Module 5

The listening for this module consists of Motown, the British Invasion, and what we've come to know collectively as "rock'n'roll."  It's a module full of the original "boy bands" - the Beatles and the Beach Boys - as well as a host of other soloists and groups that give us the true switch over from the jazz idiom to what we now know as rock music.

Of our listening this week, I maintain that the Beatles are the most harmonically interesting.  The charts on this week's listening are quite diverse, and not just within the idiom, but for the group too.  Although their core sound is easily recognizable, the Beatles strive for a great deal of interesting musical ideas and styles.  Of all the pop music from this period on, they are probably one of the more diverse artists, with the exception of Billy Joel.  Like Billy Joel (Good Night My Angel), the Beatles utilize a great deal of classical harmonic structures, with suspensions and double suspensions throughout this week's listening.  There is also a lot of joking about how modern popular music requires a great many collaborators to write, and yet music of this era is much more complex yet was written by fewer people.  Certainly the poetry of the Beatles' lyrics is extremely interesting.  I enjoyed reading about the story of Hey Jude coming to be earlier this fall as my band prepared for its fieldshow.  Paul McCartney originally wrote it for Jules Lennon in the wake of the Lennon's divorce, and he wrote it during his drive to Cynthia Lennon's home.

Yesterday also has an interesting story behind it as it wasn't originally written and performed by the Beatles.  Even though it appeared on a Beatles album, Yesterday was written and first performed by Paul McCartney.  It was only after it became a hit that the Beatles made it part of the full group's book.

The Beach Boys and I go back to my youth as my parents were huge fans.  Surprisingly, Good Vibrations has a much more “modern” sound than the bulk of the listening we have.  The electric guitar parts use sounds that are unique for their time.  Most electric guitar lines of the time sound just like basic rock guitars, where Good Vibrations utilizes something akin to distortion pedals.  I am not conversant in guitar lingo beyond this, so I’m not quite able to articulate what I hear, but I’ve always thought that this chart was more of a late 1970s tune than the mid-60s.  Perhaps it was my own exposure to the chart on the Saturday night “Super Gold” oldies program on the local radio station that my parents listened to (I’ve referenced this in my discussion posts), so I heard it out of context, but it always struck me as later than it actually was.