(02-26-2017 01:12 PM)debeguiled Wrote: Her album "Tapestry" is number 36 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
Has anyone ever heard of her?
I mentioned in the Musician's Thread how you have to work your own unique niche now, since the Monoculture has crumbled.
'Tapestry' sold
25 million copies back in the day. Every home I went into as a child had - at the
very least - a copy of 'Tapestry', 'Rumours' and 'Bat Out Of Hell'. These albums crossed multiple generation gaps and resonated in a way that's impossible for younger people to understand today. This is why I keep saying people like Beyonce and Kayne West aren't
that famous. Teenagers, 30-somethings and 60-somethings all had 'Tapestry'.
When I was young, one of the things that made me want to be a songwriter was noticing the names under the song titles on 7 inch singles, and that some songwriting partnerships were reliably-good records. Huh, you could write multiple songs for other people, and make a good career out of it. Goffin / King was reliable one I noted - 'King' being Carole *. So from my childhood alone, long before 'Tapestry', she'd already written the music for hits like:
Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?
Some Kind Of Wonderful
Chains
The Locomotion
I Can't Stay Mad At You
Go Away Little Girl
Don't Say Nothing Bad About My Baby
Up On The Roof
One Fine Day
Just Once In My Life
Don't Bring Me Down
I'm Into Something Good
Pleasant Valley Sunday
You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman
I find her breaking of conventions fascinating, she often avoids the obvious thing average songwriters would do, so now I'll teach any musicians reading
the Carole King Turnaround.
The three most important chords in any song are the I, IV and V7 chords. The I is the sense of 'home' to the listener - there should be a feeling of natural arrival when it is sounded. The V7 has a powerful pull towards the I - the ear anticipates the I following it.
Carole often subverts this expectation - grabbing the listener's attention. Instead of the V7, she'll play the root of the V7 in the bass, then put a IVmaj7 where the V7 should be.
Play these chords, in sequence In C:
I: C E G
IV: F A C
V7: G B D F
Hear how it's 'La Bamba' or 'Twist and Shout'.
Now, substitute the IVmaj7 for the V7:
IVmaj7: Left Hand: G. Right Hand: F A C E
Cyle it around, as in 'La Bamba', and hear the difference. Suddenly there's a slight wistful, reflective quality to the cycle. A little bit of cloud over the sun. This is emotional nuance.
Knowing how to do this kind of untraditional thing successfully is the difference between workman and genius musicians, and this is my issue with a large chunk of Indie musicians: they don't have the skill to do these kind of subversions of expectations, so particularly when things get acoustic and old-timey, songs putter along, going exactly where you'd expect them to go, boring me out of my skull. It's very, very rare for me nowadays to be playing a song, hear something very striking and unusual and run to a guitar or keyboard to figure out
what the hell they just did.
This is also where I have trouble working with classical musicians. They'll start arguing with me about how
this isn't the done thing and
doesn't make sense, until they hear the final track and say "I never would have thought
that would have sounded so good."
Think outside the box. Grabbing the listener's attention is more important than ever in this climate. Added bonus: it's much, much harder to get sued for plagiarism if you're not doing what everyone else does.
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* See also:
Holland / Dozier / Holland
Lennon / McCartney