Sunday, October 11, 2009

Stereolab - "Ping Pong" (1994)

Fifteen years later, this sounds like music you've been hearing on commercials for years, but the depth of the composition starts to become apparent when you hear the four-note lead guitar line for the first time. And the late sixties melodicism in the the vocal melody and background vocal parts is very rich.

The unusual chord (the one that first occurs on the last syllable of "recovery" in the lines about "smaller recovery" and "shallower recovery") sounds evocative, though I can't place it anywhere. It's a bVI chord, unusual because it's occurring in a song that otherwise emphasizes diatonic seventh harmony. Would be curious to know what, if any, precedents there are for the use of this chord.

"Ping Pong" on Lala.

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