10 Amazing Songs I Analyzed This Week

Missed last week due to the time constraints related to the building of my new remote drum tracking studio/website/business. Very exciting, more on that in the future.

 Onto this week’s playlist gems!

Jorja Smith - ‘I am’

 ‘I am’ by Jorja Smith is not a new release in the last 2 weeks, however I just came across this song, and I was floored by the complexity of the songwriting on this beautiful tune.

Like some of the great songs written in the last 120 years, this one is appealing and does not give off the pretension of an unnecessarily complex arrangement. 

What was surprising to me right off the bat was hearing the flat 2nd in the melody and as I listened further I noticed the notes being sung were minor 2nd, major 3rd, perfect 4th and 5th, minor 6th, major 7th, and those notes correspond to the double harmonic major scale. On initial listen, I thought ‘Ohh this is a Phrygian mode tune’ but then the major 7th and the major 3rd don’t fit in a Phrygian scale.

 The guitar is playing Ab-minor to Eb-augmented, creating this ‘exotic’ vibe, kind of middle eastern/gypsy vibe. Then a drum loop comes in, very simple, basic 2&4 backbeat with a simple kick pattern.

 Jorja’s vocals really shine on this song. She is phrasing just behind the drum loop, it kind of reminds me of how Snoop Dogg will phrase. Super hard to do, usually people sound like they are dragging or get completely off from the groove, and when I hear someone nail it like Jorja in this track I really appreciate the skill involved. There is more to great singing than hitting the notes!

If I were to make one critical comment on the production of the vocal take, it is obvious the verse and chorus were spliced together from different takes. Jorja’s vocal phrasing is so on point, that you can hear when another take was put into the flow.

 Another aspect of the melody I love is the last phrase of the melody when she sings ‘Sometimes we ain’t meant to be free’ Jorja employs melisma by singing the notes Eb-B-G on the ‘ee’ of ‘free.’ Good stuff!

 The bridge goes out-there, modulating to what sounds like B-major with some sampled strings and upright piano, and some extra chord extension thrown there and employing a vi-V-I turnaround.

 The outro verse employs the DJ Screw slowed down male vocal sample (known as chopped and screwed) and from a production standpoint I get the vibe, Solja’s phrasing is so behind the beat it is reminiscent of that style of southern rap, but I could have lived without such overt use of that style of production. It’s like standing in MOMA enjoying the complexity and beauty of an exquisite oil painting and someone comes over and tries to tell you what it all means…

Leftover Salmon – Southern Belle

 For something completely different, we have some pop/bluegrass/folk from the great band Leftover Salmon. This is one of those songs that grew on me the more and more I listened to it. Pay special attention to the snare tone, and groove, it fits sonically perfectly with the banjo, and thin-ish sounding spinet, and the rhythmic phrasing imitates the strumming of the mandolin player. 

Florence + The Machine – Sky Full of Song

 Florence Welch’s voice is untouchable. She has completely command of her voice, and her ability to weave an emotional arc within her amazing dynamic control is something to stand in awe of. The prepared piano is pretty great too. It sounds like the strings are muted slightly with some sort of cloth creating this really beautiful effect. Kind of like when a bass player will mute the string and play the notes with their thumb.

 Simply Three – Believer 

I’m a sucker for string instruments in pop/EDM style songs. I have recorded and toured extensively with the Portland Cello project. The acoustic bass, violin, and cello sound great on this track, and their playing (and intonation) is outstanding!

 Old Crow Medicine Show – Child of the Mississippi

Just some great songwriting and playing from one of the most important bluegrass bands of the last 40 years. These guys have influenced countless bands (Looking at you Mumford & Sons!) and this is a great sounding recording too. The engineer did a great job capturing the sonic depth present. I’m goanna guess a liberal use of ribbon microphones were used.

 Ter & Mert – Bacchus Theme

Some chill semi-experimental EDM that I enjoyed quite a bit

Monolink - Burning Sun (Just Emma's Just Take Me Back Mix) Monolink

A mellow EDM track with a nice acoustic guitar riffing on a B-minor triad with some spooky sampled vocals that lead into a a male vocal singing ‘take me back’ between a B and C creating a hypnotic trance.

Skyline Drive – Port of Dutch Harbor (Prelude)

Beautiful downtempo EDM track starts out with an electric guitar playing an E-major triad E-B-G# then is layered with another electric guitar on a 16th note repeater delay playing some notes in an E-Major scale, kind of gives you that U2 vibe, but not in a cheesy way. The bass part does not really repeat it sits on notes of the major scale, but will sit on them long enough to create different tensions within the repeating E-majotr triad. This is well done.

Space Tiger Berlin – Mein Mühl

Some jazz-fusion-grunge-rock stuff! Can you hear the Nirvana song ‘In Bloom’ being quoted by the guitar that has an octave/harmonizer on it? Yeah and the drummer plays the signature fills that Dave Grohl played on the original. The dueling sax solo’s get a bit a-tonal, and you know, they rock out!

 Buster Williams – Where Giants Dwell

This is amazing swing-post-bop playing. In fact, the musicianship on this one track surpasses the combined musicianship of all the playlists I have made since I started this weekly playlist blog. Smoking!

That is all for this week, till next week, happy listening & don’t forget to hit ‘Add similar songs’ to see the Music Genome do its magic!