Ariana Grande just dropped "No Tears Left to Cry", the lead single from her upcoming album. I don't know how it will do with the general public, but it certainly has people talking in the pop creators community. Two of the most active Facebook groups for pop songwriters and producers--Make Pop Music and the Max Martin Appreciation Society--have been abuzz since the release, hosting fierce debates about every aspect of the production, composition, lyrics, vocal performance, and cultural relevance of this song.

My first impression is that the songwriting and production team--which includes Grande, Max Martin, Ilya, and Savan Kotecha--is exploring some new territory. Only time will tell if their experiments will seduce the general public, but there are definitely a lot of interesting things in this song worth writing about. 
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Check out the song:
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Probably more than any other songwriter/producer, Martin is known for songs that stick to a single chord loop throughout all the sections and allow the topline and sonic structure to outline the form.

While in "No Tears Left to Cry" there are only two different progressions, they both do very un-Martin things. 

The intro and chorus chord progression is extremely varied by any modern pop song standard, and evolves through each of the four phrases. From i-VII-VI-VII (Am-G-F-G) in the first phrase it changes slightly to i-VII-VI-v (Am-G-F-Em) in the next. Then comes a more significant change to III-iv-i (C-Dm-Am) in the third phrase. In the fourth phrase the chord progression cycles back to III (C), but instead of immediately embarking on a path to i (Am), it lingers on III, which is also the tonic of the relative major key, and only resolves to i in the following section, by moving through a passing tone in the bass.

The chord progression in the verse, prechorus, and rap sections is much more repetitive by comparison, but it is also adventurous by modern pop standards. It ventures into non-diatonic territory by 'majorizing' the tonic--instead of i-VI-VII (Am-F-G) we get I-VI-VII (A-F-G). This was pretty common at various times in the 20th century, especially in R&B, but unusual for pop songs in 2018.
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If we count each variation within the chorus progression, that's five different chord progressions in the song, including one that is not entirely diatonic.

​This doesn't seem congruent with Martin's usual approach of keeping things simple. So what happens in "No Tears Left to Cry" to make things more palatable for the listener? 

​The first thing I noticed about the prechorus was the parallel perfect fifths (off to the music theory Gulag, Martin and Ilya!) between the bassline and Grande's lead vocal.
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This sequence is repeated at the beginning of each of the three phrases in the prechorus, as well as another time with the synth playing the upper melody sans the vocal line.

The chorus is a huge shift from the prechorus in terms of the melody, the harmony, and the sonic texture, but it still features parallel motion between the bass and vocal line, which acts as a glue element.

This time, it's parallel thirds (plus 1 or 2 octaves) instead of fifths. The parallel motion in the chorus is not as rhythmically in sync as in the prechorus, but is still very obvious.
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(Note: Due to the length of the examples, I separated the staff and piano roll notation below)
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As a bonus, the backing vocals starting at 2:48 also move in parallel motion to the bass, with the most prominent voice moving in parallel octaves. These backing vocals are brought forward in the mix at 3:04-3:20 to continue the parallel motion because the prechorus melody and the chorus harmony are juxtaposed in this subsection and do not move in parallel.

In the verse, the vocal melody does hit on the C# that comes from the A major chord, but in the prechorus it sticks to C-natural and stays diatonic to the key of A minor. 

This not only helps the prechorus feel more related to the chorus, but it allows the prechorus/chorus juxtaposition that I mentioned earlier (which is probably my favorite moment in the song).

Juxtaposing sections is one of Martin's signature moves--particularly juxtaposing the chorus over the final postchorus, as he has done in Britney Spears's "Till the World Ends", Demi Lovato's "Cool for the Summer", and Taylor Swift's "Delicate". But because of the switch from a majorized chord progression to a diatonic minor one, this juxtaposition required some extra planning.

The verse melody, for example, would have sounded awful over the chorus chord progression because there would be too much dissonant clashing. The prechorus melody, however, even though it is originally heard over the same chord progression as the verse, seems to have been carefully planned to work over the chorus progression as well.

​This juxtaposition gives us a glimpse into the high-level compositional skills of the songwriting and production team that created this song, and goes a long way towards molding the scattered parts of this song into a cohesive unit.

