Classic Material: Michael Jackson - P.Y.T

P.Y.T. is my favorite Michael Jackson song.  You should pause for a moment to consider what I just said...  Yup, this is my favorite.  I'd expect any reader to accept, a priori, that this is an awesome song... but why is it my favorite among a looooong list of awesome MJ songs?  We'll get to that.

First, though, we need to talk about the tiger.  In addition to its numerous distinctions, Thriller has the honor of being the best non-Ohio-Players gatefold cover ever.  That white suit?  The casual-yet-oh-so-fly Gordon Gartrel lookin' black shirt?  A baby tiger?!? In all of our combined lives and efforts, it's highly unlikely that we'd approach that level of fly...

Musically, why is it my favorite?

• great contrast between the airy synth pads of the intro and the boogie of the main song
• great bass line, with the main part of the phrase being stolen from another artist[1], but in the best way.
• great music arrangment, with an artful layering and interweaving of the various elements over the course of the song.  Listen to the rhythm piano that's present only in the first verse as the instrumentation builds.  Listen for the bongos over the course of the song. Wow.  Produced by Quincy Jones, so, duh.
• great vocal arrangement. quick... how many pop songs can you name where there are key changes in the backing vocals?  The chipmunk backing vocals in the final few bars?!? Bananas.
• I'm not even going to talk about the breakdowns, we'd be here all day...

As with most classic material though, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.  I remember being at a Four Barrel coffee in San Francisco's Mission District a while back.  Man, this place was hipster!  But the head Barista (who gets the honor of selecting tunes during the shift, I believe) was playing Thriller.  Yo, every toe in that place was tappin' and every head was bobbin'.  If there'd been one other black person besides me, a dance party might have even broken out.

Head Barista at Four Barrel gets it poppin' with P.Y.T.

So yeah, P.Y.T is my favorite MJ tune.  However, I also like the demo version of the song, which is similar only in title to the album version.  Here's the U-Tern Edit.  I also like what Kanye did with the chipmunk vocals on his track Good Life, which is notable for being the only track on which T-Pain is tolerable to my ears.

Footnotes

1 - PYT's bassline during the verses before the bridge is lifted almost directly from Carl Carlton's She's a Bad Mama Jama (She's built, She's Stacked), which was released in 1981, just a year before Thriller.  The truth of the matter is that every artist "steals".. being influenced by other artists, and sometimes appropriating these influences. One wonders if there might be a Robin Thicke/Pharrell style controversy around PYT were it to be released today.

Classic Material: Luther Vandross - Promise Me

Luther Vandross - Promise Me

Album: Forever, For Always, For Love (Epic, 1982)

As always with Classic Material, if you have to choose between listening and reading... listen!

Let me start by saying that I'm not one of those Luther fans who thinks he could do no wrong... the Dance with My Father single, for example.

But Luther Vandross made precious few missteps as an artist. He never had the Pop success of some of his contemporaries, but for fans of Soul and R&B, Luther is in a league with other "first name's" such as Stevie and Marvin.

While he was not too shabby with a mid or up-tempo jam, Luther was most beloved for his ballads. In fact he wrote or sang enough slow jams to populate at least two "Top 5" lists on that topic. On this Valentine's Day, I'd like to share one of these classics: Promise Me

An album cut from Vandross' 1982 LP Forever, For Always, for Love, Promise Me opens with an almost gospel styled intro of Luther's vocal and Piano. It's a tension building intro that resolves into a simple melody as the first verse begins. The entire arrangement is this awesome combination of sparseness and lushness. Simple melody, exquisitely spare backing work from the rhythm guitar & percussion... strings that Burt Bachrach would have to give props to... and great use of the bass, having it start the tune playing the lead melody and then shift into a rhythm role as the tune closes out. I get goosebumps everytime I listen.

