I don’t write about music on here often even though I have a large background in it. There is something I wanted to note in the ceremonial passing of 2014 into 2015.
Our yearly New Year’s Eve tradition is to blast the Wii with the new release of Just Dance. This past New Year’s was the 2015 edition, and it has Katy Perry’s “Dark Horse.” It’s an odd listen for a pop song since there’s no real chorus—the “gotsta have” element of pop music. There’s a competent build up in the pre-chorus, then the “release” is actually the start of the next verse, sans the bombast that usually drives pop choruses.
My brother in law pointed it out that the vocal melody doesn’t resolve, either. There are small tonic resolutions on the even lines in the verses— i.e., “You were gonna come to me” and “But you better choose carefully”, but she dances around that root note and cages the gloomy tension from release.
Now let’s listen for the sevenths in the piece. The minor seventh can be heard in Katy’s very first vocal line (the word “you” in “I knew you were“) as well as throughout the first half of each verse (another example is the next line, the word “you” in “and here you are“).
The major seventh can be heard in the second half of the verse (the “aph” in “Aphrodite” and the word “one” in “Make me your one and only”).
Can you hear it?
Mostly unrelated is System of a Down’s “Chop Suey,” which has a tonically-resolving chorus. But as an inversion of standard pop music (as opposed to a sidestep and omission in Perry’s case) the chorus is the quiet and reflective section, not the verses.
http://youtu.be/466VHt8KldM