12tone

The Doors are one of the most important bands in rock history, which is a strange thing to say when their music sounds so... unique. No one sounds like The Doors: Guided by the singular voice of Jim Morrison, the band played a pivotal role in the genre's reinvention in the late '60s, and while their career was short due to Morrison's untimely death, they left an indelible mark on rock music for generations to come, and songs like People Are Strange remain culturally relevant, if somewhat anachronistic, to this day.

Music theorists would have you believe that there is no best possible scale: Different scales have different uses, and are appropriate for different musical goals, so picking an objective "best" is not only pointless, it's actively counterproductive. And that's true... but what if it wasn't? What if we could work out the best scale, through the careful, scientifically grounded process of running a bunch of my favorites through a single-elimination bracket? Would that be a good idea? I mean, probably, right? 'Cause that's what I did.

When you think iconic saxophone songs, there's practically nothing in the same league as George Michael and Wham!'s Careless Whisper. Ok, maybe Baker Street. And Born To Run. And Giant Steps, in its own way. And... ok, look, the point is Careless Whisper has become practically synonymous with the sax in popular culture, taking on all the rambunctious, seductive connotations of the instrument, and I wanna talk about a saxophone so I'm gonna do it. Who's gonna stop me?

As I'm sure you all know by now, I'm kind of a fan of chord loops. They've been a primary focus of my own music theory work for years now, and I've done, like, way too many videos trying to wrap my head around them, so you can imagine my excitement when some professor friends of mine dropped a brand-new music cognition study that aimed to answer some of the questions I'd been asking this whole time. But the results were... well, let's just say I've been reconsidering some things, and I'd like to explain why.

What is pop music? It used to be a pretty simple question, but in the last few decades, changes in the landscape of music consumption and distribution have begun to dissolve the boundaries between genres, and not even the carefully curated landscape of pop has been safe. There are many examples of the increasingly obscure, esoteric, and divergent soundscapes that have come to define modern pop, but if I had to sum it up in one artist, I think the clear choice is Billie Eilish. So let's talk about her.

Was there ever any doubt? What makes a great guitar solo? How do you transcend beyond merely playing notes and create something truly sublime? Easy: Be Prince. The Purple One's guitar skills are legendary, but perhaps his crowning achievement came in 2004, when he joined an all-star tribute to George Harrison for the late Beatle's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Prince waited patiently for his moment, and as they reached the end of Harrison's iconic ballad, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, he stepped forward and made history, playing what is often described as the greatest guitar solo ever played. Let's talk about why.

Tommy is an... interesting project, with a complicated legacy. It's a challenging, fascinating work, and it revolutionized the music world by introducing the concept of the rock opera, with a long, interconnected narrative running through the album, the narrative itself certainly raises some eyebrows. That legacy and complexity have meant that, while Tommy is remembered for its historical importance, the actual music on it has mostly not survived in pop culture in the same way as other important albums of the time, with one glaring exception. Outside musical theater circles, Tommy is remembered mainly as the album that brought us Pinball Wizard, Pete Townshend's bombastic celebration of an arcade classic, shoehorned into the plot as an inside joke with rock critic and pinball fan Nik Cohn. That song has become emblematic of the album as a whole, and while there's a lot more to Tommy than that, I think it's a pretty good introduction.

So, a funny thing happened to me recently. I was watching the recent Polyphonic video about the death of genre, and suddenly, Noah called me out. By name! He challenged me to explain the academic perspective on genre, and I can't just say no to that sort of thing, so here I am stepping up and doing it. Musical genre's a really complicated thing, but it's also really important to how we understand and relate to the music we love, so let's dig in and try to figure it all out!

What makes a great love song? Time After Time has been covered so many times that it's easy to forget there was an original, but before it became a cultural standard, it was a simple last-minute addition to Cyndi Lauper's debut album, She's So Unusual. Even at the time, she and her cowriter Rob Hyman knew they had something special, and they treated the process of writing this song with a level of reverence and care that comes through in every aspect of the final production, from its hauntingly simple melody to its hollow, ticking groove. It's a timeless classic that transcends its origins while remaining intrinsically tied to them. So let's talk about it!

But it does. What's up with that? One thing I've always believed is that music theory is more than just a toolbox. It's useful, sure, but it's also an art form, a way of constructing new kinds of beauty and meaning, and when I get the chance, I like to try to show that side of it. There's lots of great examples, but one of my favorites has always been Jack Douthett's infamous Cube Dance, a deceptively simple map of triads that both hides a ton of insight about harmonic relationships and also just looks really frickin' cool!

