Tag: analysis

Rosé’s APT uses almost every chord in the scale

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it’s probably in C minor and has every chord there except D minor, and other music theory facts that you probably don’t care about.

APT has a surprising amount of harmonic complexity for what is more or less a straight pop song. Which is fancy talk for saying it has unusual or interesting chord choices. This is going to get right into music theory land with no training wheels, and maybe some more specific production details, so If I haven’t lost you yet, I definitely will now! Here we go!

There are strong signals that this song is in Cm. The “uh huh uh huh” of the main cheerleader girl chant chorus are Bb to C, ie VII to I. The verse is the same, and the bridge is C, Bb, Eb, C (so I, VII, III, I), which also feels strongly locked to Cm, although that sequence itself is a little unique.

The pretty and melodic pre-chorus however is Ab, Bb, C, to Eb, and it’s still not clear to me if it’s in Cm or if it changes key to Eb. In Cm it’s consistent with the rest of the song but the relative chord combinations get awfully strange, because what the heck is VI, VII, I, III? Comparatively in Eb it presents as a much more normative IV, V, VI, I, but then why change keys just in the pre-chorus? 

Weird! 

But maybe ambiguity is the point. A good pop music strategy is to milk the tension before the catharsis, whether this is EDM drops or soft verses exploding into loud choruses or modern pop melodies that tease a resolution to the root that may or may not happen.

Given the key of the rest of the song, I think Cm makes the most sense. The idea of VI escalating stepwise upwards to I but then ending on III (which is kind of a flakier version of I anyways) and then cycling back to VI and going on forever kind of tracks – like the way most pop songs melodies today, forever sitting on II and never resolving to I or III, are in constant state of deliciously, tense limbo.

Moving to the bridge, we still have some interesting things to discuss.  The build-up guitar-style chug into the bridge is on G, which as the V of C makes complete sense, but is notable as the first we’re hearing the chord in the song. It resolves to the I, VII, III, I of the bridge, (C, Bb, Eb, C), which as noted is already an unusual combination, that then ends with a repeated hammering on F.  

F!  Where did F come from? 

Although as the IV of C it is harmonically quite unremarkable, but for it to show up now, for the first time, with the song being almost over, in such a forceful and climatically manner it kind of blew me away. 

The song has now featured every chord from I to VIII except for II. No supertonic for you. Take that, The Weeknd.

And just as this feels like a peak, it steps upwards even higher from IV to V to VI, running right through a pseudo-deceptive-cadence into the prechorus, which in itself is escalating stepwise upwards from VI to VIII. The song’s constant continuous escalation going into its climax is underpinned by these harmonic choices, chord structures, and application of music theory.

All in the service of good pop music. Pop music! Not classical, prog, experimental, indie or dance, but pure pop – the simplest, catchiest, and most digestible form of music, made with the explicit purpose to be understood and enjoyed by as many people as possible. For a pure pop song to have any complexity or nuance, whether in construction or music theory or cultural context, is to me that much more meaningful, as all the complexity must be refined to the point where it still appears simple on the surface. 

And that’s it. After spewing out over 3000 words into the ether I have finally run out of things to say about this 3-minute K-Pop trifle. But to the song’s credit, over the month-long rollout of these essays my initial blast of enthusiasm has waned only slightly.

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Whose Song Is It Anyways (feat. Bruno Mars, Rosé & Lady Gaga)

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Dammit Bruno, stop helping people, it’s confusing.

“ROSÉ & Bruno Mars – APT”

Though the international smash hit APT feels like it has been released as a Rosé solo track, if you look more closely it gets more complicated. 

On YouTube and streaming services, the song is labeled as “Rosé & Bruno Mars – APT.  Though Rosé is listed first, Bruno is positioned as an almost equal partner. It is not “Rosé – APT (feat. Bruno Mars)”, like in solo songs where another artist just kind of shows up for a verse. 

In the song’s artwork, ROSÉ is shown in big bold font, with Bruno Mars in a smaller font. Their names are separated by a stylized lightning bolt. If they wanted to put an ampersand, they would have put an ampersand. All this keeps their collaborative partnership even more vague.

It is definitely led by Rosé. But by how much?