One more thing that I found interesting is the big-picture form of "No Tears Left to Cry". It's made up of two meta-sections, rather than the usual three, and leaves out the bridge. There are songs that do this--Sia's "Chandelier" or the Chainsmokers' "Roses", for example--but it's certainly not the norm. In fact, I can't think of any bridgeless song that features Max Martin in the credits.

I have no doubt that this was not a random decision, and that Martin and the rest of the team had very good musical reasons that persuaded them to not include a bridge.

If I try to put myself in their shoes, these are the reasons I would come up with:

1. A bridge’s role is to provide contrast and “loosen up” a relatively tight structure. Since there are already quite a lot of loose parts in this song, loosening it up too much more could make it fall apart.

2. The prechorus/chorus juxtaposition in a way makes up for the absence of a bridge because it fuses existing parts to create something new. It is also located where a bridge would normally be.

I'm not sure if those were actually their reasons, but hopefully they would agree with me that those are good justifications to ditch the bridge in this song.
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Related: A Sonic Twist in the Plot: The Bridge in Modern Pop

My gut feeling is that this song's chart performance will be similar to that of another recent hit--Taylor Swift's "Look What You Made Me Do"--which soared to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 but fell off pretty quickly. Both songs are interesting and have received a lot of hype upon their release, as one would expect from lead singles from two of the pop world's mega-superstars would receive. But both also venture away from a lot of current pop conventions, which can make it difficult to hook the masses for a long period of time.

That said, I would not be surprised at all if after a few weeks, "No Tears Left to Cry" seeps into our collective systems and proves once again that no one can come close to Max Martin and his collaborators when it comes to knowing not what their audience wants, but what it needs. 

Update (APR-26-2018): A previous version of this post wrongly attributed the production of Taylor Swift's "Look What You Made Me Do" to Max Martin. As was pointed out in the comments below by Marcus Labanda, it was Jack Antonoff--and not Max Martin--who produced this song. I have updated the post to remove the attribution to Martin.


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Top40 Theory is a project aimed at providing advanced music theory knowledge and composition tools to pop songwriters and producers. Join the small but growing community of highly accomplished songwriters, producers, theorists, and composers at the Top40 Theory Facebook group. You can also follow Top40 Theory’s Twitter account and Facebook page, as well as join the mailing list via the form located in the sidebar, to receive updates about new posts and other pop music theory related musings.


More Posts:
About that Chorus in Bebe Rexha's "I'm a Mess"
Ariana Grande's "No Tears Left to Cry" - An Experiment by Max Martin and Co.
​A Sonic Twist in the Plot: The Bridge in Modern Pop
Taylor Swift - "Delicate": Finding Out What Hooked Me
​The Postchorus-Bridge Switcheroo

​Note: This is a quickstart guide for absolute beginners with no background in music theory. I plan to gradually add links to resources, but in the meantime a quick Google search should land you useful info on all of these concepts.

​A lot of aspiring songwriters/producers who don't have a strong background in music theory feel overwhelmed because it seems like there is so much to learn. While this is true, I actually think that by learning just a few things, you can get enough in your toolbox to be able to write your first songs and have a foundation that you can build upon. Here are those things:

1. Learn the C major scale and its relative minor (A minor)
2. Learn to extract the pentatonic scales out of those, and initially stick to those when writing your melodies
3. Learn basic rhythmic patterns and syncopation
4. Learn a couple of common 8-measure structures
5. Learn a basic song form (verse-prechorus-chorus-verse-prechorus-chorus-bridge-chorus is a good place to start)
6. Learn how to extract chords from the C-major/A-minor collection
7. Initially, stick to the following chords: C, Dm, F, G, and Am (you can play around with the order and with the number of chords in your chord cycle)

Getting a basic grasp on the above skills shouldn't take super long, especially if you already play an instrument, and should be enough to allow you to start playing around and write some songs. If you have a good enough ear you can actually write pretty good songs with only the above skills (sans lyrics, of course).
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The next step would be to learn what Roman numerals are and how to transpose your melodies and chords to different keys.
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After that there's a lot you can learn, but those are the things that I generally suggest to absolute beginners who feel intimidated by music theory.


