The Pop Zeal Project (Track 83): Carole King: “I Feel The Earth Move”
A determined pounding of the piano keys starts Carole King’s “I Feel the Earth Move.” The singer-songwriter-musician had already co-written tracks made famous by The Shirelles (1960’s “Will You Love Me Tomorrow”) and Aretha Franklin (1967’s “[You Make Me Feel Like] A Natural Woman”), but with her second solo release, 1971’s Tapestry, King continued to make her voice—and her piano-playing—heard.
With the Women’s Liberation Movement already in full force in the early ‘70s, King’s material weaved its way into the hearts, minds and spirits of young women in particular, allowing Tapestry to stay on the charts for an astounding six-plus years. On “I Feel,” she freely described, through expert lyrical and musical constructions, the emotional and physical experiences of new love, from a female point of view. The most provocative lyric is toward the end when King describes the ecstatic fever that comes over her when she’s near the person who rocks her world, going vocally high at “I get a hot and cold” then quickly dropping to quietly repeat “all over” four times, like a vocal gyration, until the track ramps up to the chorus once again.
Whether it was The Shirelles’ song, conveying hesitancy—or Aretha’s, expressing certainty—in a relationship, or this smartly crafted track, best believe that when King felt something, you didn’t just hear it, it was damn near palpable.
Album photography: Jim McCrary
The Pop Zeal Project (Track 82): Jennifer Hudson: “Let It Be” (Hope For Haiti Now)
Arguably one of the best pop songs ever written, The Beatles’ “Let It Be” will forever be played when questions about life are easy to ask, yet the answers hard to find. Jennifer Hudson’s impassioned remake of this 1970 Lennon-McCartney track was created for the “Hope for Haiti Now” benefit telethon, which was organized to raise aid after a 2010 earthquake devastated the country. (Here it’s 11 years later and Haiti is recovering from yet another earthquake that just recently occurred.) Hudson takes the track to church, especially towards the end, with the backing vocalists providing angelic support. Hip-hop group, and “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon” house band, The Roots supply the musical accompaniment, keeping the traditional guitar riff and Billy Preston-style electric keys. Both The Beatles and Hudson versions are equally soulful: the original tender, touching and subtle, with emphasis more on lyrical delivery and a larger rock-guitar sound, while Hudson’s cover, which provides heartfelt sincerity, is focused more on vocal expression. To delve further into the masterful Beatles original, click here.
The Pop Zeal Project (Track 81): Madonna: “Give Me All Your Luvin’”
What’s the Name of the Game?
“Give Me All Your Luvin’” was the lead single from Madonna’s 2012 album, MDNA. Its merge of cheerleader chants and a ‘60s surf-music guitar riff would perhaps lead one to believe Madonna had gone go-go or bubble gum. But as the music video shows, Madonna as covered-up, stroller-pushing suburbanite is short-lived, and with the subsequent colorful bridge of the song featuring Nicki Minaj and M.I.A., any notion of Madonna adopting a “domesticated” persona gets wiped out.
What she does sport, also evident in the video, is an acknowledgement and acceptance of her title as the “Queen of Pop”:
All Hail: The clip features a robotic squad of football-player clones, programmed to cater to every step Madonna takes (quite literally), carrying her, lifting her, catching her, even risking robotic life and limb to protect their quarterback queen. Fittingly, the song appeared in the setlist to Madonna’s impressive 2012 “Halftime Show” on “football’s biggest night,” where the performance’s visual aesthetic involved Madonna as modern-day Cleopatra, carried (once again) into the “coliseum,” surrounded by golden pageantry deserving of a, well… queen.