Rosé has talked about how she came up with the “APT” hook, based on the Korean drinking game. That hook is definitely hers, and is distinctly Korean. But I suspect the rest of the song was heavily influenced by Bruno Mars. Something about the way he sings the pre-chorus feels like it was made for and by him, he has some history with a rock aesthetic, and some of the more atypical chord progressions do map to things he’s done in the past. Rosé has none of this stylistic breadth or complexity in her comparatively short history, nor in the songs she’s released since.

Obviously I have no proof of any of this and the full list of songwriting credits is quite long, so it’s hard to know who did what. But if, for the sake of the exercise, we just assume that I’m right, one could argue this is as much or more of a Bruno Mars song than it is a Rosé song. She doesn’t even sing lead on the pre-choruses once they start harmonizing.

So why does it still feel like it’s hers? 

Though the marketing of the song simply as being Rosé-first definitely helps, there is something else happening here in how the song itself is presented.

And that is, quite simply, that Rosé goes first. 

The first thing you hear is the chorus, which she sings. Then she does the verse and pre-chorus. She does them first.

The first time you experience each section of the song, it is her voice you are hearing, so subconsciously each section of the song is then anchored with her. 

By the time Bruno Mars appears, even though some of the connections with him may be deeper and firmer it’s really hard to shake the ideas of ownership we already have.  

Showing up first counts for a lot.

Imagine if it didn’t open with the chorus. What if Bruno’s verse and pre-chorus came first, even if Rosé kept the chorus and the bridge.  Would it still feel like her song? Or is she now a feature on a Bruno track, with a slightly Korean flavour?  

If only there was another comparable Bruno Mars collaboration that almost does this exact opposite thing. 

“Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars – Die with a Smile”

Just two months before APT dropped, “Die with a Smile” was released, a Bruno Mars collaboration with Lady Gaga. On YouTube and Streaming Services, the artist is labeled as either “Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars” or “Lady Gaga & Bruno Mars”. The music video is on Lady Gaga’s YouTube page, while Bruno hosts a live performance with 5% of the views. Clicking the Artist link on a music streaming services takes you to Lady Gaga’s page, not Bruno’s. 

The artwork on the single shows the two artists standing together, artfully, roughly right next to each other with equal positioning – except that Lady Gaga on the left has her arm and shoulder ever so slightly ahead of Bruno Mars. 

All of this positioning points again to a mostly equal partnership, with the artist that is not Bruno Mars being slightly in front.

When I actually listen to the song though, I completely forget that Lady Gaga is even in there at all. It’s always a surprise when she starts to sing, and when the song ends I’ve forgotten she exists again. To me, this is a loosie Bruno Mars single, steeped in his songwriting and melodic style even from the opening strumming pattern. When they say this was written collaboratively based on an initial idea from Mars, it feels to me like that initial idea was pretty well formed from the jump. Lady Gaga has almost zero presence.

Though this is all once again purely subjective (and depending on your Lady Gaga fandom a potentially unforgivable sin), I do have the one supporting fact in my favor: that Bruno Mars goes first. He basically gets the entire first minute and twenty-five seconds to himself.  The first time you hear each section of the song, it is with Bruno Mars’ voice. The verse, the pre-chorus, and the chorus, he took them and anchored them all. Not counting some subdued backing vocals, Lady Gaga doesn’t even really show up until 34% of the song is over.

What if their roles were reversed? What if Lady Gaga went first, and was the one introducing you to each section of the song? Would it have made a difference? It would have for me. Maybe for you too.  But we’ll never know.  Because you only have one chance to make a first impression and anchor an idea with an audience. There is only one chance to go first – and in this universe, Bruno took this song and Rose took the other, and our impressions from that point onwards are going to be what they are.

Going first matters.

So why don’t you join my mailing list so you can be the first to experience whatever comes next?  See what I did there? I am very good at this. See you soon.

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Rosé’s APT is smarter than you are.

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K-Pop single impresses cynical 40-plus year old man

Rosé, from K-Pop supergroup BLACKPINK, has released a hit song in collaboration with Bruno Mars, and it is both excellent and fascinating on multiple levels.

It may even be smarter than you are, who knows, I needed a headline. Here we go.

The Basics

For starters, it gets a lot of the basics right. Every part of the song is a hook, from the titular chorus, (the “oh Ricky you’re so fine” cheerleader-girl-chant,) to the amazing melodic pre-chorus (“don’t you want me like I want you baby”,) to the bridge (“hold on, hold on, i’m on my waaay”,) to even the verses, each section is so catchy such that It almost doesn’t matter what order you put them in. 