Rock music is about many things, but in its purest form, I think it's often about performing rock music. The showmanship of rock is baked into its musical DNA, and that's especially true of the early hard rock era of the '70s, where the bombastic arrangements and aggressive, virtuosic technique were intrinsically married to wild costumes and elaborate stage shows that transformed bands from mere performers into ringleaders of their own audience circus. And perhaps no song captures that marriage quite like The Ballroom Blitz, an explosive rock song about how explosive rock shows can be, inspired by real events and transforming the studio recording into a proxy for the wild experience of an actual live gig.

The most overlooked instrument needs love too. Drums are the hardest instrument to write for. Or, rather, they're the easiest, and that's the problem. For arrangers without a lot of percussion experience, it's natural to just default to a simple pattern and leave it alone, or to try to overcomplicate things without understanding their purpose, and either way, the end result is often a pretty lackluster beat. But I'm also an arranger without a lot of percussion experience, and over the years I've had to learn a lot of drum lessons the hard way, so for all my fellow non-drummers, I thought I'd put together a little guide on how I approach the rock ensemble's most challenging instrument.

What do you do when you've spent your entire life working toward a single goal, and then you accomplish it beyond your wildest dreams? That was the conundrum faced by Pink Floyd after the release of Dark Side Of The Moon, and while each member had their own response, the overall answer seemed to be "mourn the loss of a purpose". They'd done it, and they weren't happy, so the band, led by their famously cantankerous bassist Roger Waters, decided to look inward. They didn't like what they saw, but as artists, they knew how to handle that sort of darkness: You turn it into more art. Wish You Were Here wasn't a passion project, it was a project of necessity, ground out of the band by a music industry that demanded a follow-up to keep the money flowing, and at the heart of the album, Waters struck back, laying bare all his sharpest critiques of the business that had destroyed his soul.

Radiohead is a weird band. After cutting their teeth in the '90s britpop scene and crossing over to the US with familiar alt rock sounds, they decided to take things in a slightly... different direction. Since the late '90s, Radiohead has refused to retread musical ground, constantly pushing themselves to explore surprising sounds and experiment with new compositional techniques. No two Radiohead albums are alike, and yet through all that variety they've remained surprisingly recognizable. There's something that makes their work sound inherently Radiohead, and I want to know what.

Much like its title character, Personal Jesus is a song with many interpretations. There are optimistic, almost evangelical readings, but there are also dark, frightening stories of predators lurking inside: To see that duality, one need look no further than the covers by Johnny Cash and Marilyn Manson. But while each of those stakes out its claim, the original leaves things much more ambiguous, as Depeche Mode invites you to reflect on your own relationship to the concepts of divinity, salvation, and exploitation. Who is your personal Jesus?

Lyrics are the first thing most people notice, so more than any other aspect of a song, they really need to be perfect. Many great pieces of music have been dragged down by poorly executed lyrics, and while there are, of course, many factors to a great lyric, there's one often-overlooked aspect that regularly causes unprepared songwriters to lose control: The shapes of the words themselves. It sounds simple, and honestly it kind of is, but trust me, really understanding those subtle nuances of sound is an absolute game-changer, and once you know how to think about it, it's one of the easiest ways to make your lyrics better.

What does it mean to be a father? It's a question explored by many great works of art across the years, but in this current moment, one of the most thoughtful takes on the question must be Harry Chapin's classic ballad, Cat's In The Cradle. Written alongside his wife Sandy, and inspired by her past experiences with her ex-husband, the song carefully balances the desire for love with a lack of communication that makes building that deeper connection impossible, as a tragic warning to prospective fathers everywhere.

I got mad. Sorry about that. I've been thinking a lot recently about the presidency of George W. Bush. His two terms coincide almost perfectly with my teenage years, and watching how he led the country had a huge impact on my relationship with politics. These days, he's mostly rebranded himself as just a goofy little man who loves to paint, but that's not the Bush I remember. The Bush of my teenage years was worse, more dangerous, and while it's been a long time since he had that sort of power, the damage he did in those 8 years is still leaving scars today. So, to help me process these feelings, I'm turning to the art I grew up with, the never-ending sea of anti-Bush protest songs, and picking out one of my absolute favorites: Green Day's Holiday.

Did you know I've never made a Christmas video before? It's true. I have a complicated relationship with Christmas music, and I've always been hesitant to bring that into my work, but there are a couple songs that really resonate with me, and the Carol of the Bells tops that list, so I figured after all this time, I should probably try talking about it. And then I started reading up on the history and... y'all. It's such an incredible story. I can't believe I didn't know where this song came from, and if you're anything like me, you won't believe it either.