TV Emma Bunton is soon to present a new talent show for Five, Don't Stop Believing, which is piggybacking on the Glee craze for collective harmonies. Here's the trailer:
Which is entertaining and features some amazing singing. Except there is something familiar about four chords (and these four chords in particular) being used to underscore all of these pop songs, and the way the harmonies fit together.
When watching this video from 05 January 2009, I'd also like you to take note of the first song Axis of Awesome mention:
Honest opinion. Coincidence? A common joke being used in different ways? Affectionate homage? Not really that similar and just my imagination?
This is the only other variation I can find on the theme, an Oasis piss take by Porcupine Tree, but it's not quite the same:
2 comments:
Triggered the music nerd in me...
It's quite an old "ground" that you can trace back to Tudor times. It was a common technique that derives from plainchant - the lead voice would sing the ground and the other voices would harmonise or improvise above it. In the Tudor age it became a bit of a way of showing off that composers would take a well known ground and weave something new over it, a bit like a cover version I suppose. William Byrd is the star of this i think. But the most famous is Dido's lament by Purcell with his Evening Hymn being a close second.
The ground in these songs is one of the first you learn when learning the guitar after the twelve bar blues and features in a lot of early rock and roll. Pianists like it cos it's easy to improvise over and it's a bit more interesting than the 12 bar progression.
I think (without looking it up) it's a I - V - VI - IV progression and it's particularly nice because the third chord is minor and it slides up a tone from the IV chord. E.g C, G, Am, F. Let It Be rounds it off with a C, G, F, C which forms a plagal cadence at the end (also known as the "amen" cadence as it's used at the end of hymns in some churches). Lends itself particularly well to love songs.
Thank you for the history. So five use in relation to Axis of Awesome is most likely a coincidence then?
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