Switched on Pop - Summer Heat of the 2000s: Beyoncé and Black Eyed Peas (Pt. II)

Episode Date: August 23, 2018

The final episode of our Switched on Summer throwback series finds us deconstructing more early aughts bangers. Under consideration: two of the biggest hits since Y2K, Beyoncé's "Crazy in Love" and the Black Eyed Peas' "I Got a Feeling." Tune in to dig how these tracks keeps the temperature rising through harmonic suspension, and to ask if will.i.am cribbed "Chopsticks." Switched On Summer Winner: Slow Dance Congrats to Slow Dance for winning our Switched On Summer contest with their song "I'm Your Guy Tonight." Listen to the whole track here: https://soundcloud.com/slowdancemusic/im-your-guy-tonight You can get all of our song of summer chord loops, song packs and listen to the awesome entires to our Splice Firestarter competition on Splice here: http://splice.com/onpop Songs Discussed: • Beyoncé - Crazy in Love • The Chi-lites - Are You My Woman • Jay Z - 99 Problems  • Black Eyed Peas - I Got a Feeling Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Empeas your period of per month on Shopify. Welcome to Switchdown Pop. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding And I'm musicologist Nate Sloan

And we're back for part two Of our summer heat series Reviewing our top tracks from the 2000s And I think if I had to give the crown To only one song And honestly declare a universal song of summer It would absolutely have to go to Beyonce's Crazy in Love featuring Jay-Z from 2003

Mm-hmm Nate How do you enjoy this song. I enjoy it with someone I love on the dance floor. Letting loose, I would say,

entirely. Not caring what anyone thinks because I'm crazy in love. That's beautiful. Well, I have to say, this track actually really stumped me for a while. I was listening in preparation for our show and it's just been so waged in my

brain that it kind of took a moment to hear it with fresh ears. but when I broke it down, this is what I heard. So we're trying to figure out, right, what makes this a hot summer track? Yes. In particular, carrying on from our discussion on harmonic tension that we brought up in part one of our series.

We looked at Nellie and Katie Perry and had this idea of the ways in which chords can make things really tense and hot. So I was looking for heat in this track, And, well, here's what I found. So first, you've obviously got the world's most powerful entertainment couple expressing their feelings to each other. And that's certainly hot. Right.

Second, you've got a very strong concept, the idea of being crazy in love. I really love that, right? Like, I'm so in love. I'm just head over heels crazy in love. Right. It's a good song concept. That's a little turn of phrase that maybe never existed before that song. But as soon as you hear it, you're like,

Oh, I know what that feels like. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Like, it had to have always existed for sure. And then you've also got this amazing hip-hop break. It's a sort of breakbeat throwback. It feels like a block party in the late 70s early hip-hop, which is totally appropriate because this song is based on a sample of, are you my woman, tell me so, by the Chilites from 1970. And I think it would be appropriate to take a listen to that.

Cool. Yeah. I've never heard the roots. this piece. So immediately you can hear that Congo sample and then boom, that massive horn section. Drums

come in and we go somewhere you never thought you would go. Oh, that's different. Yeah, it's really different. So the songwriter and producer of Crazy in Love, Rich Harrison just took this whole

song down a few keys and slowed the whole thing down. I tried to imagine what his creative process might have been. This was my attempt at doing the same thing. Whoa, there we go. It's amazing just dropping the song down a little bit makes it so much hotter. Funny, yeah. So I spent a bunch of time listening to this over and over and over, and I think I finally got it.

