On Chord Fragments and Nuanced Embellishments in Talking Heads’ “Slippery People”
A quick and fun breakdown of one of David Byrne’s most slippery songs from the Talking Heads catalog, and why it works so well…
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3 Things Son Lux Does to Make Their Songs So Unique
We take apart Son Lux’s incredibly unique sound, and breakdown three main tools of expression composer Ryan Lott uses to achieve it.
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Breaking Down the Most Daring Production Choices on Son Lux’s “Plans We Made”
We’re OBSESSED with this new single from Son Lux. Here we break down some of the most daring production and arrangement choices in the track.
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Com Truise: The Crumar Bit One in “Ultrafiche of You” (Video)
In this video from Com Truise’s new course on Soundfly, Seth Haley breaks down his song “Ultrafiche of You” and the synth at the heart of it.
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A Harmonic Analysis of Backstreet Boys’ “I Want It That Way”
One of the biggest pop songs of all time, and the most “boy bandiest” of boy band hits, “I Want It That Way” features some savy theory…
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The Birth of the Unjazz
Modern songwriters, producers and artists are reinventing the way jazz idioms and foundations are applied in modern pop. Let’s break it down!
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Did Lorde Rip Off George Michael?
Thoughts on Lorde’s new single, a familiar ’50s rock groove, and the hyper-litigious state of the music industry’s copyright law.
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“Drivers License:” How Olivia Rodrigo Uses Much More Than Lyrics to Tell Her Story
Today we break down Olivia Rodrigo’s smash hit “Drivers License” to show how she uses much more than lyrics to tell her heartbreak story.
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Where Did All the Chords Go?
A sampling of single- and multi-chord progression songs between the 1980s and 2010s reveals a disheartening trend. How to fix it?
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How The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights” Takes Beethoven’s Ideas to #1
In this analysis, pop music theorist Ben Morss shows how The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights” is built from four-note scale segments.