​Top40 Theory is a project aimed at providing advanced music theory knowledge and composition tools to pop songwriters and producers. Join the small but growing community of highly accomplished songwriters, producers, theorists, and composers at the Top40 Theory Facebook group. You can also follow Top40 Theory’s Twitter account and Facebook page, as well as join the mailing list via the form located in the sidebar, to receive updates about new posts and other pop music theory related musings.


More Posts:
About that Chorus in Bebe Rexha's "I'm a Mess"
Ariana Grande's "No Tears Left to Cry" - An Experiment by Max Martin and Co.
​A Sonic Twist in the Plot: The Bridge in Modern Pop
Taylor Swift - "Delicate": Finding Out What Hooked Me
​The Postchorus-Bridge Switcheroo

Musical decisions in hit songs are dictated by their own internal context, not by generic "rules". Cadences in pop music are a great example.

One of the current conventions in pop music is to avoid cadences. That is, there are plenty of vocal melodic cadences, but the types of traditional cadences (authentic, plagal, half, etc.) in which the melody, harmony, and meter all join forces and “agree” on a resting point is quite rare these days.
 
But every “rule” or convention depends on context, and there are circumstances in which not only is it okay to break the rules, but it’s necessary.

So for example, when a song like Bebe Rexha’s and Florida Georgia Line’s “Meant to Be” tries to convey a retro feel, not only does it include cadences, they are all over the place. In fact, the main hook (“If it's meant to be, it'll be, it'll be, Baby, just let it be”) is a complete musical phrase that ends in a plagal cadence and is repeated over and over in the song (11 times, to be exact).
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​Likewise, the Kygo/Selena Gomez collab "It Ain’t Me" feels like a retro song in the verse and prechorus before it morphs into a EDM-y club banger, complete with a buildup-drop sequence and chopped vocals. The verse and prechorus feature a prolonged functional progression with very strong cadential tendencies, but when the EDM-y chorus arrive, the chords are rearranged so that the feeling of harmonic functionality is weakened, and the cadences disappear.
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​One last example of a context-appropriate cadence is Tove Lo’s Firebomb. In this case, it’s not a retro sound that makes the cadence necessary, but the over-the-top, drawn out intensity throughout the first minute and 23 seconds. There’s even a pseudo-deceptive cadence going from the prechorus to the chorus (1:09)—The IV chord, along with the vocal melody, sound like they will both finally resolve to the tonic, but while the melody does so, the harmony goes to a cadential 6/4 chord (for those unfamiliar, it’s a type of suspended dominant chord), and then goes back in the cycle to a I6 and a IV, and finally at the end of the chorus, it resolves to I. To emphasize the cadential feeling even further, this is followed by a transition that rests on I for four measures, which is extremely rare in today's pop world.
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​There are, of course, more examples of cadences in pop music, but the bigger takeaway for me is that you can learn a lot by trying to understand why a musical convention is followed or broken, whether it’s a cadence, an intro that’s longer than the norm, a song with only one verse, or anything else.
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​Top40 Theory is a project aimed at providing advanced music theory knowledge and composition tools to pop songwriters and producers. Join the small but growing community of highly accomplished songwriters, producers, theorists, and composers at the Top40 Theory Facebook group. You can also follow Top40 Theory’s Twitter account and Facebook page, as well as join the mailing list via the form located in the sidebar, to receive updates about new posts and other pop music theory related musings.


More Posts:
About that Chorus in Bebe Rexha's "I'm a Mess"
Ariana Grande's "No Tears Left to Cry" - An Experiment by Max Martin and Co.
​A Sonic Twist in the Plot: The Bridge in Modern Pop
Taylor Swift - "Delicate": Finding Out What Hooked Me
​The Postchorus-Bridge Switcheroo

The fall and the rise, contrast, fragmentation, recycling, and more: everything you need to know about how to write and produce a pop bridge
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I’m not sure why, but I rarely hear pop creators talk about the bridge. Verses and choruses come up regularly, but the bridge seems to be an afterthought for many. I, on the other hand, get unreasonably excited on the rare occasion that it does come up because the bridge is possibly my favorite section. It’s where the twist in the musical plot happens, which is interesting enough, but what’s even more interesting to me is how the approach to creating this twist has changed over the years.