I think I know why this song is so hot, which is a really pretentious thing to say, because I think everybody knows that the song is hot, but there's an underlying musical trick here and it's the same idea of harmonic tension. And it's that the chords of this song are so tense that they reinforce this whole idea of being head over heels crazy in love. Cool. Okay. You see, the song starts in the key of D minor, which of course, according to Spinal Tap is the

saddest of all keys. In D minor, which I always find is really the saddest of all key. really. I don't know why, but it makes people weep instantly to play a. One of my favorite quotes of all time, absolute digression. This song is also in D minor. Funny to put a

love song, a crazy and love song in this key, but it works. I think if we listen to the melody, it's very clear that the song is in D minor. You see how that repeating horn line really just sort of puts us in that dark minor key, yeah? Yeah, I mean, now that you mention it,

that is a little surprising for such an effusive love song. Yeah, yeah, I know. So you see what's happening here is that the sample, which is sort of the underlying part of the entire chorus, has this horn line, which makes that sort of D minor feel. Nate, do you want to

show us what that sounds like? Duh, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Very lovely. However, the chords underneath it actually don't play that D. And instead, they're playing a major B flat and then a G minor going back and forth. Let's just listen to the chorus again and listen to that. So while the melody gives us a sense of landing in D,

the chords never do. There's just this constant tension building and building and building. It's the inverse of what Nellie was doing on Hot in here and what Katie Pair was doing and I Kissed a Girl. When they were using the sort of constant bass note that we called a pedal point with chords that then sort of moved over them. Beyonce is kind of doing the opposite.

She is using a constant melody with the chords moving against that melody. And in both cases, you get tension. Cool. Okay, before you go on, Charlie. Yeah. Hot and where? Her.

Okay, it's last time I'm going to make you do that. Please continue. Oh, man. Why do we even do this? What is this all for? Wow, that's quite an existential query, Charlie, I'm sorry I made you repeat the title of that Nelly song. Why do we create this harmonic tension? Is that what you're asking? Ah, yes, we create harmonic tension because we think that we might get some sort of resolution.

And so you would think that in this chorus and crazy in love, these chords, which is keep going back and forth, making us feel crazier and crazier and more in that tension, that's hot summer heat, that good stuff. Yeah. You think that you might get some resolve, do we? No, we just get, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Because the verse doesn't have any chords in it. It's just drums and Beyonce. Right. I mean, maybe there's a hint of a harmony at the very beginning.

There's a hint, yes. There's a little taste of it. But I hear you, it's very ambiguous because there's like no harmonic information. There's mainly percussion. and these OO vocals. So yeah, it's totally disorienting. It doesn't give you the resolution payoff that you expect after that incredibly tense drawn out horn section

over those waffling chords. Yeah. Well, and it didn't have to be this way, right? It could have been written with a lot more resolution. Instead, we get this tension. And we know it could have gone another way because, in fact, Beyonce, say remix this song, actually re-recorded it for the 50 Shades of Grey soundtrack and changed

the chord progression. Fascinating. Okay, let's hear this. Wow, that's different. Right. And you're right. Now we have this really clear harmonic information. You get, are we still in D minor here? We're still in D minor, yeah. And it's clear as day. The piano tells you over and over again. Yeah, instead of this unresolved craziness, her remixed version has a, dark conclusion. The whole thing sits very firmly in a minor key, which, again, we thought was sort of bizarre for such a effusive love song, which doesn't actually sound dark, right? Like, this song sounds beat and happy, the original version, that is. I think probably because it's so percussion-based rather than harmonically soaked in that sad D minor, I think that this

remixed version sounds more like, I'm crazy in love, rather than like, I'm crazy in love. This is a really dark love. Whoa, right. Emphasis on crazy, less on love. Exactly. And you can hear that when she gets to the chorus

in the remix version. It is heavy on the crazy. Not a good love. Okay, so if I'm with you here, you're arguing that this remix doesn't have that effusive summer fun. Hardly.

Because it has erased all of the tension, all of the harmonic ambiguity and lack of resolution that we had in the original version. That's right. Now the harmonies are clear and resolved and as a result, it's kind of a downer. It's a super downer man, right? I mean, imagine if the original were actually written this way. It would have sounded so much different had there been constant resolution. Again, I think more on the crazy, less on the love. I had to go ahead and mash these two up together to see what would have happened. We're thoroughly in the madhouse.

