Portishead Pulls The “Rip” Cord

@chim_richalds: Yeah, I did notice the bit about controversy over the term. That controversy has to do with whether “atonal” is an appropiate designation for music based on a twelve-tone formula rather than traditional Western scales and has nothing to do with the type of music being discussed, which has no identifiable tonal center. Everything on “Third” lies wholly within the paradigm of traditional Western chord structure. Every song has a tonal center and is built off of an unambiguous chord progression firmly rooted within the context of diatonic harmony. “Silence” is the closest that they come to an atonal piece, mostly because of the dissonance between the melody line and the chord structure underneath, but even that is two harmonically-cohesive pieces of music with identifiable tonal centers placed on top of each with no rhythmic trickery or subterfuge.

If you’re going to throw around a real music term to bolster your argument, you should at least have some understanding of what the term means if you don’t want to get called out (and that goes for the “literally thousands of people” you invoke, whether they’re being positive or negative).

@djp: deepest of apologies, for my ignorant use of “atonal” to roughly mean “not pleasing to the ear” and for falling asleep during your music theory lesson.

@djp: Even if we stay with DP’s definition of atonal (instead of “makes me want to listen to Dummy“), every song does not have “a tonal center” and is not “built off of an unambiguous chord progression firmly rooted within the context of diatonic harmony” — far from it.

We Carry On is a perfect example — you have a bunch of different instruments that aren’t even close to the same pitch/key (which is obviously the goal, and that’s fine). The intro synth isn’t even in key with itself. When something is that far out of key with the other instruments, you end up with notes that are well out of the “twelve-tone formula” and sure as hell leaves the song without a “tonal center.” Hence, atonal.

If you disagree, please tell me what the tonal center of We Carry On is, specifically when the guitar comes in at 1:45.

It’s fine if you like it, but it’s atonal, and I happen to think it doesn’t work. Actually, it makes my ears hurt, and every time you play it, an angel dies.

There are two synth lines at the beginning of “We Carry On”, the first of which is playing the root note of the song on a fluttering pitch up an octave while the second is playing the root down and a fifth, then shifting up a half step and back down in a rhythmic pattern.

At 1:45, the guitar is playing a flat 7th, then a 5th, then a 7th, then back to a 5th, all of which are pretty standard notes when looking at building chords.

I don’t really care that you don’t like it but don’t make up things to make yourself look smarter.

@chim_richalds:and for falling asleep during your music theory lesson

Hey, you’re the one calling yourself ignorant.

@ Ned Raggett

…and you’re the one unable to detect a dense fog of sarcasm.

So, has anyone watched the video then? With or without the audio, it’s amazing.

“We’re sorry, this video is no longer available.”

BOO

@chim_richalds: Very dense, yes.

cherry-picking words from comments (“ignorant”, “dense”) and using them out of context in childish comebacks. nice.

(note: ned, i’ve conveniently used “childish” above so that you can use it for your next lame comment. or “cherry-picking,” both are pretty good)

@djp: Jet Monkey finds your analysis interesting, but ultimately wrong, since none of the instruments are tuned to each other (deliberately… I don’t think they’re idiots) and hence très atonal.

@EnsignMilkshake: I’m sorry that you’re tone-deaf, but there are strong octaves and fifths going on throughout that entire song. It is one of the simplest songs on the album in terms of harmony and chord structure. These are facts supported both by rudimentary analysis and by the definitions of the musical terms you’re throwing around and no amount of stupid chimp videos will change that.

As I said before, don’t make up things to make yourself look smarter.

So it’s official. Prog is back. With a vengeance. The musical landscape has been so bare, so predictable lately that all can say is “we had it coming.”

Every new cycle of the ‘movement’ (and this is the third time it’s gone around in the last 40 years) has its power ballads, its torch songs, its anthems. Venture to say that Portishead ‘The Rip’ will have a place in that pantheon. Furthermore, that it will be placed kicking and screaming next to Renaissance ‘Ashes are Burning’ and This Mortal Coil ‘Song to the Siren’, like it or not (and yes, TMC was really an ‘undercover’ prog project!)

So, you ask, did Portishead created a prog album? Weren’t they headed in the Radiohead post-post-rock direction, trip-hop roots not withstanding? Well, won’t go as far as calling the entire album an exercise in unusual time sigs, but it sure has a lot of it to be purely accidental. They are referencing something in the genre, and want to know what that is. Could it be just Talk Talk (wink wink)?

So is Beth Gibbons really just channeling Annie Haslam? or Elizabeth Fraser? No, don’t think so. But she’s definitely keeping the prog chanteuse torch alit.

[littlelicker.com]