I've been musing over composition a lot recently, trying to pin down just why Tsumetai Kaze to Kataomoi's composition is such a waste of its arrangement
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Yeah Friedman explains it quite succinctly there. It was interesting to hear this composer quote Western industry people specifically voicing opinions against 'many chords', though. Like, not only is it not usual, industry people think it would be detrimental to a song's success. Not so sure, myself, but obviously a far travelling melody is not exactly what's defined Billboard hits of the past few years.
Your MM observations are very interesting, I wouldn't have been able to put it in those person-who-actually-knows-this-stuff terms.
I've been reading interviews with SCANDAL for their new album and they explicitly state that for this album they wanted to get away from the royal road progression.
The James Brown problematickoganbotMarch 13 2016, 16:50:42 UTC
I barely know anything about Japanese pop, and not all that much about current American pop either, actually. But I think the James Brown problematic that I set forth back at the start of "Death Rock 2000" may be relevant: the more syncopated your supposed "background" parts are (drums, bass, rhythm guitar), the more your supposed "foreground" (vocals, leads, melodies) has to adapt to and intertwine with the background; this lessens or gets rid of the distinction between foreground and background. To be a bit simplistic here, when you truncate or cancel the melody, you tend to be getting rid of chord changes as well.
It isn't that James Brown wasn't interested in melody - all the evidence is just the opposite! - but that he was trying to do other things as well, and these other things limited his options.
I don't know if "syncopated" was the right word above, but anyway: funk. But funk isn't the only relevant melody suppressor: Brown also pushed his songs towards call-and-response. You can hear in this live version of the melody-
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RE: The James Brown problematickoganbotMarch 16 2016, 17:12:25 UTC
Don't have much of value to add to this at the moment but enjoyed your examples. I started associating while thinking about your points - I've briefly taken up writing about the old feud in academic videogame debate about story vs interactivity again - in summary, the question of whether story is always something plastered on top of a game, as the ludologists claimed, not a part of it, that the act of gaming is opposite to being told a story to, and never shall the twain meet. Not that "storytelling vs interactivity" wholly works as a "beat vs melody" equivalent
There's certainly Japanese rap that's recognisably influenced by trendy sounds in the US or otherwise beat over melody. But there's also rap scenes like this
RE: The James Brown problematickoganbotMarch 20 2016, 16:05:42 UTC
This is very good. I'd like to know more about the scene that produced it. (The rhythm background doesn't flounce all the way to the front on this track, but gets the spotlight in various interstices, as in the disco-funk of the Seventies and Eighties.)
The James Brown problematic 2koganbotMarch 13 2016, 16:52:17 UTC
From "Death Rock 2000":
So even the hard funk of Funkadelic and Kool and the Gang had a somewhat straighter groove, and in hip-hop and r&b you always-until recently-had a loud drum nailing down the backbeat, or even a one-two-three-four (the more discofied r&b), with the song or rap back on top and most of the funk relegated to the bass guitar or bass keyboard. With the backbeat/one-two-three-four anchoring whatever was on top, some of JB's propulsive tumble was lost. So I think the tension in much of the world's music in the next century will be: "We don't want to give up song form or the Euromelody tradition, or we don't want to give up an out-front rap, or an out-front guitar solo, or an out-front wall of noise, or an out-front dance collage, or _________ (from whatever music tradition), yet we also want to have the tumbling funk and never-ending groove, so what do we do?" I hope it stays a problem. I can't imagine it being "solved." But I don't think U.S. pop is more into the rhythm-and-melody problematic now than it was in 2000.
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TTZZ deconstructionlivejournalApril 13 2016, 04:41:16 UTC
User arbitrary_greay referenced to your post from TTZZ deconstruction saying: [...] , but there's no melody weirdness here. Both parts of the chorus use the same minimum of chords [...]
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Your MM observations are very interesting, I wouldn't have been able to put it in those person-who-actually-knows-this-stuff terms.
I've been reading interviews with SCANDAL for their new album and they explicitly state that for this album they wanted to get away from the royal road progression.
Reply
Reply
It isn't that James Brown wasn't interested in melody - all the evidence is just the opposite! - but that he was trying to do other things as well, and these other things limited his options.
I don't know if "syncopated" was the right word above, but anyway: funk. But funk isn't the only relevant melody suppressor: Brown also pushed his songs towards call-and-response. You can hear in this live version of the melody- ( ... )
Reply
There's certainly Japanese rap that's recognisably influenced by trendy sounds in the US or otherwise beat over melody. But there's also rap scenes like this
Reply
Reply
Reply
So even the hard funk of Funkadelic and Kool and the Gang had a somewhat straighter groove, and in hip-hop and r&b you always-until recently-had a loud drum nailing down the backbeat, or even a one-two-three-four (the more discofied r&b), with the song or rap back on top and most of the funk relegated to the bass guitar or bass keyboard. With the backbeat/one-two-three-four anchoring whatever was on top, some of JB's propulsive tumble was lost. So I think the tension in much of the world's music in the next century will be: "We don't want to give up song form or the Euromelody tradition, or we don't want to give up an out-front rap, or an out-front guitar solo, or an out-front wall of noise, or an out-front dance collage, or _________ (from whatever music tradition), yet we also want to have the tumbling funk and never-ending groove, so what do we do?" I hope it stays a problem. I can't imagine it being "solved."
But I don't think U.S. pop is more into the rhythm-and-melody problematic now than it was in 2000. ( ... )
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