Album: The Everly Brothers
Song: Wake Up Little Suzie
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Pros: 1. Nice harmonies. 2. Aggressive strumming. Occasionally. 3. They, uh, look like pleasant chaps. 4. Ummmm. Hmmm. 5. Oh! I remember. They made friends and influenced people in the early- and mid-60s. The Beatles and The Beach Boys cite them as important influences, for example. 6. A fucking killer guitar riff (very Chuck Berry) thrown into the mix. 7. Those chords!
Cons: 1. Boring as hell otherwise.
I- flat III- IV. Three chords that define a genre. Some of the best early metal is based almost entirely on those little beauties. Here is the most famous example: Smoke on the Water. One of the most recognizable songs of all time, and one of the most influential metal tracks ever. And how about this obscure little gem: Whole Lotta Love. Okay, maybe not so obscure. And yeah, it's not I - flat III - IV, it's V - flat VII - I. But that's just musical semantics. In reality it's just those chords yet again.
The earliest example of those chords that I know of is in today's song. And yeah, they may have been hillbilly hicks, but they really rock out here. I absolutely love the killer effect of I - flat III - IV in this otherwise oh-so-pleasant down home country ditty. Devil's Horns in the air, folks. It's time for some metal mayhem:
Surprisingly cool song. Can definitely hear some Rubber Soul-era Beatles in there.
ReplyDeleteI especially enjoy these posts that include explanations of the technical/theoretical aspects of the tracks, like the points about the chord progression here. Keep 'em coming.
Re: "Smoke on the Water," since the main riff uses fifth chords, wouldn't it make at least as much sense to analyze it as a i5-iii5-IV5 in a G minor blues scale?
ReplyDeleteI was just playing along with some old Metallica and noticed that the chorus from "For Whom the Bell Tolls" uses the same chord progression as "Smoke on the Water," though in the Metallica song the power chords aren't inverted. Definitely E minor in FWtBT, though.
ReplyDeleteEh, I've opted to quadruple comment in order to correct what I wrote above about "Smoke on the Water." It should have been i5-III5-iv5.
ReplyDeleteHey GC. Yeah you're absolutely right about the SotW riff, i5-III5-iv5 is technically correct. Thanks for taking an interest in the blog, btw. I'll try to do more analytically oriented posts in the future.
ReplyDelete