Be a Great Vocalist

It also turns out that Rosé is a great vocalist. She has enough attitude to carry and own the chorus and her rap verses, but more importantly her singing is great: clear, strong and expressive. 

Her singing carries the bridge, and owning the bridge is critical as it’s in itself a huge build that relies heavily on having a strong vocalist. The Open-“A” sound she gets when she sings “way”, through whatever tube-amp-Vintage-Rock vocal processing they have setup for her, makes her sound good in a way that’s like Bethany Cosentino from Best Coast.  And that’s very good. This song wouldn’t have worked without that level of vocal talent.

Partner with a Complementary Great Vocalist

Getting Bruno Mars to somehow be on your track was already such a great pull both from a songwriting and performance standpoint, it’s almost unfair that on top of all that, he’s a great vocal match for Rosé: expressive and confident but in a different register. 

They are so dialed-in when they harmonize on the track (which they thankfully do a lot of), executing the same vocal performance and expressions but with complementary timbres. The chills I got listening to them only wore off after the first few dozen times replaying the song and bopping like a maniac. 

With a foundation this strong success is almost guaranteed, but then it goes and does a few more things on top that take it to the next level but are also more interesting to talk about.

Song Construction

Continuous Escalation

Good thrillers and action movies will ratchet up the tension and excitement at every moment, and this song does something similar. Though it follows your classic pop song construct, repeating choruses with pre-choruses, verses and a bridge, none of the repeated sections are ever exactly the same. Each new repeat adds a new element that elevates the song meaningfully, whether it’s switching vocalists on each verse or adding harmonies on the second pre-chorus. It just constantly builds and builds and builds. Especially the chorus.

Each of the four choruses (the “ah-pu-tu” chant of the title) gets progressively richer harmonic accompaniment – which is fancy talk for supporting chord structures. The first chorus of the intro is just the chant, a capella with the beat. The second one adds the chord progression of the verses, a basic I and VII in C minor. By the time we reach the third, we are now resting on the chord progression of the sung pre-chorus, a pretty and uplifting Ab, Bb, C, to Eb, with the fourth iteration adding full blown maximalist vocal harmonies for climactic effect. Hooks or riffs that start with minimal chord changes or tonality that then flip to really rich chord progressions is one of my favorite things.

Genre Flip in Act 3

For the first two-thirds of its runtime, APT is a Pop song. There is the catchy chant of a hook, meaty synth anchors, and a beat that sounds like it might be from a real kit, bouncy and full of handclaps. Like the comparable beat of Shake it Off, this is a Pop song with cheerleader and drum line energy.  For now.

It’s not until the bridge that the track fully flips into an Indie-Pop-Punk thing, adding a series of strong Rock & Roll signifiers: The kit drums start to rock out on open hi-hats, Rosé does her tube-amped Garage Rock yell, and the dirty synths start to function as distorted guitars – complete with a simulated guitar-chugging build at the beginning of the bridge, something I don’t think I’ve heard done before. 

Though naturalistic cheerleader-chants and live drums parse as Pop on their own, they also serve as a good foundation for pure Rock & Roll when these other pieces from the bridge are layered on top, shifting the song’s direction without feeling abrupt or a clash of conflicting styles.  It’s simple, but really really smart. 

This genre change is a key step in the continuous escalation of the song, kicking things up a notch going into the bridge – which is in itself a giant Rock build into a climactic refrain of the pre-chorus, a classic breakdown over start/stop live drums, peaking and ending with the final chorus, with the full and glorious backing harmonies on top. Good songcraft and continuous escalation.

What a rush. For me, anyways. Not sure how you feel about it, but if you want to see how there are three more essays worth of material on this seemingly benign k-Pop trifle then feel free to keep going to Part 2 right here or join my mailing list to keep updated.

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“Everything Everywhere All at Once” and the Perfect Immigrant Super-Mom

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Won’t you be my mommy?

[This is a follow-up piece to a previous essay about “Turning Red”, which I recommend you read first.]

