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Today I'm looking at Black Hole Sun by Soundgarden, You and Whose Army by Radiohead and All The Young Dudes by David Bowie, which are three songs that each use an extremely distintive, rare chord progression.
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0:00 Introduction.
0:35 Soundgarden.
4:12 Radiohead.
7:41 Bowie.
13:01 Jeremy Tuplin.
13:46 Outro.
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I believe the Beatles opened up these weird tone chord progression changes, even early on, by stretching the blues & after split. Is that true?
I think Bowie’s 3/4 bar is a consciously introduced emotional whiplash, energetic effect, and a hint that we are to wake up a bit from the hypnotic state of modal major-minor interchange.
at 8:55 – You say logical predictable route and then I immediately realised the ‘logical one’ is Liability by Lorde, which means it’s probably a chord progression you’ve covered in one of your videos 😀
I love Soundgarden so much! I didn’t know that Black Hole Sun’s chord progression was that unique
It’s one of the strangest and most creative popular songs ever written. That’s why I don’t get Soundgarden fans who bash the song.
@rome8180 THERE ARE SOUNDGARDEN FANS WHO BASH BHS?! :’D
That’s the real genius of that song, the fact that it still sounds pretty catchy and accessible to the listener even though super weird stuff is going on beneath the melody. You may not notice that it’s a complex progression, but it contributes to the unsettling, kind of dream like vibe of the song. Just brilliant
@rome8180 yeah, in some cases, like Teen Spirit or Creep, I can understand why longtime fans are sick of those songs. They continue to be played to death and don’t represent the full capabilities of those bands. However, this is an example of a song that was just as popular as those but also is still amazing and never loses its luster
@rome8180 That happens for a couple of reasons. 1) Fans of the band are irked by the fact that it’s so popular and people only mention that song when the band name comes up with people who aren’t real fans. 2) Died in the wool fans are often quite possessive and cliquey and don’t like outsiders who haven’t done their homework acting as thought they are fans because they know one song. To be fair, BHS isn’t representative of most SG output, most of which is much heavier and far less accessible – even a cursory listen to their ‘A-Sides’ CD demonstrates that.
You should do a video on Chris Cornell’s first solo album: Euphoria Mourning. It is a very harmonically complex album.
Some of my favorite Chris Cornell work outside of Soundgarden! I absolutely love that album. Wave Goodbye still chokes me up. Such a perfect Buckley tribute, not only lyrically but also in incorporating Buckley’s sound and style
@Luke Tim or Jeff ?
Sure. About That, Im currently very addicted to Alains Johansen. Do anyone here do follow his career? Salute to you all!
Yes please. My favorite is “Pillow of your bones”. I’m not good enough at music theory to analyze it.
This guys is making such great videos which are taught at music schools with such high fees🙏
Just Golden (tho I retain little afterwards)!
I’d have to include Pink Floyd’s Atom Heart Mother in this. That song has a couple of unique chord progressions.
I always thought that (SLIDE) was composed by someone else…
@balle franz It was Ron Geesin who wrote the wild chord progressions, but it was for Pink Floyd and he’s credited on the album so I’d say it still counts.
i’m fairly sure it’s Pink Floyd’s progression. Ron Geesin came up with the brass orchestration and choral arrangement, no?
@patrrikk yes, that will be right enough, they were performing a non orchestral version for a while before getting Ron involved.
Yes, I was just about to comment that
Great video. You’ve really delved deep into the place where lyrics accompanied by the right music convey expressions of feelings without necessarily making sense. I believe a writer should never have to explain his lyric’s because it’s there for self interpretation. Like the writer describing life from an ant’s viewpoint and realizing the commonalities with the human experience. If one doesn’t pick up on the writer’s intention, oh well. There still is something beautiful there that waits to be discovered by someone at some point.
That Radiohead progression sounded so familiar to my ears, and after some wracking I remembered where I heard it before. Check out the song Message personnel by Francoise Hardy, written by Michel Berger. The first six chords use the same progression.
Around 2012 I was fascinated with progressions where one note moves only by a semitone such as the loop cm, E, am, fm
The walk is g – g# – a – ab and i loved the fact that the note between g and a was once used as a g# and once as ab in the very same progression. Writing a melody around that was a bit challenging (i think my friend wrote most of that back then), but it was one of the very first songs we did (and uploaded years later). I liked to think about these chords as being voiced for a choir an as many voices as possible should have to sing mostly semitone scales; that was the challenge for me.
One cool thing about the F Bb G C turn around in All The Young Dudes is that, while the chord jumps sound pretty random, it actually contains a climbing chromatic line A Bb B C!
Quite fittingly for a turnaround, it “reverses” the otherwise descending movement in the chord progression.
In some versions of Black Hole Sun, the first chord G isn’t actually played as a 6th chord by the backing instruments. Chris is singing the 6th note as an appoggiatura (accented non-chord tone on strong beat), so it gives the illusion that the chords are extended. Same thing in the Beatles song “In My Life”, where the vocals sing the 7th or 6th intervals over basic triads that are played by the other instruments. Very neat effect!
Yes I think many if not all the underlying chords are sus4 chords
I think the band XTC always had some really unique chord progressions. One of my fave bands. Andy is still at it with some new stuff thats just as wild.
Making plans for Nigel; killer progression!
“Pink Thing”, for example.
The All The Young Dudes chords remind me of another great bowie progression – the chorus of Quicksand. That one’s definitely worthy of a musical investigation, too.
It reminds me of whatever by oasis cant remember which part
Bowie recorded a demo of Quicksand called Divine Symmetry. It’s just him sining with an acoustic guitar. It sounds way better than the album version IMO.
@Elliott Covertgoing to look that up now 🤩 thank you!
When I read the title and saw Bowie’s picture, I thought for sure one of them would be Life on Mars. That song has amazing chord progressions I have not heard elsewhere.
Ashes to Ashes too
Life on Mars is based on the chords of My Way, so it’s not that unique
@Ernest Guinovarthave you ever heard Scott Weiland cover Ashes to Ashes? I went down a Weiland cover song rabbit hole and this song was phenomenal.
Radiohead’s one is very similar to a French song, called “Message Personnel” written by Michel Berger and performed by Françoise Hardy
Yes ! That literally struck my mind (or my ear) at once when I heard this progression, so glad you pointed it out 😊
Yep. Was thinking the exact same. And the Berger/Hardy song was released in 1973, almost a quarter of a century before the Radiohead one.
I made a Spotify playlist called “Unusual chord progressions” which is just what it says. Some of the more well-known songs on the list: Hello it’s me (Todd Rundgren), Bel Air (Lana Del Rey), Nakamarra (Hiatus Kaiyote), Golden lady (Stevie Wonder), Shinunoga e-wa (Fujii Kaze), Like a star (Corinne Bailey Rae)
Soundgarden, Radiohead and Bowie… not a coincidence that these monsters genius created such original songs. Nobody progress (sings) like you anymore ! 😉
You nailed it @DavidBennetPiano 💪
I loved the fact that you mentioned Rick Beato and his different interpretation. You both enhanced my rhythmic and harmonic knowledge. Thank you both.
sometimes we like to make things more complicated than they actually are. it takes a great mind like David’s to help bring things back around. always look forward to your uploads bro!!
Your explanation of all the young dudes is definitely more sound and robust than the other guy’s. Thanks for being thorough and thoughtful!
As a guitar player, I love these videos. Really expands my knowledge in a way most guitar channels don’t, probably cause you don’t show the guitar shapes and I actually have to figure it out. Nice work