AROIOS

I absolutely love the song "You get what you give". But the band fits the description of a "one hit wonder", and Gregg himself a "one trick pony". Both "Game of Love" and Ronan Keating's "Life is a Roller-coaster" has "YGWYG" written all over them. They are perfectly good Pop tunes, it's just that Gregg never seemed to have broken out of that creative rut.

"how to do listeners these days get exposed to new music? " To twist your question a bit, and at the risk of over-generalization, I've wondered where most Millenials around me got their bad tastes (and playlists) from. Caring about "new music" implies that "new music" is worth caring about. To me, by and large, that hasn't been the case in the last 20~30 years. Other than sound design (e.g. BT's EDM from the early 2000s), there has been very little new_AND_GOOD stuff happening since the mid 90's. And what occassionally pops up that sounds interesting was often just a twist or rehash of what already worked before. As much as that sounds like an opinion tinted by personal preference, on a technical level., we can easily compare the sophistication of harmony and rhythm arrangements of the AOR/Westcoast Pop tunes with the garbage out there these days. Naysayers would immediately complain that sophistication doesn't equal "quality", and I'll happily leave them to their (broken listening) devices. Similar to Christian Ver Halen, I've noticed the tens of millions of views on many old songs on YT that's been kept out of the boring/repetitive commercial radio playlists. And the City Pop revival GovernorSilver mentioned is another indication, that there are tons of people out there who are totally happy with "old music". If we can't create stuff that's truly "new" and "good". Why bother? I've been perfectly happy with listening to and jamming with "good ole" stuff for the last 20 years. And even to this day, thanks to Internet groups, I still make pleasant discoveries in "old stuff" ranging from 70's Easy Listening to 90's J-Pop. So for all we care, the record companies, the distribution channels, and their Billie Eilishs and Justin Beavers, can all go out of business tomorrow. We don't need their new garbage.

Louis Cole is a similar young cat who's fun to watch.

Pythagoras

Yup, the implied dominant sound is what made it work for me. And as you pointed out, the voice leading is so smooth on this one, I can't help but wonder who's holding donna... ahem, I can't help but wonder why it's not heard more on other tunes. Speaking of 80's sounds, DX pianos and Linn/DMX/R8 drums were definitely staples in Pop and R&B. Another sound that layers well with acoustic pianos are the Roland MKS-20 EPs. Their fat/long sustain compliments acoustic pianos perfectly.

Just recalled another "Dominant" function of this chord in a Pop setting: At 0:30 in El Debarge's "Who's Holding Donna Now", the IIbm7#5 creates a beautiful mini tension-release before the IIm7 at the start of the pre-chorus. This example shows IIbm7#5 as an excellent reharmonization alternative for IIdim/IIdim7/VI7 etc in front of IIm7. David Foster apparently loved this sound in the 80's. Years ago someone on youtube even called it the "David Foster Chord".

Small nit here, Python is strong typed. Not that it's critical to OP's potential project, and it certainly doesn't take away from the excellent advice shared by Mills Dude.

Thanks for chiming in Rodan88. I've always thought Tom Scott played on this one, now I'm on a hunt for some Ronnie Lang records! Regarding the difference between the "m7#5" and 7#5#9 (most commonly written as 7alt) chords, I stand by my transcription. I'm very familiar with the 7alt sound, it's more dissonant than the "m7#5" chord I was referring to. The reason you found it to be 7#5#9 is likely because of the E note that came in after the "m7#5". The II-V-I I hear actually consists of four chords (IIm11-IIm/M9-Vm7b5-V13-Imaj9) rather than two (IIm11-V7alt-Imaj9). I've attached my preference of voicing them below. It's a level of subtlety border-lining OCD, I know. But I take great geeky pleasure in analyzing these type of stuff. Cheers!

As I mentioned above, Bernard's usage of this chord in the Taxi Driver theme demonstrates its tasteful application as a dominant chord. And several folks in previous replies already mentioned how they hear it as 1st inversion of a major chord under different contexts. On top of my head, another example of a dominant chord that features "a root, minor 3rd and minor 7th" is the 7alt chord, typically played as 7#5#9. This reminds us how theories and rules can sometimes be limiting rather than liberating. Thanks for starting this thread, Reeze. It's one of the most enjoyable discussions I've come across here.

Thanks for sharing it, Linwood, don't know how I missed this last year but I dig these type of chromatic movements and play with them all the time too.

Was transcribing a chord from the Taxi Driver theme (0:28 in the YT link) and noticed how this "m7#5" chord we talked about last year can serve tastefully as a dominant chord. This makes it one of the most versatile chords in terms of harmonic function. It can be heard as major, minor or dominant, based on context. https://youtu.be/Ee0HbusYpuk?t=26

The nuances he points out are interesting. I play with these kind of common-tone-based chord changes all the time and love them. But there are easily millions of equally if not more interesting little gems hidden in the ocean of records from the past, including tons of obscure, under-recognized productions. So it seems this one gets picked more because of its timeliness and Lamar's fame, than its relative musical merit. It reminds me of Neely's click-baity episode on "the most elegant key change in pop music", which turned out to be about one of the most commonly heard cliche in ballad arrangement.

Just noticed this is duplicate with kelp's earlier post. Feel free to delete this one, admins.

It seems the reason you would consider playing F (besides the root, obviously) in the context of Fmaj7 "furtherly pukalicious", is because it somewhat clashes with E. Jazz guys often deliberately play the 8th in a maj7 chord. And it's even less restrictive when it comes to solo, I personally have no problem playing F in a solo over Fmaj7 as long as it's short.

