Weekly Billboard Theory — The Middle
Maybe I’m biased when it comes to Zedd. Sound familiar? It should. Anyways, Zedd has a lot of hits and for a very good reason. Guy knows what he’s doing. “The Middle” might not be as harmonically complex at the last song of his that we had looked into but it’s Top 40 songwriting at it’s finest.
Zedd, Maren Morris & Grey
Key: G Major
Tempo: 107 BPM
Some easy stuff to start things off. G Major? Great key. Ever play any type of instrument? G major only has one sharp. If you’d be playing piano, you’d only have to worry about one black key. And guess what! It’s also a super easy key on guitar! Some of the first chords that people learn on guitar are C, G, and D major. Why did I list those chords in that specific order? Because in the key of G major they make up IV-I-V and that’s the progression throughout the majority of “The Middle”. Neat.
IV-I-V is nothing new. However, it might surprise you that there can be some meaning found in these chords. I’m pretty shocked about it too because it’s something that I stumbled upon while writing this. Let’s back up for a second. I was unfamiliar Maren Morris before this single. I usually don’t pay too much attention to the features on EDM/pop songs because they usually don’t make the song for me. Surprisingly, “The Middle” is a unique case where the featured artist’s background might have influenced the songwriting. I’m not saying that she contributed more or less to the writing process than a singer traditionally would but what I’m saying is that Maren Morris is a COUNTRY artist. Stay with me here. So, I had touched on this before but it was at some point last year and I’m too lazy to hunt it down but those chords up above (C,G, and D major) are all also known as COWBOY CHORDS on guitar. Cowboy chords are (obviously) commonplace in country music. It’s either a pretty clever nod to the Morris’ heritage or just a funny coincidence “The Middle” is in the key of G major.
What else is there to talk about? The dynamic progression of the song is divine. Am I being dramatic? Idc. The song begins with what sounds like a car’s turn signal functioning as a metronome. Why? Im not sure yet. This sound is represented as a clock ticking in the lyric video but we clearly hear a car engine turning off in the first moments of the song. Maybe we’ll get some closure on this if there is a proper music video. The music begins with simple synth chords and Maren singing. No percussion yet. Just the car engine keeping time. If you listen very closely, you can hear a synth pad sneak in as the verse repeats at about 0:10. This is a tiny moment that is an example of the rest of the song. Small changes help to take something simple and transform it into something special. We hear weightier chords and a snare in the prechorus at 0:19. This snare is moving the song forward as the energy continues to build towards a chorus. And we get one! But it’s not what we expected.
The beat of this chorus drops out. We often see this technique utilized towards the ending of a song but it’s happening immediately in “The Middle”. And you know what? It rules. It catches us off guard. We’ve been conditioned by what pop and EDM are supposed to sound like so it’s refreshing when artists throw tiny wrenches into their work. This first chorus also utilizes a vocoder. SOUND FAMILIAR?! In a world where we hear Auto-Tune often as a crutch, I love it when we get a unique use of the technique. Even if that artist has done it before!
I’m not going to go through the entire song pointing out every little difference (there’s a lot and they’re all great) because these changes are most evident in the chorus. Immediately after the drop-out, the chorus repeats with full production and all is right with the world. This should be enough to keep us interested but Zedd and the crew take things up a notch by altering the melody slightly from the first time through. Compare “my mind” at 0:36 and 0:54. It’s a little bit higher the second time through and this adds to the build of the song and keeps us interested.
Fast forward to the second chorus at 1:31. Another drop-out? What? But this time with the turn signal metronome? Hm that seems kind of lame that they would rep — OH WAIT! The chorus comes back in full swing after 4 beats. Super simple songwriting technique but so effective at differentiating this chorus from the first. I should also point out that the melody of this second chorus is the same as the second time through the first one. That seemed a little confusing so an easier way to digest that is that the “my mind” of this chorus is the same as 0:54. Also, I want to point out that the first chorus was a double chorus. We had the drop-out then full. I don’t have any numbers on hand but I feel like traditionally songs with have single choruses first and then double choruses after the second verse so “The Middle” is a little unexpected in this way as well. However, I don’t have any stats to back this up and I’m just using what seems logical in my head at this moment. Whoops.
We have a short bridge and then ANOTHER drop-out chorus at 2:07. However, there’s no vocoder and the energy is much lower than the first time around. All we hear is Maren, electric guitar (sick) and that car signal metronome. Maren’s voice is light and quiet in this rendition of the chorus but you can hear the overdrive on the guitar increase as this section progresses. Afterwards we get two more choruses until the end of the song and each one of them varies a little bit. If you’ve been keeping score, that’s SIX different choruses and NONE of them are identical. The lyrics never change but the instrumentation and individual pitches stray from one another and this keeps our attention throughout the entirety of “The Middle”. This probably has a lot to deal with why I can listen to this song fifteen times in a row and never get tired of it. Maybe I’m biased when it comes to Zedd but maybe he knows what the heck he’s doing.
I haven’t been listening to anything new lately but just take a peep through Zedd’s top songs on Spotify because they’re all bangers.
This leads me to what I’ll be writing about next week. Drake’s still at number one but I’m surprised that Bebe Rexha and Florida Georgia Line moved up to number two. It’s not until number seven where we get something new and this leads me to my dilemma. I decided not to write about 6ix9ine a couple of months ago because he’s a garbage person. Number seven is XXXTentacion’s “Sad!”. I considered skipping it and going to number nine (I already wrote about what’s at eight right now) because he’s also a garbage person. The problem here is that number nine involves Chris Brown. I don’t want to get a terrible person more clicks but at the same time is my writing popular enough that it makes a difference? Definitely not. So yeah, next week this is what it’ll be. Sigh. See ya then.
