dvsn’s “With me” — The balance between utilitarianism and catchiness
Much has been said about how the future of music is to be utilitarian (if you’d like to learn more about this, check this great article about a fellow Brazilian writer here). Music will tend to become more of a soundtrack for whatever we’re doing, and people will pay less attention to the little elements that make a song become a favorite of ours (a nice quote from the lyrics; a catchy melody; the way the singer hits a note etc).
The many roles of music in people’s lives is going to impact the way songwriters and producers make music.
Although I do believe in this, at the same time I don’t think mainstream pop music and pop culture in general will die. There is and always will be demand for catchy, fun, contagious pop music that make people stop what they’re doing just to listen and sing it from the top of their lungs.
Canadian duo dvsn’s “With me” is not one of these fun pop songs you’ll hear on the radio or play at your party in a strategic moment to make people come together to dance, but there’s something about it that makes it not perfectly eligible for an utilitarian song either.
It’s the harmony, in my opinion.
“With me” is instrumentally steady and homogeneously designed enough to be a sonic experience for the listener who is focused on doing something else than just listening to music — well, actually, the sexy bass line, the soulful yet sultry melody and the amount of “fuck with me now” lines in the lyrics tells you everything about what kind of experience this song is perfect for.
It could be just another PBR&B song like most of these that will not get radio plays but will gets lots of streams and get featured on lots of mood-themed playlists; however, its ii-IV-I chord progression reminisces one of the most famous chord progressions ever, that we hear on lots of popular songs in contemporary mainstream pop music.
It’s the type of harmony that really catches your attention.
But there’s more to it: the vocals are very R&B-ish, with all the high notes you’ll expect from a post-Michael Jackson era pop/R&B song, which contributes for the catchiness of the song.
I’d say the chord progression is the big key that makes this song closer to a pop hit, because even though the melody also plays an essential role, I believe it’s the harmony that sets the tone and makes room for this type of melody.
The tight mellow melody with notes close to each other on the “Little more time with you / I could go through the whole night with you / …” section, and all the melismas and repetitions on “ Baby I can’t get this feeling, feeling, feeling out of my body tonight”, are surely ingredients of a great pop song. However, they come in a package of an alternative/indie R&B song, with a non-standard structure and a very homogeneous beat, perfect to be filled by the listener with whatever they want to do while listening (it’s a fuck song indeed, hahahaha but let’s not restrict it).
If we are transitioning from an era of catchy music to utilitarian music (which I don’t believe so much, but still), this song might be a good example of how the mid-point of this transition sounds like.