On its face, pairing and comparing “Everything Everywhere all at Once” with “Turning Red” makes not a lot of sense. Yes, they are both popular movies, released in the same year, deeply focused on the Asian-American experience, and thematically aligned from tip to tail. But one is a martial arts multiverse action movie, while the other is a fluffy coming of age animated adventure. And while you may wonder how these two seemingly parallel lines intersect, I’m here thinking they are in conversation with each other, not just thematically but literally as well. Stay with me, I’m probably into something. Spoilers to naturally follow.

“Everything Everywhere all at Once” is, as its title suggests, about many things. The Chinese immigrant Evelyn, our protagonist, is trying to simultaneously be a mother, wife, and daughter as well as laundromat co-owner and operator, which means she is doing none of these things successfully. She is fractured, and the entire multiverse conceit itself is an expression of the shattered nature of her being, the amped up version of her key character flaw. Her daughter Joy, born and raised in modern America, represents the Millennial Asian-American. She too is fractured, but in the way a generation raised on the internet would be, with everything available all at once, on demand, on your phone. When all information is at your fingertips always, then everything is equally loud, which makes everything equally important. And when everything is important, then nothing is. Nihilism, as well as existentialism, kindness and family are all key themes in the movie. But at its heart is a story of what a mother will do to be with her daughter after realizing just how far away they are from each other.

It takes a while for this arc to start and for Evelyn to come into her own, as the first half of the film is spent on equal parts exposition and reacting to threats: we learn how the world and the rules of the multiverse work, while the heroes run from bad guys and hide under tables. It is at the midpoint where Evelyn finally demonstrates agency and makes her first choice: to not kill her daughter with a boxcutter. A most basic parenting decision in normal circumstances here marks the beginning of Evelyn’s journey: the declaration that the single life of her daughter is more important than the safety of an entire multiverse.

For the rest of the movie, Evelyn puts herself through the same traumas as her daughter just so she can understand her and meet her where she is, peering over the edge of the nihilistic abyss with her together. She then puts herself through her own personal growth journey, evolving herself first so she can then heal her daughter, step her back from the edge of darkness, and resolve all her other familial conflicts along the way. This is peak parenting; heroic levels of motherhood.

Contrast this with the end of Turning Red, where the daughter expresses her fears of losing her relationship with her mother: although she knows who she wants to be, she is scared that it will cause them to drift apart.  Though Meilin’s mother apologizes and admits to sharing the same fear, the dramatic question remains largely unanswered: the burden is on Meilin to grapple with the potential cost of her self actualisation, and though the movie ends with the Westernized Asian choosing herself, she is left wondering if she made the right decision.

It is Evelyn’s arc that provides an answer: she develops both the desire to be with her daughter wherever she may be, as well as the abilities needed to cross any distance, whether cultural, emotional, metaphysical or otherwise, to meet with her where she is. Evelyn’s story is a response to Mei Lin’s fears: it tells us that we can find our own path without fear of widening a generational gap with a parent, because the parent will take on the burden and the work of closing that gap.

Except, of course, that Evelyn does not exist. While Turning Red is a fantastical but still autobiographical story about growing up as a Westernized Asian, Everything Everywhere All at Once is an Asian-American fantasy about the perfect mother: Evelyn is the platonic ideal of the immigrant parent, imagined by the modern Millennial and Asian-American creators who are themselves reflected in Joy, the daughter. A perfect immigrant Super-Mom only exists in fiction. 

The reality for immigrant families is that bridging both generational and cultural differences is messy. Even when there is both a recognition of the distance and the desire to bridge that gap, many don’t have the self awareness or the emotional tools or facilities to do so.  When acts of love in one generation’s culture are interpreted by the other as acts of control, our lives are spent inadvertently pushing each other’s buttons when all we’re trying to do is show each other that we care. 

It’s hard, as Westernized children of immigrants know: “For some reason when I’m with you it just hurts the both of us”, Joy tells her mother in the laundromat parking lot.  But even as each act of care is culturally misinterpreted, we all still try, because we all still love each other. 

And so, armed with all the wrong tools, the parents flail lovingly in the general direction of their children, and the children flail lovingly right back at them, and all hope that some of the lines thrown across the chasm will connect. And though most of them will miss or be misunderstood and cause more pain instead of relief, we do it anyway and push through the stress, because in the end we love each other and we’re the only family we’ve got. But in the few fleeting moments when the stars align and the mood is right, a line that is thrown is caught and a real connection is made and we can, for a brief moment, see into each other’s hearts. And that glimpse can sometimes fill us up just enough to make it through the next chaotic cycle, in the hopes that one day we figure out a way to make it work with the broken tools that we already have. 