Say My Name: Also of note, some of Madonna’s lyrical content at this point in her career started to include self-references. In 2008, Pharrell Williams, the producer of and guest vocalist on “Candy Shop” from 2008’s Hard Candy, spells out Madonna’s name; here on “Luvin’,” the opening lyric is shouted, in the style of the aforementioned cheerleader call: “L-U-V Madonna!” And three years later, Madonna upped the ante by including her own name in the title to “B**** I’m Madonna,” from Rebel Heart. All three lyrical examples could be seen as attempts at solidifying relevance in contemporary pop culture, and viability in the pop-music landscape, which is where Minaj and M.I.A. at the time helped garner additional commercial and critical cred.
Check out (or revisit) the video below. Ready? OK!
Photo: Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott
The Pop Zeal Project (Track 79): Madonna: “Material Girl”
Reference Material
Madonna’s “Material Girl,” from 1984’s Like a Virgin album, is one of the first instances of the singer’s love of playful irony. Vocals that evoke innocence tell the story of a seemingly passive individual who is savvier and more decisive than one would believe. While it appears she is the pursuer of material goods held by “some boys,” by song’s end, she becomes the pursued; there’s a reversal of roles, as heard in the following not-so-veiled verse, full of layered meaning: “Boys may come and boys may go/And that’s all right you see/Experience has made me rich/And now they’re after me.”
Mary Lambert’s video for the song also established just how ironic Madonna felt the song was. Its homage to Howard Hawks’ 1953 Gentlemen Prefer Blondes features Madonna as an actress on a film set, playing the role Marilyn Monroe made famous, a role that had Monroe singing, “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend.” Yet in this interpretation, both Madonna as the actress and—judging by the “Like a Virgin” lace outfit at the end of the video—Madonna herself believe that daisies can also be a girl’s best friend. Madonna dances a fine line: she pays respect to the film reference, while simultaneously offering critical opposition to “Diamonds” antiquated philosophy.
The Pop Zeal Project (Track 77): Kylie Minogue: Bittersweet Goodbye
It’s no wonder the word, lullaby appears in Kylie Minogue’s “Bittersweet Goodbye” from her 2000 album, Light Years. The song itself sounds as if it is one, with its tender piano and sweet, comforting vocals. However, it’s not the traditional kind of tale from parent to child, but this time from one lover to another, during the night into the dawn, before the couple parts. The song is written ambiguously to allow for interpretation; the story doesn’t automatically deduce that a breakup per se is about to happen. Yet this still doesn’t lessen the curiosity as to what makes the goodbye bittersweet, eluding, in part, that there is some benefit or joy that comes as a result. Perhaps it’s the future reunion that can only happen after one leaves in the morning light.
Hold this Note: Kylie hardly performs this track live in concert, but did so during her 2012 Anti-Tour, a scaled-down outing, which stopped only in select cities in Australia (Melbourne; Sydney) and England (Manchester; London), where b-sides, demos and rarities were performed in smaller venues.
Random Acts
I’ve always found the shuffle-play system of listening to music appealing, never knowing what song will be next. Ironically, I love routine and predictability, yet it’s the shuffle that allows me sometimes to embrace the unexpected, smile at a surprise. Don’t get me wrong, there are days when Fast Forward is used when listening to music on my phone: “No, not that one… skip… skip.”
When I first started blogging on Tumblr six years ago, I created a recurring series called The Poptimum Project, in which I wrote a post about every song that was Autofilled onto my iPod shuffle®. (Wow, remember that device?) The project was inspired by the film, Julie & Julia, where government employee by day and writer by night, Julie Powell cooks every recipe from Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” and chronicles her experience on a blog. Instead of a cookbook, I kept a document with the track list.
Now that this website has launched, you’ll from time to time see a continuation of this project, now renamed The Pop Zeal Project. One post might feature Carole King’s “I Feel the Earth Move,” followed by Gwen Stefani’s “The Real Thing,” then LL Cool J’s “Around the Way Girl” and so on. Come what may. Keep in mind: Not every music post will be part of this list, but if the headline includes, The Pop Zeal Project, then it falls under this continuing endeavor.
Ready to embrace the random? I am… I think.