Must be the same folks who swear by the "soulfulness" of film photos and vinyl records.

Thanks for spending the time on such an extended response. Although it's not adding anything that wasn't already covered in earlier discussions. My comment on "avoid playing B in Fmaj7" is not the same as your interpretation of "B is an avoid tone in F Lydian". And your suggestion of playing G6/F (e.g. in a F-G-B-E voicing) in place of the Fmaj7, demonstrates exactly my point. The B in G6 changes Fmaj7 to Fmaj7#4. Now that's a quick way to sound "pukalicious" in this context.

Yes, the harmony fits F Lydian. The reason though, IMO, is because the progression is IV-V in a song whose tonal center is C (if you consider the song major) or A (of you consider it minor); not because its a Imaj7#4-II progression in a song in the key of F. Not to mention that the defining #4 note ("Lydian" ) is missing entirely whenever the Fmaj7 is played in that song. We almost have to avoid playing it (B) until we get to the G chord. As I replied analogika above, the harmony not only fits F Lydian, it fits C Ionian, A Aeolian, and G Mixolydian... equally well. The only rationale for people to call the song "F Lydian", and not "C Ionian", "G Mixolydian", or "A Aeolian", seems to be merely that the song starts on F. My question is more of a bit of a rant over the ambiguity around the common expression "*** song is in *** mode". It seems most of the time, what people are really saying is "you can solo in *** key *** mode on a certain part of that song".

I think we are on the same page.

Being able to solo over a IV-V progression using Lydian mode of the 4th from the tonal center is one thing; designating the tune's tonal center as that 4th note is a whole other. Mechanically, soloing in F Lydian over "Dream" is no different than soloing in C Ionian, or G Mixolydian, or D Dorian, or A Aeolian... you get the idea. But calling a song whose tonal center is arguably not F, and definitely lacking that distinctive #4 Lydian sound as F Lydian, is pretty contrived as far as I'm concerned. I would have simply called it C Ionian or A Aeolian.

I often see people refer to Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams" as a song in Lydian mode, or Sweet Child O'Mine a song in Mixolydian. My problem is: What the heck do they even mean for an entire song to be in XYZ mode? Take "Dreams" for example. Two chords, Fmaj7 and G comprise the whole song. To my crude ears, they are simple IVmaj7 and V of C major or A minor. What I have a problem with is people calling the song F Lydian. Sure, we can solo over that Fmaj7 chord using F Lydian scale. But for a song to be in "F Lydian mode", I expect 1) F to be the tonal center of the song; 2) a prominent #4/#11 note in some form of F major chords. And both conditions are not met in "Dreams". For comparison, I'm fine with people calling the Simpson's theme, or Joe Satriani's "Flying in a blue dream", "a song in Lydian mode". Their main themes both feature prominent #4/#11 note from the root. But even then, it's seems more technically accurate to call these songs "featuring Lydian mode", rather than "a song in * Lydian mode". What's your take?

Indeed, the intro of "Not Like This" was my first addiction to Lubbock's soulfulness.

Yup, we share the same observation on the average consumer's listening behavior/preferences. Unlike musicians (at least the good ones), whose brains resonate with interesting harmony/rhythm naturally, most casual listeners' taste in music is affected by "Nurture" more than "Nature". In other words, feed them hogwash, their taste will resemble pigs', as I've observed on most GenZs and a lot of GenYs. (let's see how long it takes before the Political Correctness Nazis jump on this with their Relativist rebuttal); feed them Kobe steak, their taste might take on a level (even if just a disguise) of sophistication, as I've observed with the Boomers and GenXs.

I have a hard time conceiving of how something that renders a song's melody and lyrics "mostly incidental" could be considered an arrangement of that song. Can you post an example? Here's another example, "What A Fool Believes". Even with such a brilliant melody line, Arif Mardin(who's a great arranger/producer btw) turned it into little more than a fastfood derivative of The Emotions "Best of My Love". (That's not a knock on either songs. It's just that Arif's arrangement could be applied to a million melodies and it failed to accentuate the beauty of Kenny and Michael's brain child IMO.) [video:youtube] Yet, in the right hands, your get this rearrangement/reharmonization that breathed new life into the song: [video:youtube] If a great melody like "What A Fool Believes" can morph in such drastically different directions, you can probably understand why I consider most of the melodies out there "incidental".

I have a hard time conceiving of how something that renders a song's melody and lyrics "mostly incidental" could be considered an arrangement of that song. Can you post an example? Take "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" for example. As much as I love Jerome Kern's song-writing in general, Ray Sinatra's original arrangement and Gertrude Niesen's singing style simply doesn't do it for me. Nor do the vast majority of the other covers (e.g. the Platters' version) out there. [video:youtube] Now hand it to David Benoit for a rearrangement. And he transforms the entire thing tastefully. [video:youtube] Sure, Patti Austin's delivery is 10X better than Gertrude IMO. But even if we mute the vocal track, the whole thing is still enjoyable for me. The track below is just a cheaply produced karaoke. And Even then, I'd choose it over Ray's arrangement every time. [video:youtube] That's why I don't assign the same weight to melodies as I do arrangements and mixing. There are definitely brilliant melodies that stand on their own ("Moon River" for example). It's just that the vast majority of them are pigs that need a lot of lipsticking by the arrangers and mixing engineers. And Lyrics? that's more in the realm of literature/poetry than music as far as I'm concerned. Most of time I pay little to no attention to them.