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| From | "Stewart Mason" <craigtorso@verizon.net> |
| Subject | Re: Introducing Sparks-Repeat The Hook Line Over And Over |
| Date | Sun, 02 Dec 2007 00:59:19 -0500 |
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----- Original Message -----
From: "David Bash" <bashpop@earthlink.net>
> But my main purpose of this post was to discuss what I think is a
> lost art in pop songwriting today: as Tommy Marolda succinctly put
> it on the first Toms album, to "repeat the hook line over and over"
> in the refrain. This was definitely a hallmark of Sparks songs of
> the '70s, and never is it more evident than on Introducing Sparks.
Actually, repetition has always been a major part of the Sparks sound,
and it's even more prominent on the last couple albums, LIL BEETHOVEN
in particular. I swear, if you just played every musical phrase or
line of lyric on that album once and once only, the whole thing would
be over in less than 15 minutes. In a very real way, repetition is
the entire conceptual point of that album, reaching its culmination in
the almighty "My Baby's Taking Me Home," which basically consists of
roughly five minutes of that line repeated over and over again as the
tune and arrangement expand underneath it. It's actually quite
reminiscent of Ravel's Bolero that way.
> I know they were hardly the only band who did that, as '60s and '70s
> Top 40 radio was heavy laden with songs using that approach, but
> these days you don't seem to hear it very much. Today bands will
> sing a hook line, repeat it once (maybe twice if you're lucky), and
> you'll almost never hear a refrain with a hook repeating for 30-60
> seconds or so. Even some of the catchiest stuff of today just
> doesn't do that.
>
> I honestly can't think of any current songs off the top of my head
> that repeat the hook line ad infinitum. Do people agree it's a lost
> art? What songs of today can you think of that do this.
I kind of think that it's a dead art and good riddance. When done
well, the effect can be magical. When done poorly, it's just
mind-bogglingly dull. But for every song that does it right (Spanky
and Our Gang's lovely "Like To Get To Know You," the single version of
which has a very strange structure that's basically
chorus-chorus-bridge-chorus-chorus and then a coda that's nearly as
long as the song itself, with no actual verses at all!), it seems like
there are at least two that think just repeating a dull melody or
trite lyric incessantly will somehow make it memorable (the Thompson
Twins' "Hold Me Now," the final chorus of which must be at least 90
seconds long, is an all-time worst, and I'm afraid I hate that Toms
song for the same reason).
To tell the truth, if I see an unknown guitar-pop CD in the bins that
has the timings on the back cover, I will almost always put it back if
the songs average over four minutes, because I know that most of those
songs are going to have two minutes' worth of repeated choruses at the
end, and they're almost always going to be songs that would be 100%
better if they were over and out at 2:45.
S
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