Because even in a stupid, stupid, universe where you have hot dogs for fingers, you get really good at using your feet.

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“Turning Red” and the Asian-American experience

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Scary, I know.

It’s such a joy to see not one but two popular movies released in the same year that not only feature Asian-Americans, but accurately portray aspects of the experience as a core part of the story and its themes. I think that they speak to two sides of the same conversation, and that they both happened upon the same core theme shows how important and formative this conversation is to the community. Turning Red, the first film of the two, explores the idea from the point of view of the child of immigrants: it’s the Asian-American experience. Spoilers to naturally follow.

From the ancestral lore as told to Meilin from her mother, their family has the ability to harness emotions to transform into a powerful mystical beast: any strong emotion will release your inner Red Panda. But when their family decided to “come to a new world”, what was once a blessing became an inconvenience. 

If “strong emotions” turns you into a Red Panda, then it is basically an expression of your inner primal self, all weird and animalistic, socially unacceptable and unique, as every family member manifests their red panda differently. In essence, it’s your id on display. That this comes up around puberty makes a ton of sense.

In Chinese and other Eastern cultures, individualism is traditionally frowned upon, or at the very least not valued highly. Family comes first: respecting and caring for your elders, keeping familial bonds tight, securing the future of your children, and all the discipline that this would demand. After all that, there isn’t much time left for self-exploration. Anything that doesn’t fit or contribute to the other priorities becomes a problem. Or an inconvenience, perhaps.

This is explicit in the first two minutes of the film which both summarizes the entire movie and explains Meilin’s family, the world and values of her mother and the generations before them. And coming from this world, the most effective solution to resolve the Red Panda problem, the unpresentable parts of your self, is to excise them completely. Simply suppressing your unwanted feelings into a tight explosive ball is amateurish compared to ritualistically cutting them out and trapping them into breakable lockets.  Pencil me in for the next lunar eclipse.

For Meilin however, raised in a culture that prioritizes self-actualization with a peer group that loves her unconditionally, (“panda or no panda” she imagines them saying,) her eventual solution is to synthesize her disparate parts into a cohesive, psychologically healthy and occasionally fluffy whole. That by the end of the movie her family believes and trusts in her enough to let her make her own decision is by itself already wonderful, but what elevates this movie is the cost of this decision, and the moment of doubt that it casts. 

Because at the end, Meilin says to her mother: “I’m finally figuring out who I am.  But I’m scared it’ll take me away from you.”  And then I want to cry a little. 

This moment is not just the crux of the story, but of the Asian-American experience, immersed in a culture since birth that is at times diametrically opposite to the one of your family. It means in your life you will need to make choices, consciously or not, about which culture’s values you want to believe and invest in, with each choice implicitly meaning the rejection of the other culture not chosen.

Whether opening your mind to today’s progressive ideas or just focusing on better understanding yourself, a decision to embrace modernity will erode the relationship with a more conservative family if they are not on the same journey with you. And a decision to embrace tradition and history and the culture of your roots may come at the price of weaker integration with society, and all the opportunity costs that would entail: new ideas, friendships, romances, and careers; never had, and never envisioned.

This is a universal truth I’m sure, to many children of immigrants anywhere, or any other expression of a wide intergenerational gap. That every day we all make choices, some tiny and some large, and that they all come with a cost, and over time all these different sized choices will add up to the Story of You: both the one you are and the one you are not, the mirror counterfactual self that you could have been but chose not to be. In the compromise that is life, many paths are beautiful, and though there is no wrong answer you can only have one. You have to choose. And every choice has a cost.

At the end of the movie, after the ceremonies are complete and Meilin has made her choice and all is said and done, she says “I’m not going to regret this, am I?” To which the Red Panda Goddess thing smiles and swoops her up for a joyous ride. The movie ends with a montage of her new balanced and furrier life, all of which implies that Meilin made the right decision. But it is telling that the question is explicitly left unanswered; only time will tell if that decision was worth the cost of a mother and daughter drifting apart. And that is a question that maybe only Meilin can answer.

[This essay is the first in a two-part series, concluding with this piece here on Everything Everywhere All at Once]