Songwriters and producers usually create the bridge with two functional goals in mind: providing contrast and generating tension. Until a decade or two ago, the norm was to create contrast by introducing a new melody and chord progression, and tension by ending the chord progression on a dominant chord (V), or at times a different chord that could have a similar effect, like bVII or IV.

In recent years, though, as pop has become more and more influenced by EDM, the role of functional harmony has been weakened to make way for sound production magic. Producers generate tension and release through risers, drum acceleration, strategic filtering, and various other techniques. There is no need for harmonic progressions to define sections in the song, and in fact it's very common to maintain the same chord loop throughout a song, including in the bridge.
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This isn’t to say that modern songs never change the chord progression or melody in the bridge, just that doing these things is no longer “obligatory” like it used to be. The sonic traits that I describe below are much stronger indicators of a bridge when it comes to pop songs in the 2010s.

Related: The Postchorus-Bridge Switcheroo

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​The sound-production-driven bridge has two functional stages, which I call the fall and rise. Here’s what they do:

• The fall is usually the clearest sign that the bridge has arrived. There is a sharp drop in sonic energy and density, usually to the lowest level since the intro, and this thinner texture lingers there for a while.
• The rise comes next—a buildup of sonic energy and density, culminating in the highest peak of the song.

 
Here are some examples of how the fall and rise can be organized:

​Fall (2:28-2:41): The heavy low end (kick and 808) from the chorus drops out, leaving a much thinner texture made up of mostly piano and vocals.
Rise (2:41-2:55): Claps are added to add rhythmic energy, as well as a layer of white noise to fill up the higher part of the frequency spectrum. Demi contributes to the buildup by going higher and higher in her vocal range, and a very high adlib/shout (2:54) gives the final accent before the final chorus drops.
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Fall (2:50-3:08): There’s a breakdown following the postchorus. The drums and high end drop out; Britney’s vocals are fragmented; and toward the end of this subsection there is a pseudo-buildup, but it’s tamed enough to give the next subsection space to act as the “real” buildup.
Rise (3:08-3:23): The chorus is recycled with a low-pass filter sweep on the entire mix (including the vocals).
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This bridge is not split into subsections. Instead, there is a drop in energy (fall) at its beginning (2:36), and the rise function is fulfilled by the break at 2:45 and the powerful vocals that bring back the chorus.

This bridge is split into three subsections:
Fall (2:53-3:01): Several elements drop out, most notably the toms.
"Deceptive" rise (3:01-3:09): The toms return, creating the impression that the buildup toward the chorus has begun.
Another fall and quick rise (3:09-3:17): Instead of a chorus, the bridge is extended by dropping to an even-lower energy level than the first part of the bridge, and quickly rising with a reverse cymbal and Ariana’s adlib.
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There are more ways to do this, but the important thing to remember is that the fall and rise are functions—and not necessarily subsections--though in a lot of cases they are both. 
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Since the melody and harmony in the bridge do not have to fill a functional role, the songwriter/producer has a lot of creative freedom when it comes to the pitch material.
 
With regards to the harmony, some bridges stay on the same loop as the rest of the song and others go with a new chord progression. If you are writing a bridge, the main thing to consider is what’s more important—if you’re doing something really cool with sound production, a new chord progression might take some attention away from that. But if you think the song would be better overall with a new progression, go for it.
 
When it comes to the topline, the bridge can be a great creative opportunity, but there are certainly conventions that many songs follow. The most common ones are:

• Recycling: Using a stripped-down version of a previous section, transforming its sonic function

• Fragmentation: using fragments of previous melodic material as the vocal part

• The "traditional" approach: adding new melody and lyrics​
• Combo: using a different approach in each section

Here are some examples of each of these conventions:

​Fragmentation (2:19-2:29)
Recycling part of the verse (2:29-248)

Fragmentation (3:02-3:28)
Recycling the prechorus (3:28-3:53)

​Recycling chorus (2:20-2:38)
Recycling the prechorus (2:38-2:57)
Instrumental buildup (2:57-3:16)

​Both the sonic and the tonal techniques I described in this article are currently the most common conventions. If you are a pop creator, it's important to be familiar with them and to at least practice using them so that they can become tools in your arsenal. However, if there is any section that's fertile ground for experimentation, it's the bridge. This doesn't mean you should throw out these conventions, but you can think of them as a starting point for creating something new and unique.