I was super tempted to get into analyzing the "text" that is the song, parsing lyrics and all that, someone smack me if I ever do more than the bare minimum of that crap. Suffice it to say that within the space of 4:45, Luther's lyrics convey first unhappiness and uncertainty about the future, then hark back to the optimism of better days, and the song closes with the chorus "promise me..." repeated like a mantra. It is as classic of a "baby baby please" moment as ever I've heard in R&B. And the truth is, we don't know how the story ends, at least as far as the lyrics are concerned.

The masterful arrangement works to heighten this suspense... ascending minor key melodies are an important part of the tune, but in the verses, first chorus, and bridge, they resolve. Not so with the final chorus... along with the lyrical mantra, the ascending melodies are repeated, never resolving... heightening the tension, but in my opinion communicating an optimism that I like to think hints at happy ending after the fade out.

In my patented, Billy-Dee-Williams-works-everytime slow-jam playlist system, this is "prelude" song... building anticipation for the main event.

Let's be clear though, Luther has plenty of main event songs to choose from... but those, my friends, will be topics for another Valentine's day.

Top 5 Rap Songs with Piano in 'em

Record Store Day 2010 is approaching soon ( Saturday, April 17th in case you were wondering ) so I pick up my traditon of "Top 5" lists in honor of the occasion.

My first list for this year is Top 5 rap songs with dope piano riffs

I cannot do a rap list without paying homage to the the definitive reference on the subject, Ego Trip's Book of Rap Lists if you're a fan of hip-hop and great writing, this is a great book.

Ok, let's get into it:

Top 5 Rap Songs with Piano in 'em (in no particular order):

Common Sense - Resurrection
Producer: No ID
Album: Resurrection

This is just a classic track anyway and probably my favorite of the tunes in this list. Leaving aside Com's lyrics and flow, which were head and shoulders above the pack then and remain so now, No ID's production is the definition of jazzy hip-hop. The piano sample is from Ahmad Jamal's Dolphin Dance


Gang Starr - F.A.L.A
Producer: DJ Premier
Album: Hard to Earn

Guru really says it all in one of his lyrics on the track: "Suckas we wet to the sound of the dope piano..."

The basis of the sample is actually pretty brief, but it's flipped as only Primo can do it... the loop is chopped at an odd point in the phrase, and as it plays alone in the song's intro, it imparts a sense of being off-balance... and then of course the beat kicks in and the neck snapping commences. I'm reminded that Hard to Earn came out around the same time as the first Wu-Tang album... they have a similar sonic palette. I can't ID the sample, and I'm sure Primo would have it no other way!

Marley Marl - The Symphony
Producer: Marley Marl
Album: In Control Vol 1

Features rappers Masta Ace, Craig G, Kool G Rap, & Big Daddy Kane. Not sure if this meets the technical definition of a posse-cut, but it's definitely a classic. Marley Marl conducts a clinic on how to make space in the mix... dropping out the piano riff strategically to give each rapper room on the track. Definitely a classic.

BDP - The Bridge is Over
Producer: Scott LaRock
Album: Criminal Minded

Actually a diss-track directed at Marley Marl and his Juice Crew, this is prototypical boom bap from BDP. Consisting of a beat machine, piano, and KRS-One's rhymes... you can't get any simpler. And in the lingo of the day, you couldn't get any more dope.

Jay Z feat. Alicia Keys - Empire State of Mind

Producer: Shux

Album: The Blueprint 3

Interesting to listen to this one right after BDP, you can hear the growth of hip-hop from a raw style into capital-P pop (although some might argue whether this represents "growth"... let's just call it "development" and avoid the aesthetic argument, aight?) For my part, I think this is an awesome cut.

Honorable Mentions

Elliot Lipp feat Jasia 10 - I Don't Know

Producer: Elliot Lipp

Album: City Synthesis

The intro to this one is just awesome. Although not as well known as some the other producers in this post, Elliott Lipp is pretty badass. I love how the piano comes in and out of the track as other instruments pickup the melody. Jasia 10's direct and impeccable flow is a great counterpoint to the track's otherwise airy feel.

