is Andy Sturmer, who was a quarter of the band Jellyfish. In summer 2015 their two records, Bellybutton and Spilt Milk, were reissued on CD, and I spent happy hours embracing the powerful pop and marvellous arrangements. This song, from Spilt Milk, is structured sublimely, with soft bits, Beach Boys-y harmonies and a guitar-led instrumental break. Hopelessly uncommercial in 1993, this is music made to last, and sounds so fantastic through my new earphones. This fortnight it was revealed that an ‘official unofficial’ book on the band was finally due in spring. There’s a Facebook group for it.

4 The Chiffons – One Fine Day. Well specifically Janelle Monae’s take on it, performed at the Kennedy Centre to honour Carole King. Much was made of Aretha Franklin’s appearance at the end, but Janelle’s personality can sell the dullest tune. Fortunately ‘One Fine Day’ isn’t dull, but a burst of hope and reverie that speaks across the decades. Carole wrote it as a young lady, and it is so brilliantly structured in that old New York style beloved of Mann & Weill, Neil Sedaka and Gerry Goffin. It’s stunning just how many tunes King has written, from bubblegum to torchsong, and even though she has hardly written a note in forty years, she never needed to. Tapestry remains a touchstone for young (especially female) songwriters, but her uptempo tunes, many showcased in the Broadway and West End musical Beautiful, are the sound of Young America.

3 Elle King – Under the Influence. She played ‘Ex’s and Oh’s’ at a New Year televised hootenanny in the States, where she’s preparing for her big tour over there. But fortunately RCA has made her album available on European streaming services so it was high time to investigate. This tune is what Lana Del Ray sounds like with a bit of gristle. ‘I got no defence,’ sings Elle on a track written with the same bloke who wrote ‘Ex’s’. I wrote at length about Elle for the site; take a looksee as you listen.

2 Cam – Half Broke Car. Like ‘Hungover on Heartache’ this is clever country from Cam, with lyrics that follow the Kacey Musgraves school of smart & cute: ‘A half-truth’s still a lie/ “I’ll be back soon” is still goodbye’ made me sit up and notice, but the musicality of the song, which bounces along after a delightful piano intro, keeps me coming back.

1 Sara Bareilles – Opening Up. What a confection! The Waitress is a Broadway show based on a movie I never saw, but seems topical because baking is recession-proof! Sara, whose ‘Love Song’ is one of my top pop songs of the century, has composed a set of songs which she put out last year to whet people’s whistles for the show, which starts previews in spring this year. I am a sucker for one particular chord progression – I to diminished V – and it’s present and very correct in the chorus to this song, the first song proper in the musical. “Opening up, letting the day in” is a marvellous lyric, and I am sure Sara has studied the work of the best contemporary writers for Broadway. This tops the Twenty, and is good enough to top the next!