(Per)Form in(g) Rock

Abstract

[1] Theodor Adorno is no doubt rolling in his grave at the very thought of a Society for Music Theory special session-and now a special issue of Music Theory Online-devoted to the subject of form in rock music, yet these seven articles go a long way towards demonstrating that the form of a pop or rock song need not be trite nor simplistic, nor-dare I say it-formulaic. As the invited respondent, it is part of my job to take issue with any ideas in these essays that seem suspect to me, yet the arguments and analyses offered by these authors are, for the most part, so well thought out that I have little to say in the way of additional criticism. Instead, I have chosen to frame my response around some analyses of my own that were sparked by certain ideas raised among the four papers from the original SMT session (Doll, Koozin, Osborn, and Summach). I will offer my initial reaction to the other three papers (Attas, Endrinal, and Nobile) by way of a short postscript.Example 1. Talk Talk, "It's My Life" (1984)Audio Example 1. Talk Talk, "It's My Life" (1984)[2] I love the Eighties, so I will begin by considering the harmonic and formal design of one of my favorite tracks from that decade, Talk Talk's 1984 hit "It's My Life," an abbreviated transcription of which is provided in Example 1.(2) I used this example once before in a talk I gave a few years back on the subject of what makes a great chorus in a pop and rock song (Spicer 2005); it is a good thing I never published that paper, since I must admit that I made a few errors in transcribing the pitch content of "It's My Life," which I have now corrected for this updated analysis.[3] As with many 1980s synthpop songs, little to no guitar is to be found on this track. The drum kit is relentless, rarely deviating from a standard rock pattern. Driving the groove is Paul Webb's trademark fretless electric bass, and above this we are bathed in a wash of synthesizer chords, which I have simplified in my transcription of the verse vamp in Example 1a in order to show its essential voice leading. The harmonic progression here is quite eclectic: basically we have an EMixolydian I-VII-ii (with the second and third chords in first inversion), but none of the chords is a pure triad since the third is missing from the tonic chord and scale degree 5 is held as an inverted pedal throughout. Not shown in the example, a jabbing two-note syncopated synth riff-working rhythmically in tandem with the bass, accenting the "and" of beats three and four-is sounded during only the first bar of each four-bar cycle. After two times through the vamp, Mark Hollis's characteristically maudlin lead vocal enters rather unobtrusively on scale degree 3 (hence supplying the missing third of the tonic chord). Audio Example 1 contains the first minute-and-a-half of "It's My Life," representing the first pass through the intro, verse, prechorus, and chorus.[4] Christopher Doll's article explores the powerful effect of expressive modulations at important formal junctures in pop and rock songs, especially at the onsets of choruses. Example 1b illustrates what happens as the verse moves into the prechorus in "It's My Life." I have probably listened to this track hundreds of times over the years, and yet this particular expressive modulation still gives me goose bumps (indeed, Doll would likely describe this as a "breakout prechorus"). As the example shows, the pitches F and C of the ii chord slip down by semitone to Eand B, while Ais retained as a common tone and enharmonically recast as the leading tone Gas part of the V chord in the tritone-related key of A minor. The modulation into the prechorus is thus achieved by what David Lewin famously dubbed the "SLIDE" transformation, in which two opposite-mode triads whose roots are a semitone apart invert around a common third. David Kopp in his book Chromatic Transformations in Nineteenth-Century Music has described the SLIDE as "the consummate common-tone relation, whose harmonic strength. …