Top40 Theory is a project aimed at providing advanced music theory knowledge and composition tools to pop songwriters and producers. Join the small but growing community of highly accomplished songwriters, producers, theorists, and composers at the Top40 Theory Facebook group. You can also follow Top40 Theory’s Twitter account and Facebook page, as well as join the mailing list via the form located in the sidebar, to receive updates about new posts and other pop music theory related musings.


More Posts:
About that Chorus in Bebe Rexha's "I'm a Mess"
Ariana Grande's "No Tears Left to Cry" - An Experiment by Max Martin and Co.
​A Sonic Twist in the Plot: The Bridge in Modern Pop
Taylor Swift - "Delicate": Finding Out What Hooked Me
​The Postchorus-Bridge Switcheroo
Camila Cabello, Charlie Puth, and the Vocal Range Wars
Calvin Harris and Dua Lipa's "One Kiss" is Ambiguous AF

When the melodic bridge is a sonic postchorus and the melodic chorus is a sonic bridge.

In this post ​I wrote about the most dominant defining trait of a bridge in modern pop, which I call the fall and rise—a sharp drop in sonic energy followed by a buildup that culminates in the final chorus.
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In that same article, I also mentioned that it’s very common to recycle a previous section in the bridge. Most commonly it’s the prechorus that gets recycled because it provides an easy way to build up to the final chorus in a familiar way, but occasionally the verse or the chorus will be the ones that get recycled.

​When it comes to recycling the chorus, it’s usually done in the context of a rise subsection, like this:
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​But in a handful of songs, the chorus material occupies the entire bridge.

Related: A Sonic Twist in the Plot: The Bridge in Modern Pop

​This doesn't happen very often, and for good reason--in the most common versions of the verse-chorus song form, the bridge is sandwiched between the second and third chorus. This means that using only the chorus in the bridge can lead to three consecutive iterations of the exact same topline, like this:
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​In the songs that I've come across in which the chorus is recycled in the bridge the following things happen:

First, a postchorus follows the second chorus (but not the first). This provides the melodic separation and contrast between the second and third choruses.

​Then, the melodically contrasting postchorus is followed by a sonically contrasting bridge that uses the chorus as its topline, but follows the fall and rise convention and builds up to a final, climactic "real" third chorus. It looks like this:
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In essence, there are two dimensions working in parallel and diverging in their timeline: the traditional dimension (melody, lyrics, and sometimes harmony), and the sonic dimension (density and intensity of texture; amplitude of frequencies across the spectrum). This creates tension and adds interest to the song.

Here are some examples of songs that include this switcheroo:

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​Postchorus starts at 2:09; Bridge starts at 2:25

Postchorus starts at 2:07; Bridge starts at 2:3

​​Postchorus starts at 3:08; Bridge starts at 3:30

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​Some music theorists, especially the more traditional ones, would insist that what I call the postchorus is the “real” bridge, and that just because the chorus that follows is sonically stripped down, that doesn’t mean that it’s not a chorus. I think they may have a case when it comes to a song like Summertime Sadness, and less with songs like Guys My Age and Wildest Dreams. I personally prefer to prioritize the sonic dimension over the traditional dimension when labeling the postchorus and bridge because I find the fall and rise in almost every pop song in the last decade, and more importantly because I’ve never heard any producer not define a section with a fall and rise as a bridge, regardless of the topline.

In any case, I’m a firm believer that both perspectives can be simultaneously correct, and how you define sections matters less than understanding the principle. First there is a melodic contrast which is followed by a return to the chorus. The sonic contrast starts at the chorus and builds up toward a peak. The peak section is usually a chorus but can also be a postchorus. The diverging of the two dimensions creates another layer of tension that resolves in this peak, when they finally come back together.
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Top40 Theory is a project aimed at providing advanced music theory knowledge and composition tools to pop songwriters and producers. Join the small but growing community of highly accomplished songwriters, producers, theorists, and composers at the Top40 Theory Facebook group. You can also follow Top40 Theory’s Twitter account and Facebook page, as well as join the mailing list via the form located in the sidebar, to receive updates about new posts and other pop music theory related musings.


