The greatest Pop song yet written and recorded.
This thread is an offshoot and was inspired by @mahgister’s wonderful thread "Interesting videos about sounds and music." I made a couple of contributions to that thread, recommending a video recorded quite a few years ago by (I believe) a music teacher, who sits at his keyboard while explaining and demonstrating the construction of the utterly majestic "God Only Knows", written by Brian Wilson (music) and Tony Asher (lyrics), recorded by The Beach Boys (vocals) and the L.A. studio musicians who comprised the legendary Wrecking Crew (instruments), the song found on the Pet Sounds album.
In my posts, I made the case for the highly sophisticated and incredibly brilliant chord progressions, modulations (key changes), and use of inversion (playing a bass note below the tonic of the chord being played on the piano) in the song’s composition. So when the video below appeared when I just jumped onto YouTube, it’s title really caught my eye. It is entitled "Exploring The Mythical Chords Of "God Only Knows"." Brian is well known for his harmony vocal arrangements, but that’s just the icing on the cake; the song itself is in it’s chords and melody. Some of the chord sequences in "God Only Knows" bring me to tears. Add to that the vocal harmonies---many sung in counterpoint---and Carl Wilson's angelic singing of the melody, and you have an absolute masterpiece of a song.
I have long considered "God Only Knows" my favorite song, and imo the "best" song ever written. I’m not alone in that; Paul McCartney has stated he feels the same. I could have added this video to @mahgister’s thread, but I believe the song and it’s appreciation warrant it’s own thread. Watch and listen to this video (and the one I posted in mahgister’s thread), give the song a new listen, and see if you don’t agree with Paul and I. 😉
https://youtu.be/I2PHOt9_fGc?si=7NVfhFUBn4aw_GGo
@rpeluso, I immediately caught the subjective pronoun being used as an object of a preposition too. You and @bdp24 might appreciate this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gv0H-vPoDc Back to the thread's topic: Call it heresy for not citing a classic rock song, but a current favorite songwriter of mine put out a song about six years ago that I think is pop music genius; I consider it his magnum opus:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKrSYgirAhc
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years ago i posted a thread which posited that "five o'clock world" by the vogues was the greatest pop song ever created. it's certainly the greatest to feature yodeling. i'd also throw in neil young's "expecting to fly", which i never tire of. amazing arrangement outdoes anything phil spector ever did. |
@jonwolfpell Indeed, Carol King wrote all those songs. Randy Newman’s body of songs in the ‘60s is the same way. |
BTW as a footnote to the above, "White Christmas" as sung by Crosby is the biggest selling single of all time according to Guinness. More interesting is that it was written by irving Berlin who is Jewish and did not celebrate Christmas per se and the talk show host who went on and on about it back when was Alan Berg...
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