Weekly Billboard Theory — There’s Nothing Holdin’ Me Back
Ya know what’s holding me back? Pressure that I place on myself to succeed in ways that I don’t value but know that society does. Ya know what’s holding Shawn Mendes back? Nothing apparently. Must be nice. I kid I kid (kind of). In all seriousness, this song kind of rips. Why is that? Keep on reading to find out!
There’s Nothing Holdin’ Me Back
Shawn Mendes
Key: D Major
Tempo: 122 BPM
This song is pretty straight-forward so this write-up will be pretttty short which is fine by me. Nothing unique tonally. The usual pentatonic melody with a few exceptions and I-V-IV-vi chords. However! Those chords don’t appear in a boring sequential order. Down below you’ll see what I’m talking about. The chords keep going back to the tonic as a sort of passing chord. This means that we don’t really focus on the I. It’s not that important really but it’s always nice to listen to a song with a variety of chords per bar.
The cool thing about this progression is the rhythm. You’ll notice that the end of each bar is held over and creates an anticipation or pickup for the next measure. Most times this would happen for the entirety of the song with that pickup making the song ~feel~ a little quicker and livelier. However, this pattern doesn’t repeat every measure. It repeats every four measures. We get a hard stop at the fourth measure before it begins again on the actual downbeat. This is VERY reminiscent to one of the best pop songs of all time in my opinion. Now that I’m thinking about it, Carly Rae Jepsen’s megahit has a very similar chord progression. Hmm.
The reason why this song shines for me is the production quality. Do yourself a favor and listen closely to the guitars in the background. The development throughout the song is masterful. Combining electric and acoustic to create really beautiful timbres. One of the reasons why people love tube guitar amplifiers is because of how they “break up.” This means that when the amplifier is loud enough or receives too much signal they begin to distort a little. Listen to how clean the guitar sounds on that first verse. Skip to the second verse and you’ll notice that it’s a little driven. Heck, Shawn’s voice cracks going into first chorus. It’s these little moments of “error” that adds a lot of personality to a polished track. Remember how two weeks ago I said that rock musicians don’t know how to mix guitars and synthesizers? Guess what. Pop musicians sure as heck do. The final chorus has cool reverse piano songs and the post-chorus synth-perc-noises-whatever (you know what I’m talking about) sound so natural. “There’s Nothing Holdin’ Me Back” is even incredible without the melody on top.
The only thing that I’m kinda lukewarm on in this song is the post chorus. The chorus has such a good build because of the quantity of syllables and its simplicity. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really go anywhere. I feel like this is a negative takeaway from EDM with songs building to a drop or an extremely catchy instrumental section. Think “Closer” by those frat boys.
However, wouldn’t it be more satisfying if there was a simple soaring SUNG melody that followed the chorus instead of some pitches that you can’t really sing along too? Even the millennial whoop (I hate that term) would be an improvement. The song is great, I’m stoked that it’s in the top ten but I wish it had a huge chorus. Maybe I’m just letting my personal preferences get in the way of an already great song. Maybe it’s text painting in the sense that the song is already incredible and the lack of a big chorus isn’t a big deal because “nothing is holding (the song) back.” Maybe normally I write a 1000 words and I’m not even at 700 so I’m reaching. Despite this, I think this is my favorite of Shawn Mendes’ songs and I think the minimal acoustic guitar helps to distinguish him from similar artists.
Looking onto next week and you could literally just read this same section of the writeup for the past month and realize the top songs are staying there. “Despacito” is the song of the summer. Sorry. Gotta go down to number ten for something new with “Attention” by Charlie Puth. I don’t know anything about this song or this artist. My guess is that it’s either a soft guitar/piano song or a chill highly produced song. I could be totally wrong but I’ll find out next week for some more WEEKLY BILLBOARD THEORY! Okay, later.