More Posts:
About that Chorus in Bebe Rexha's "I'm a Mess"
Ariana Grande's "No Tears Left to Cry" - An Experiment by Max Martin and Co.
​A Sonic Twist in the Plot: The Bridge in Modern Pop
Taylor Swift - "Delicate": Finding Out What Hooked Me
​The Postchorus-Bridge Switcheroo
Camila Cabello, Charlie Puth, and the Vocal Range Wars
Calvin Harris and Dua Lipa's "One Kiss" is Ambiguous AF

​Sometimes you get hooked on a song and don’t quite know why. One of the nice things about doing music theory is that it gives you the tools to try to dig deeper and find out what it is about a song that makes you like it so much.
 
The discoveries you will make by doing this are almost guaranteed to make your listening experience even more enjoyable, even if you're just a casual listener. 
 
If you’re a creator, this type of digging will no doubt add important tools to your toolbox.
 
Case in point, a little while ago the music video for Taylor Swift’s Delicate popped up on my YouTube feed. I gave it a listen and was immediately hooked. I wasn't sure why, though. It's not the kind of flashy song that immediately makes your body bounce and you just know is going to be a smash hit. It feels kind of low key, something you would play in the background at a late night get-together with a small group of friends.

The vibe and the video were nice, but I knew there was definitely more to this that I didn’t consciously pick up on, so I went digging.

Below I talk about the cool things that I found, but if you haven't heard the song yet, now is your chance:

​And now, here are some of the things that I think made me like it so much:

​The three meta-sections I mentioned above each have their own role in the song, but there is also a continuous arc that connects them. This is true of a lot of songs—the first meta-section is the baseline for sonic density and energy; the second meta-section is generally busier and more energetic; and the third first drops to the lowest point of energy and then builds back up to the highest peak. 

In other words, they each play a role in a journey from the baseline energy to the peak through sort of a sonic roller coaster.

Delicate's producers—Max Martin and Shellback--use the usual tools to create this arc, like adding and removing elements along the way. But they add a few more magical ingredients to make it that much more effective:
 
1. A subtle low-pass filter on the entire backing track, taming the higher frequencies and gradually releasing them as the song progresses. It’s barely noticeable on a local level, but if you toggle back and forth between different instances of the same section (e.g., from the first to the second prechorus), you clearly hear the difference in brightness.

You can also see this in the spectrogram below. As the song moves forward, the bright yellow color becomes more dominant, which represents the increased presence of higher frequencies.
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​And as a side note, check out Ellie Goulding’s “Burn” for a similar effect, with a more obvious filter sweep over the first two-thirds of the backing track.

2. A 'deceptive' sonic move at the start of the second verse,which makes it momentarily sound like a bridge, but it quickly picks the energy back up. This is not a new move for Max, but effective nonetheless. 
 
3. The third iteration of the chorus is the first time we hear it as a sonic peak and not as a buildup. This both provides an effective ending to the sonic arc and reinforces the general chill vibe of the song.
 
4. The chorus-postchorus juxtaposition just before the outro. This is a signature Max Martin move, which helps the song go out with a (relative) bang.
 
5. The use of a stripped-down version of the prechorus in the intro and the chorus in the outro. This reinforces the dominance of the sonic dimension.
 
Each of these moves may not be a big deal on its own, but their combination goes a long way toward shaping the character of the song.

​The vocal melody in the bridge is made up of only three notes—G, E, and A—which also happen to be the roots of the three chords in this section.
 
This creates an interesting interaction, in which the melody “chases” the bass/root motion. At a certain point it even mirrors this bass/root motion, though this is obscured by the rhythm and metric placement of the notes.
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​This is one of those cool things that are hard to consciously notice but can certainly make a subconscious impact on the listening experience.
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​This is a really cool and noticeable moment, and it’s enhanced by the fact that it happens during the “fall” section of the bridge, which lets the heavy syncopation shine.

(Bonus: Notice that while Taylor's melody is nearly identical to the melody in the first part of the bridge, there is an added syllable, and the rhythmic pattern of repeated dotted eighth is extended here.)
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​Honestly, when I started writing about this song, I didn't think that so many different things would go into the magic concoction prepared by Taylor, Max, and Shellback in order to hook me and millions of others. But there ya go.

