Chapters 9 & 10-Listening Journal #5

 

                This week’s Listening Journal focuses on Chapters 9 and 10 in the book American Popular Music. The Chapters focused on American Pop, the British Invasion, the music of Motown as well as Urban and Folk music of the 1960’s. This week marked the 50^th anniversary of the Beatles coming to the United States and the start of the British Invasion so it was fun to read and listen to these songs. During the course of my readings, I also listened to several different songs that were written around the same period. I learned about several musicians from these eras such as The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Supremes, as well as Bob Dylan.

                One of the first recordings I listened to was “Please, Please Me” by The Beatles. This song was first recorded in 1962. This recording was one of the first Beatles songs to be played on radio stations in the United States. The song starts off with an instrumental intro before The Beatles begin to sing the lyrics. It sounds like John Lennon takes the lead vocals. This song is up tempo and features an ABAB structure. There are no temp changes in the song as well. The other members of the group back up Lennon on the lyrics “Common, Common”. This song is only about two minutes long. Towards the end of the song, you hear a conclusive cadence.

                “Good Vibrations” was first recorded by the Beach Boys in 1966. The Beach Boys were America’s answer to the British Invasion of bands as the time. The lyrics of the song talk about how the singer loves her hair, clothes, perfume etc. The form of the song is ABAB. Some parts of the song seem to be recorded in a minor key. Some of the instruments in the recording that I heard were an Organ, Flute, Cello as well as percussion. In comparing this song to “Please, Please Me”, they are quite different. First, the instruments that Brian Wilson used are not common in many Pop Songs. This kind of instrumentation really helped create the Beach Boys unique sound. “Good Vibrations” has a few tempo changes while “Please, Please Me” is a straight forward tempo from beginning to end.  Despite these songs being different, I enjoyed listening to both of them and could see how they appealed to audiences back then as well as almost 50 years later!

                                During the course of my readings and other listening, I learned that many of the popular songs of Soul. I listened to the music of several Soul Artists such as James Brown and Aretha Franklin. One of the first Franklin recordings I remember was “Free Way” in 1985. The Song climbed to Number 1 in R&B and Number 3 in Pop the same year. It was a straight-forward up beat song. I really like the timbre of Franklin’s voice as she sang freely with a lot of energy in her voice!  I can remember as a child seeing the music video with a big pink Cadillac in it back when MTV actually played music videos!