Slate dissects a Kety Perry song using music theory

[Sir GuitarCozmo]

https://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2014/03/katy_perry_s_teenage_dream_explaining_the_hit_using_music_theory.html

In the days since Ted Gioia published his essay in the Daily Beast, alleging that music criticism has devolved into lifestyle reporting, with little or no attention paid to how the music itself works, I've been challenged by friends on Facebook to write a “not boring” piece that explains a successful pop song using music theory. My bet is that it’ll be boring, but I'm going to do my best not to bore you!

I have picked Katy Perry's “Teenage Dream.” Because: this song's success seems to mystify all the Katy Perry haters in the world. Why did it go to No. 1? Let’s start by talking about the ingenuity of the harmonic content. This song is all about suspension—not in the voice-leading 4–3 sense, but in the emotional sense, which listeners often associate with “exhilaration,” being on the road, being on a roller coaster, travel. This sense of suspension is created simply, by denying the listener any I chords. There is not a single I chord in the song. Laymen, the I chord (“one chord”) is the chord that the key is in. For example, a song is in G but there are no G-chords. Other examples of this, in hit singles: Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” and Stardust’s “Music Sounds Better With You”; almost-examples include Earth Wind and Fire's “In September” which has an I chord but only passing and in inversion; same with Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida.”

“Teenage Dream” begins with a guitar sounding the I chord but an instant later, when the bass comes in, the I is transformed into an IV (an IV7 chord, to be exact). The I chord will never appear again. Notice, too, how Katy’s melody begins on the tonic—tonic: the root note of the missing I chord, the same note that the key is in. She stays around the tonic, reinforces the tonic, and the vocal melody establishes the key so clearly that there is no doubt: Katy’s voice is “home”; the rest of the song is oscillating around her. Even when the tonic note would clash with the chord (as it does over the V chord, on “feel like I’m living a”) she hammers it home. Her voice is the sun and the song is in orbit around it.

The “feeling of suspension” I mentioned is an effect of this. The insistence of the tonic in the melody keeps your ears’ eyes fixed on the destination, but the song never arrives there. Weightlessness is achieved. Great work, songwriters!

The second key to this song's Enormous Chart Success has to do with the weighting of the melody lines. Perfect balance of tension and release. Each line of the verses begin straight, on the beat, but end with a syncopation: [straight:] “you think I'm pretty without any” [syncopated:] “makeup on.

A brief aside: Dev Hynes (Blood Orange) is sometimes criticized as not “R&B” enough by some music writers—these writers often cite Dev’s previous work in rock band Test Icicles as indicative of some illegitimacy of intention. But Dev’s songwriting trademark—his supposed weakness—is rooted in this exact thing, the weighting of syllables. Unlike most R&B, Dev writes songs where the melody has no syncopation; they sound like hymns. Boring, perhaps, to you, but other people (myself included) hear a glorious religious calm, a stateliness.

Similarly, think about Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid,” where almost every note is off the beat. “FI-nished with my woman cause sheeee WOULDn’t help meeeee WITH myyyy LIFE.” It’s kind of a bad melody, no? Doesn’t suit the lyrics at all, has an vaguely ESL vibe, weighted all wrong. But the song is called “Paranoid” and he is singing about how you should enjoy life and how he wishes he could do the same but it’s too late. It suits the material, works great.

Back to Katy. Her lyrics stretch into each subsequent bar: “You think I’m pretty without any makeup/ on, you think I’m …” etc. The “on” is more part of the next line than the proceeding one. Her lines dovetail elegantly into each other. This contributes to the feeling of suspension that I mentioned above. As listeners, we're waiting for her to get to the point. And here it comes!

As Katy moves out of introspective mode and starts using imperatives “Let’s go all the way tonight! No regrets! Just love!” she gets straight, more serious, no syncopation. Then—genius—the chorus inverts the weighting that we heard in the verse. [Syncopated:] “You make me [straight:] “feel like I’m living a …” [syncopated:] “teenage dream!” And the gooey heart of the song, the “skin tight jeans” bit, is rhythmically entirely straight, voice tumbling out of the tonic-focused cage of the verse and chorus, like long-hair from a scrunchie released.

