Music that doesn't follow the verse-chorus form
I was wondering if we can list modern music (ie. 1950s onwards) that doesn't follow the standard verse-chorus-verse-chorus-middle8-chorus or similar structure.
Hopefully looking to discover some interesting songs.
I'll start with the most famous: Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen.
Hopefully looking to discover some interesting songs.
I'll start with the most famous: Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen.
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Girls Aloud - Biology. Its like 5 songs in one.
Kylie - Cant get you out of my head.
Jesus Of Suburbia - GreenDay
Two more lengthy examples of songs that feature bits of different styles of song seamed together into one.
Try Pink Floyd's 70s output like Atom Heart Mother, Animals for a start.
All Fired Up - The Saturdays
Mew - Cartoons and Macramé Wounds.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l5Dpty4_GIM
Just about every Girls Aloud song (as others have said)
Citizen Erased - Muse (a lot of Muse's songs, actually)
Station To Station - David Bowie
Rat Trap - Boomtown Rats
Justify My Love - Madonna
I - Nicola Roberts
Drive - REM
Nice to see Squeeze getting a mention on here. One of the best (and most underrated) bands ever, imo! I adore them.
Just Like Heaven - The Cure (cheats a bit by using the catchy guitar and keyboard motif line as the chorus)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEalg62F8Zg
This town ain't big enough for the both of us
And it ain't me who's gonna leave
Oh yes, love that one. I loved Dollar in their earler days. Shooting Star was good too.
Just listened to the album. All I can say is thank you.
Alanais Morissette - Univited
Procession moves on, the shouting is over,
Praise to the glory of loved ones now gone.
Talking aloud as they sit round their tables,
Scattering flowers washed down by the rain.
Stood by the gate at the foot of the garden,
Watching them pass like clouds in the sky,
Try to cry out in the heat of the moment,
Possessed by a fury that burns from inside.
Cry like a child, though these years make me older,
With children my time is so wastefully spent,
A burden to keep, though their inner communion,
Accept like a curse an unlucky deal.
Played by the gate at the foot of the garden,
My view stretches out from the fence to the wall,
No words could explain, no actions determine,
Just watching the trees and the leaves as they fall.
The first most famous song to depart from the form you suggest is 'A Day in the Life' by The Beatles.
Then there is a whole body of work by Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground that completely departs from these forms with songs like 'White Light, White Heat', 'What Goes On', 'Heroin' etc, etc
Or The Doors 'The End'...most early Roxy Music work is structured quite differently...'Mother of Pearl', 'In Every Dreamhome, a Heartache', 'Street Life'...
Listening back I find this older stuff much more edgy and boundary pressing than even Radiohead or Mew...
The Beatles' Tomorrow Never Dies was completely different from eveything else when it come in 66. No typical song strcuture and a driving drum and rhthym backing that has influenced various acts in recent years. It's brilliant. Especially that Chemical Brothers song Let Forever with Noel Gallager on drums. Completely like Tomorrow Never Knows
I think that's 'Tomorrow Never Knows' from Revolver. (Tomorrow Never Dies is a James Bond movie! )
But the point is fair as it is an older song than 'A Day in the Life'. 'Tomorrow Never Knows' is clearly influenced by Indian Music and drugs but it is still an unconventional form.
I have always thought that 'A Day...' Is more famous and more influential but perhaps through time that is changing.
Rihanna - The Last Song