Talib Kweli - Get By
Producer: Kanye West
Album: Quality

Must admit I slept on this when it first came out... love it now. Talib's liner notes indicate he was in competion for with Pharoahe Monch and Mariah Carey for this track. I'm trying to imagine what Mariah would have done with this track. I'm glad brother Kweli got it first!

Gucci Mane - Lemonade

Producer: Bangladesh

Album: The State vs. Radric Davis

I think producer Bangladesh might be one of my favorites of the last few years (he also produced the beat for Mario's Break Up, which is just sick). He kills it again with this beat for Gucci Mane. This is a chopsticks interpolation that I'm sure would have Liberace bobbing his head. (note: the link is to the instrumental... not trying to diss Gucci Mane, but the lyrics and flow really don't deserve the beat)

Classic Material: Eddie Kendricks - He's A Friend

pressed for time? just listen to the tune... hearing music is way more important than reading about it!

If you have a few minutes... please allow me to share.

Taken as a whole, I think that American popular music is a human achievement that stands up there with the Pyramids and the Library at Alexandria. It is truly, truly majestic. You can't talk about American popular music without talking about the music of Black Americans... and you can't talk about the music of Black Americans without talking about the influence of religious music such as spirituals and gospel.

Now, before you go thinking I'm about to write about Buildin' me a home or Get Away Jordan, I'm not. (Not that there's a damn thing wrong with talking about either of those songs, mind you)

No, I mention gospel because it provides the thematic underpinning for Eddie Kendricks' deep-house banger He's A Friend.

The title track of Kendricks' 1976 Tamla/Motown album, He's A Friend is a wonderful blend of the Philly Soul and Mid-period Motown vibes. That I call it a deep-house banger speaks to my own initial exposure to the tune. Although it rose to #2 on the Billboard R&B chart in the year it was released, I was about 5 years old then... so it didn't enter my consciousness until I was a teenager and heard Ron Hardy bang it at the Warehouse in the late 80s... it's what us DJ types would call a "5am track"... the track you'd play when only the hardest of hardcore dancers were on the floor. Interestingly, it seems that a lot of 5am tracks have a spiritual/gospel flavor. Maybe it's something about celebrations and sunrise... I remember my mom and her friends sitting around singing church songs in our living room at 5 or 6 in the morning after her and my step-dad's world-famous halloween parties (which I DJed, thank you very much).

But, back to the matter at hand... although Jesus and/or God never get shouted out by name, by the end of the first verse, there's no doubt about the "He" that's being referred to. It's an easy pun, but it is truly an inspired vocal performance by Eddie Kendricks.

Vocals alone do not a classic make however, and producer/arranger/guitarist Norman Harris and the other players on the tune lay down an absolutely killer groove. Soaring string and horn arrangements are anchored by a rock solid rhythm section... for the life of me I'm still trying to figure out how the drummer can be locked-in and swing like that at the same time... guess that's why I'm a DJ and not a drummer! Don't even get me started on the rhythm guitar work. This thing has a bridge (2:17) that lesser songs would kill for as their main theme. And the break (3:29)... my god, the break... well, if I were ever in a debate about the why disco edits are wonderful things... this break would be the only argument I'd need.

If you take the time to dig into the biographies below, you won't be surprised by the massive number of hits the personnel have contributed to. Classic.

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Eddie Kendricks - He's a Friend
From Album "He's A Friend" Tamla/Motown 1976 T6-343S1

Written by: Allan Felder, Bruce Gray, T.G. Conway
Produced & Arranged by: Norman Harris

Players:
Earl Young - Drums
Norman Harris - Guitar
Vincent Montana - Vibes (note: my ears don't hear vibes on the track, but Montana's a multi-instrumentalist and I just know in my heart-of-hearts he played on this)
Allan Felder - Percussion
Ron "Have Mercy" Kersey - Keyboards
Don Renaldo - Strings, Horns

Biographies:

Norman Harris


Vince Montana


Allan Felder


Earl Young