Weekly Billboard Theory — Chained To The Rhythm
Last weekend, my mom said to me, “Hopefully you’ll get to write about a song you actually like.” She’s not wrong. I probably wouldn’t have listened to any of the songs that I’ve written about for the past two months had I not been writing about them (despite how fascinating “Bad and Boujee” is). Fortunately, Katy Perry’s new song “Chained To The Rhythm” has been climbing the charts and holy cow do I love Katy Perry. Teenage Dream had as many number one hits as Thriller. THRILLER. I’ve mentioned this before. While Prism wasn’t nearly as successful, it did produce some hits and seriously incredible deep cuts. By no means is “Chained To The Rhythm” Katy’s best work, but it’s still got a lot of cool stuff going on.
Katy Perry ft. Skip Marley
Tempo: 95 BPM
Key: A Minor
Boring basslines are one of my biggest turn-offs in music. Yes, I’m pretty biased as someone who is a mediocre bass player. However, a little bit of space and syncopation in a bassline can go a very long way. For example, some recent great pop basslines would be “Rude”, the chorus of “I Can’t Feel My Face,” or pretty much any Bruno Mars song of the past couple years.
I’ll be honest, I’m not great at transcribing music so the bassline above might have some errors in it. Lower frequencies and muted notes make it difficult to decipher exact pitches sometimes and I’m very out of practice. HOWEVER! This should help support my claim that this song has a pretty interesting bassline. If you can’t read music, all of the slashes with the tinier swoops attached to them represent rests, or gaps of silence in the music. You also might notice a lot of repeated pitches above. Often times that would be boring, but because the rhythm is varied our interest is kept.
The bassline of “Chained To The Rhythm” isn’t the only ~rhythmic~ part of the verse and chorus. The piano/synthy/chord thing playing behind the vocal melody is incredibly rhythmic too. Also, I realize that I haven’t really defined the word syncopation. If ya feel like going deep into it, check out wikipedia. If not, understand that essentially the more interesting rhythms that don’t line up perfectly with the strong beats of a song. If something is too syncopated, it’ll become mathrock (not really, but that’s probably the most interesting outcome of super syncopated music).
Great pop songs will masterfully use syncopation against strong beats. Every boring person you know will make fun of dance and electronic music by making sounds that go “unce unce unce,” but that backbone of constant kick drum allows the song to have pretty catchy rhythms as a contrast. The kick snare pattern is kind of an afterthought that allows the interesting parts to flourish. This also will bring me to one of the most clever aspects of this song.
I had mentioned before that I rarely focus on lyrics in music. This song will be an exception. No, I’m not talking about arbitrary deeper meanings of the song. I’m talking about text painting. Text painting is when the lyrics of a song materialize in how the song actually sounds. I could swear there was a version of “They Can’t Take That Away From Me” where they sing out of key when they sing the lines, “The way you sing off key” but I can’t find it right now. However, I was dancing to Chris Brown’s “Strip” while in my kitchen the other day and I noticed the text painting in the bridge. When Kevin McCall says, “Up” in his bridge, the ad lib goes up. When he says, “down” in the next line, you can figure out what happens.
So yeah, there’s a ton of text painting all over “Chained to the Rhythm.” The most clear cut example is at the end of the chorus as Katy sings, “To the rhythm.” These words are sung as triplets which creates a hemiola (you don’t have to worry about this one). “To the rhythm” gets the most interesting rhythm of the song. Clever. If you try singing the song you’ll also notice that most of the chorus is song on an A. “Chained To The Rhythm” more like “Chained To An A!” I’m so sorry.
I know I’m kind of reaching with this last one but remember how much syncopation there was with the bassline and the piano/synthy/chord thing? Well, those are CHAINED TO THE RHYTHM. The persistent kick and snare tie it all together.
It probably seems like I’m in love with Katy Perry (I am) but there’s definitely a couple of things that I think this song could do better. Reggae sounds have been super abundant in top 40 music for the past couple of years and although Skip Marley has certainly adds credibility to the feel of the song, I’m one for always pushing forward rather than chasing trends.
“Chained To The Rhythm” has suuuuuuuuch a good outro that it’s heartbreaking that we get such a short taste of it. I wish the, “It goes on and on and on” section would occur during the bridge so it could be used as a final double chorus a la “Firework” or literally any early Brand New song. However, could this be REVERSE TEXT PAINTING? Nah, that’s not a thing but it makes sense right? I want it to go on and on as they’re singing, “it goes on and on” but it doesn’t go on and on. Sorry about that one too. It might not be Katy’s best work, but it’s refreshing to hear something new from one of my favorite pop stars.
Looks at the Billboard charts for next week* Ah, let’s see what we got here. “Shape of You?” Did it. “Bad and Boujee?” Yep that too. “I Don’t Want To Live Forever?” More like, “I don’t want that song to live forever”. Wait. The next song on the chart is Bruno Mars’ “That’s What I Like?” Hell. Yes. This song RIPS. Might have listened to it four times earlier today not knowing that it was even on the charts. We did it, mom! Finally getting to write about some songs I’m super into! See ya next week!