You're diabolical, Charlie. Yeah, I was really hearing the contrast of these two that I was able to see that, you know, the original has something really special and that harmonic tension, that lack of resolution, man, it's just really hot. I think I found an Easter egg in this. song, by the way. Please. Reveal. Crazy in Love is probably one of the top Beyonce

tracks of all time. Certainly. If you had to just sort of buy straight popularity, say, what would be the top JZ song of all time? What would you suggest? Big pimping, perhaps? Nope. Not what I'm thinking. Try again.

99 problems. 99 problems. Thank you. Ah, okay. Good, good, good, good. good. If you having girl problems, I feel bad for you, son. I got 99 problems, but a bitch ain't one. I got the rat patrol on the girl patrol. 99 problems and crazy in love, guess what BPM it's at? I'm not going to guess a number, but I'm going to say the same BPM as 99 problems. No, it's at 99.

Oh, even deeper. Whoa. I just feel like that's so interesting. Like, why go to 99? You got to stop now, man. the Illuminati conspiracy theorists are going to have a field day with this. Let's just cut the tape before we give them anything more. That's fine.

I've got one more track that I want to play for you, Nate, that I think is just one of the most important pieces from the 2000s. It's a song that just builds and builds and builds and builds as if it's never going to drop. Maria, you have a podcast now

and you need to start acting like it. What's the first step as a podcaster? Well, you have to ask lots of questions. I'm Maria Sharpova, and I'm hosting a new podcast called Pretty Tough. Every week, I'm sitting down with trailblazing women at the top of their game to discuss ambition, work ethic, and the ups and downs that come on the path to achieving greatness. I have a few pretty tough questions for you. Okay. Ready?

Do not sugarcoat something for me. No, no. We'll dive into their stories and get valuable insights from top executives, actors, entrepreneurs and other individuals who have inspired me so much in my own journey. Pretty tough is your front row seat to the women who have demonstrated the power in being unapologetic in their pursuits. I hope you'll join us. New episodes drop Wednesdays on YouTube or in your favorite podcast app. Okay. Last piece in our Song of Summer series. A song that just builds up and seems to never end.

Wow, Charlie, you have taken us from crazy in love to I Got a Feeling, and I have to say, I'm not sure how I feel about it. Oh, I got a feeling the Black IP's 2009 track actually produced by David Getta, which was unsurprising as soon as you saw that. You're like, yeah, this is an EDM track. Right. It was on the Billboard charts for 14 weeks and was an overwhelming hit. I'm not sure if it was so much a club anthem as much as a.

it might have been a Bart Mitzvah bash. Nonetheless, it certainly has a lot of tension. It keeps growing. It was a smash. It was a summer hit. And you sound skeptical, yeah. As with so many songs on the show, once we break it down, I'm sure I'll come away having the exact opposite opinion.

But yeah, I mean, this song, to me, is like the dark side of crazy in love. It's one of those summer hits that is inescapable in a way that, felt sort of oppressive to me. I think that Inescapable is a perfect way of framing it because this song just repeats itself over and over and in fact

it takes a minute in 30 seconds for it to land on the chorus which is an absurdly long intro. It just keeps growing and building and building and really I should have started the whole thing listening to the very top of the song

because that's where the tension begins. Cool. I think this is a really successful chord progression. You never want to stop hearing it. It just keeps on going and elements get added in in an almost sort of like Pocobel's canon way. We get some strings and then later on we get a guitar. We get some really auto-tuned vocals and the build just builds on top of the build and it just keeps on building. Yeah, I hear you. It is an interesting chord progression. It's long for one. Yeah. It's very circuitous, too. It doesn't begin and end where you expect. Okay, I'm already coming around. All right. So we started this song of Summer series talking about that

