MsAshley
tommy x mj the ultimate power couple uwu
Look, I'm just gonna say it. It appears unrivaled in terms of technical ability and melody. A small break down of this beautiful song:
It is primarily set in A-flat Major, which is very commonly associated with warmth and plushness in pop orchestration. However, it avoids the standard four-chord pop loop, using a linear harmonic progression instead. The verse to prechorus part is especially magical, because the verses have these soft tonic to subdominant movements, but the prechorus gives us a tension with secondary dominants! That's where that sense of "searching" comes from that we hear. That in particular resonates in such a sublime way with the Ab chorus. The dreamy sort of feel to it comes from how Temperton wrote songs, especially for MJ, as what you may call "jazz adjacent." He used a major 7th and added ninth chords, which gives softer transitions, hence the dreaminess. Of course Michael's vocals are the main instrument here that sell the song, as the voice is an instrument I must stress, the melody has this reliance on wide intervals (sixths and octaves) during the chorus where the leaps are upward and give us the reaching we hear in the lyrics. The pitch control here is perfect given how delicate this has to be. Michael also does this subtle syncopation where he often begins a melodic phrase just a fraction behind the beat (the "and" of 4), creating a conversational, intimate feeling before landing firmly on the downbeat of the next measure. It's brilliant.
Perhaps we could rank all of MJ's ballads then?
It is primarily set in A-flat Major, which is very commonly associated with warmth and plushness in pop orchestration. However, it avoids the standard four-chord pop loop, using a linear harmonic progression instead. The verse to prechorus part is especially magical, because the verses have these soft tonic to subdominant movements, but the prechorus gives us a tension with secondary dominants! That's where that sense of "searching" comes from that we hear. That in particular resonates in such a sublime way with the Ab chorus. The dreamy sort of feel to it comes from how Temperton wrote songs, especially for MJ, as what you may call "jazz adjacent." He used a major 7th and added ninth chords, which gives softer transitions, hence the dreaminess. Of course Michael's vocals are the main instrument here that sell the song, as the voice is an instrument I must stress, the melody has this reliance on wide intervals (sixths and octaves) during the chorus where the leaps are upward and give us the reaching we hear in the lyrics. The pitch control here is perfect given how delicate this has to be. Michael also does this subtle syncopation where he often begins a melodic phrase just a fraction behind the beat (the "and" of 4), creating a conversational, intimate feeling before landing firmly on the downbeat of the next measure. It's brilliant.
Perhaps we could rank all of MJ's ballads then?