A particular point of pleasure: The title of the song (“Teenage Dream”) is sung syncopated on the chorus, but straight on the bridge. Compare the two in your head. Do you hear that? How brilliant. The title of the song is rhythmically weighted two ways—it’s like a flank attack. Two sides of the same face. You WILL remember the name of this song.

How’d I do? This analysis was an easy one, because the song is straight fours and its ingenuities are easy to describe. If I were going to talk about “Get Lucky” I’d probably have to start posting score. That is a complicated song.

I don't think it will come as any surprise to anyone that my primary interest in Katy Perry isn't her music.  That said, after having seen this writeup on Facebook, I had to go and listen to the song to get a feel for how this song refuses to give up and resolve itself back to the I chord (a.k.a. the root chord for the key of the song, as noted above).  The effect is one of those things that I never would've really noticed in passing.  Now that I've listened to the whole song, it's fairly obvious, and an extremely useful effect.  And I will be totally honest and say that not only did I listen to the whole song, I thought it was surprisingly good.  The video most certainly helps a lot.

Our ears are so used to the way chord progressions in popular music tend to resolve themselves (i.e. always coming back to the G chord, if the song is in the key of G), that in this instance, they're waiting for that resolution to come, hanging on saying "I know that I chord is coming", but it never does.  That's a serious subconscious hook.

For anybody interested in listening to the song and hearing the points the author has made, this is the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98WtmW-lfeE

I would consider it pretty questionable for work, depending on your workplace (underwear and such).

[jsem]

Now that I'm listening to this song again, and am actually paying attention to the song, it's surprisingly good for a mainstream pop song.

[Sir GuitarCozmo]

Words I thought I'd never hear myself saying, but I agree.

[Anguyen92]

Was it me, or was that The Village People in a car during that video?

Song's not bad.

[Ben_Jamin]

The musics not bad. Its what her messages are saying, the reason I don't like her.

[ErHaO]

This does not seem to work for me, as the song does  absolutely nothing for me. The same for the other songs he mentions that utilize a similar trick.

Not because I don't want to admit liking some mainstream pop; I even like some N-sync and Britney Spears songs. So there is that 

[robwebster]

Nah, Katy Perry's all right! Some totally vapid songs, but she tends to put her name to some of the better dancey pop stuff.

I seem to remember Jem Godfrey (who does this for a job!) singing the praises of Toxic, by Britney Spears, a little while ago. A lot of these songs are produced in ways that don't particularly tickle me, where I don't much care for the layers upon layers of bubble gum, but there's generally a lot of thought and theory put into them by the songwriters. Hit-writing's fierce. There's this little thing in the bridge, for Toxic, where it goes, "oooo-oo-Weee, oooo-WEEE," and it's actually the main "WEEEE-oooo, Weee-oo-oooo," backwards. It's a really neat detail, and I'd never have noticed if Jem hadn't pointed it out.

[Cruithne]

"This sense of suspension is created simply, by denying the listener any I chords. There is not a single I chord in the song."

Followed closely by:

“Teenage Dream” begins with a guitar sounding the I chord but an instant later."

Wait. What?

[jsem]

Read it again. Sounding the I chord, but it is not actually the I chord, because the bass comes in and it is actually an IV chord.

[Cruithne]

It takes ten bars before the bass turns up, unless I'm listening to a funny copy of the song, and in the meantime the guitar is switching between two dyads: Bb +D and Bb + C.

There's an argument that a dyad is not a proper chord according to music theory, but since the author states:

Teenage Dream” begins with a guitar sounding the I chord but an instant later, when the bass comes in, the I is transformed

...it would seem they, at least, are considering the Bb + D dyad to be an I-chord. It's just baffling as to why they're admitting that there is an I-chord after being absolutely definitive that we never get the chance to hear one.

[ronrule]

It's a well written, almost power-pop song. It would be even better if the lyrics could be a little more timeless. "skin-tight jeans" kinda ruins that.