Nelly track, which I will not say again because I've embarrassed myself plenty. You're a good sport, Charles. But it used a technique of using really dissonant, challenging chords that were kind of out of the key to create tension. And here, guys are guys. and the black eyed peas are doing the exact opposite. They are using the simplest possible thing. Just a two-note chord, which actually isn't really a chord at all, where the bottom note is staying the same

and the top note is moving around. And it's this simplicity, which I think is actually creating tension. We're going to listen to it, and then we're going to figure out why it works. Cool. So it starts consonant in our home key of G, but then it starts to move away

after just a few beats. It implies other harmonies, E minor, and C, and it takes a full eight measures of music to finally wrap back around to our home key of G, but only long enough to set up that tension once again and keep on repeating. Wow. This is blowing my mind, Charlie, because I did not realize how simple this chord progression is, just composed of two notes, and one of them doesn't even move. Yep. That's called a dyad, by the way. Yes. and if it's not too far-fetched,

I think we could make a connection between this chord progression where you have two notes, one of them staying the same and one of them moving. That is the exact same technique as, I wouldn't call it a summer jam, exactly, but that's exactly what happens in chopsticks. Really, yeah. It's literally the same.

same thing. You play two notes. One of them stays the same. One of them moves. That's chopsticks. Simple, classic. This is a really underhanded compliment. I mean, is it though? Because chopsticks has proven to be one of the most enduring piano compositions. No doubt. Absolutely. And I would actually argue that had they instead filled in the entire chord, not just play this diad, that it would not have been as successful. Not as good, right? Hmm. Right.

So now we've got these three note chords, a little fuller, a little richer. I think that harmonic tension is happening here, not through a density of things, but actually from a lack of information. And that by playing only these diads, just these two notes, you're missing that third middle, important, essential note. We're left needing to fill in that information with our ear. The tension is actually coming from the emptiness of us striving to hear, wait, what chord is this? What's actually going on there? And that simplicity and that constant's filling in,

that extra note with our brain, constantly wants us to keep looping back around. It maintains that tension. It makes the summer jam. That's my theory. I'm buying it. I'm buying it. I think you're right. I mean, will this song make it onto my summer 2018 playlist? I can't say. But I do have a little more begrudging respect for it now. So well played, Chuck. Thanks, man. I think it would be appropriate to do a summer and review wrap up of all of these different methods that we heard that make harmonic tension that make that feeling of heat. So we started with Nelly, we got chromatic dissonance with chords in an underlying pedal point. Similarly, in Katie Perry's I Kissed a Girl, we got that pedal point, but in this case, not such a dissonant chords. In fact, rising chords that were in the

key, but still a lot of tension. And then we had our non-resolving chord progression with a constant melody line that kept us in a single key, and Beyonce's crazy in love. You can't take the tension, Charlie. You can't stay in the eat. Just keeps going, keeps on going. And of course, we just heard it, but, you know, it's such a good build. It's nearly as good as chopsticks. We have to hear it one more time. Those empty tune. note diads that ask us to fill in the extra information, creating a missing tension, and I got a feeling. I feel like I need to make a little disclaimer. It's not as if that every song which uses harmonic tension is a summer jam, but these ones just really stuck out in a particular

way, doing it in a way which I hadn't heard that made that tense feeling that made it feel hot. I'm sure you could do something which makes it feel cool, but I got to put it together in some way. This is what I'm hearing. No, I love it. But I'm sold, Charlie, and I think it's a brilliant way to close out our summer throwback series. Switched on Pop is produced by me, Charlie Harding. And me, Nate Sloan. Our show is mixed and edited by Bill Lance, design by Luke Harris, and we're a proud member of the Panoply Network. You can find more episodes at switchedonpop.com, the Apple podcast app, Spotify, or any other podcast player you prefer.

You can reach out to us on Twitter at Switched On Pop. We love answering your musical questions. You can also catch us on email, contact at Switchedonpop.com. We'll be back again with more fresh episodes of new pop music broken down to bite-sized little yummy nuggets in two weeks. And until then, thanks for listening. Thanks for listening.