This week's music is the music I grew up with. I had 2 older siblings living at home that were teenagers in the mid 80s. Although I was younger, I would listen to all of their records when they were gone and enjoy the new wave sound of the 80s.
Prince's "When Dove's Cry" is a fascinating study of composition and form. I had never noticed, until after reading the text, that there is no bass line in this song. I also didn't know that Prince was basically solely responsible for the creation, performance, and production of the song. Form wise, it contains A and B sections that repeat throughout the song, with other groove sections in between. The second half of the full song contains lots of solos and vocal sound effects and improvisation. It is one of my favorite pieces of music from the 80s.
Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was released when I was in 8th grade. It became one of the biggest songs ever among my group of friends. In a time when we were all obsessed with MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice, this was such a new, amazing sound that we all took notice. Back then we did not pay close attention to chord structure or form, we just knew that this was a unique type of music and something we wanted more of. Look at it now, it is not complicated harmonically, but it makes up for it with instrumentation, texture, and Cobain's unique presentation. The grunge movement of the 90s defined my high school life, and signaled another change in the youth culture of America. Generation X was over.
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