Boys Like Girls’s New Single “Love Drunk” (And Bad Key Changes)

[ July 15th, 2009 | No Comments » | by Ryan ]

This article is half review and half large-scale complaint about current songwriting practices. First, the thumbs-up – to Boys Like Girls for their new single, “Love Drunk.” BLG has never been a HUGE band, especially not when compared to bands like Fall Out Boy. (BLG was initially praised as “the next Fall Out Boy,” only to fall short of their success. Maybe it’s because BLG has talent.) Nevertheless, the first single from their new album remains in the top 10 downloads from iTunes, which alternately makes me feel ashamed or justified for liking it, depending on the day.

“Love Drunk” opens with a repeated pentatonic melody over a basic chord progression. (I’ll explain why that wonderful device works in my upcoming series on “Improvisation and Improvisation-Based Composition.”) The verse is typical BLG pop-punk; so far, a new and enjoyable incarnation of a style fans are familiar with. Then the chorus drops, and with it, my jaw. It brings in a very energetic dance rock beat, and that was about the point my love for BLG was taken to a new level. Dance rock is just about the only pop rock style they hadn’t touched on their first album, and as a lover of both dance music and rock music, the fusion of the two is just about the fastest way to my heart. The lyrics are simple with clever rhymes. The melodies are all very catchy with repetitive rhythmic construction, a great way to make it stick in your head. All in all, I don’t know if I like “Love Drunk” as much as “Hero/Heroine,” but it’s somewhere between tied and a close second.

Now, the thumbs-down. “Love Drunk” closes with a key change, and while my first reaction was, “AWESOME,” upon further consideration, I found myself very disappointed. It gives an amazing sense of a finale when you modulate up by step at the end of a song and really provides a way to end a song with a bang. I can forgive BLG this one time only because this is the first time they’ve used this trick. If they try it again, I’ll call foul on them. Everyone else, though… Why are you still doing this? It’s become typical and almost expected. The Click Five does it at the end of “The Reason Why,” to give just one example.

Even across the Pacfic, Japanese band La’cryma Christi does the same thing in their single “In Forest” (at 3:00) but in a way that redeems them: they do it not once but twice, making this example a notable exception. This may seem like overkill, but structurally speaking, the chorus is meant to be repeated (not to mention that it’s VERY catchy). By taking it up a step two times at the end, it creates an even larger sense of a finale, and by stating only half of the chorus the third time, La’cryma Christi gives the song a clear but non-cliché ending and avoids the obvious danger of making the finale seem like an endlessly rising series of modulations.

Although La’cryma Christi takes the end-of-song key change and reinterprets it in a way you don’t usually hear, I still have an issue with the fact that they use a key change there at all. Maybe this is just me speaking as a musical theater/opera composer… To me, every key change should have a dramatic function within the context of the song. “We wanted a cool way to end the song” is NOT reason enough to throw a key change in. Like I said, once is forgivable. That constitutes utilizing the songwriter’s repertory of techniques effectively. When it becomes a pandemic, it makes me run away crying. The one song I’ve heard lately that uses a terminal key change with BEAUTIFUL effect is Taylor Swift’s “Love Story.” The song itself is very run-of-the-mill country pop song with a cute Romeo and Juliet analogy for a pair of young lovers. The bridge (release) section modulates to the relative minor as Swift sings about her doubts about her lover, but then to express her shock as he not only comes to take her away but also asks her to marry him, the song modulates up by step in what I can only call a glorious explosion of music that made me cry the first few times I listened to it. The key change has a clearly-defined dramatic purpose in the song: it expresses the transcendental nature of their love as they take it to a new level, especially after worrying so much that it might die away. For this, I give MAJOR kudos to Swift. “Love Story” remains one of my favorites because of her intelligent use of modulation, the likes of which I have yet to see in any other song.

(I’ll choose to believe she used it this way intentionally and that the excellent correlation between music and lyrics isn’t a coincidence. Unfortunately, it seems the rest of the music industry is juts a bunch of bandwagoners. But then, what’s new?)

Tagged under: boys like girls, jrock, key change, la'cryma christi, modulation, Popular Music, review, taylor swift