--- In audities@yahoogroups.com, "Stewart Mason" <craigtorso@...> wrote:

> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "David Bash" <bashpop@...>
> > 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 agree with you that there's lots of repetition on Lil Beethoven, but not 
in the sense that I was talking about.  Plus, my point wasn't that Sparks 
didn't do this throughout their career, I was just using the '70s time frame 
as a springboard for my point.

> > 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.

Chances are if the songs are more than four minutes long, it's either 
because of extended bridges or refrains that extend, but not with a repeated 
hookline.  Having said that, your point is well taken that many of today's 
pop songs would be better if they were a bit shorter.

David