Weekly Billboard Theory — 1–800–273–8255
This week’s writeup will be a different tone than those of the week’s prior. Usually I poke fun at artists and other cultural phenomena but I feel that this would be in poor taste with “1–800–273–8255”. Anyways, let’s not waste time and get right into it.
Logic ft Alessia Cara, Khalid
Key: Ab Major
Tempo: 100 BPM
The chord progression of the song is a IV-vi with a passing tone of a V and an escape tone to the I. So essentially we get IV-V-vi-I but the emphasis is on the IV and vi. I’ve found that progressions based around IV-vi are incredibly common in more “emotional” music. I know that’s kind of a pretentious way to phrase that, but genres such as emo and post hardcore often use these progressions. Heck, I play for a band that uses IV-vi a whole lot. What I’m trying to say is that these chords are useful in representing the subject matter of “1–800–273–8255”.
The instrumentation of “1–800–273–8255” is also important in setting the emotional landscape. Rudimentary synths like those found in “I’m The One” would be completely inappropriate. So what would be the most solemn accompaniment for a piece about suicide and mental health? An orchestral scoring seems to be the most obvious choice. Classical music instruments can evoke any type of emotion, sure, but we don’t hear them too often in top 40 music because they can have a “stiff” feel in comparison to guitars and synths. But that’s kind of the point with “1–800–273–8255.” The song covers serious topics and requires a thoughtful arrangement.
The choice of artists used for this song is interesting as well. Logic, Alessia Cara and Khalid are all relatively new but have been making quite a big impact. It kind of makes you wonder if larger artists weren’t on the track because it might be “off brand” for them or if it was simply a matter of the right people at the right time. Regardless, I think it’s important that these three artists appear on the track in comparison to someone like Lil Yachty because we are able to take them seriously. I don’t mean this as a slight to him but I find it hard to imagine his style of rapping with such a delicate topic.
Usually I write about whether or not I believe a song is “good” because of measurements similar to those above. However, with “1–800–273–8255” I think “good” is a matter of the music matching the message. And I believe it does a good job with that. I don’t know how long this song will stay at the top of the charts since mental health and suicide are topics that we typically don’t want to think about. However, I think it will be viewed in much higher regard than previous musical attempts to tackle serious issues.
Let’s look at the charts to see what we’re getting into next week and holy cow Cardi B is number one and I’m so happy for her heck yeah. It’s pretty cool to see a woman overcome adversity and beat out someone who has been given everything (looking at you Taylor). At number two we have the new Post Malone song, “Rockstar.” I loved “Congratulations.” Will I like his new hit? Come back next week and I’ll let ya know!