And one last note: I realize I gave the bridge A LOT of attention in this article. I often zero in on the bridge as my favorite section in a song because it's located at a strategic point and it's where the writer and/or producer can do a bunch of creative things with the already established material.


Top40 Theory is a project aimed at providing advanced music theory knowledge and composition tools to pop songwriters and producers. Join the small but growing community of highly accomplished songwriters, producers, theorists, and composers at the Top40 Theory Facebook group. You can also follow Top40 Theory’s Twitter account and Facebook page, as well as join the mailing list via the form located in the sidebar, to receive updates about new posts and other pop music theory related musings.


More Posts:
About that Chorus in Bebe Rexha's "I'm a Mess"
Ariana Grande's "No Tears Left to Cry" - An Experiment by Max Martin and Co.
​A Sonic Twist in the Plot: The Bridge in Modern Pop
Taylor Swift - "Delicate": Finding Out What Hooked Me
​The Postchorus-Bridge Switcheroo
Camila Cabello, Charlie Puth, and the Vocal Range Wars
Calvin Harris and Dua Lipa's "One Kiss" is Ambiguous AF

​Today it was announced that Kendrick Lamar won the Pulitzer Prize in Music for his 2017 album, Damn. Since I come from the world of concert (“classical”) music, I had a front row seat to the social media reactions coming from it. While a lot of people in my circles were genuinely excited about the choice, others really didn’t take it well, and it wasn’t pretty.
 
Here’s the thing: I can understand concert composers who are worried about pop(ular) music taking one of the few awards that traditionally places a spotlight on one of their own, and, by proxy, on them. One composer candidly said that he is worried about the money:
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I completely get where he is coming from. Concert music depends on wealthy donors to keep it alive, and one of the biggest motivations for these donors to donate is the potential of being associated with "The Next Beethoven”.
 
I’ve experienced this first hand: Years ago, I was a fellow at Tanglewood Music Center, a prestigious summer festival with a history of fellows who went on to be the big-name composers of the 20th and 21st century. Almost every day, me and the other five composers were invited by donors who wanted to mingle with us to fancy dinners/receptions. I even remember  being asked for an autographed CD on more than one occasion, which was pretty shocking to a non-famous person like myself.
 
What I also remember is that they rarely actually listened to or cared about my music. They only cared about the fact that I was a Tanglewood fellow, which statistically gave me an outside shot at becoming a “famous” composer (I didn’t, by the way…).
 
I’m not a concert composer anymore, but I get it. Concert composers by definition cannot count on commercial success to earn a living. The little money available come from prizes and institutions that are all supported by donors, and if those donors lose interest, people’s livelihood is at stake.

​I can also understand the sentiment that an artist who has won five (televised) Grammys probably does not need the spotlight and the $15,000 that come with the prize, while his co-finalist could probably use both.
 
What I can’t get behind is stuff like this (these are all from one long thread because I was too lazy to collect them from different threads, but trust me, there are quite a few of those):

It’s really baffling to me that people who consider themselves to be artists can be so closed-minded. I get that it’s scary when you feel like you’re losing ground, but this is just ugly. Beyond the nasty rhetoric, what they are implying is that concert music is by definition “Great” and pop/hip-hop cannot be considered on the same level.
 
Honestly, anyone who thinks this way betrays their ignorance of the craft that goes into making great pop and hip-hop (as well as lack of self awareness when it comes to their own music). I would say they make the mistake of judging Lamar's music on concert music’s terms rather than on its own terms, but I think that statement would be too generous. The truth is that they likely never bothered to listen to Damn.
 
I’ve been to enough composers’ conferences to know that some concert music can be really awful, and I’ve heard quite a few pop and hip-hop masterpieces. And vice versa, of course. A genre is simply a kind of musical template—it doesn’t define whether the music is good or bad. The only defining factor is the individual piece of music.
 
Hopefully once things calm down, some of these people will try to actually listen to Damn with an open mind and understand why so many consider it a masterpiece. I won’t hold my breath, though.
 
On a final note, the former NY Times critic Allan Kozinn proposed a very reasonable solution that I think should be considered (I did not obscure his name since he is a public figure and has enabled sharing his post on Facebook. I also believe he has publicly expressed similar sentiments in the past, if I'm not mistaken):

I think this is something both sides can get behind.