Ariana Grande’s “7 Rings”

Hey y'all, it's Diallo and this is one song and this is very special episode of one song because Ariana Grande has just achieved something remarkable. She's just gotten her seventh number one album on the Billboard 200. Nobody else has really done this. This puts her in a very rare class of artist. The only people who've done it more times than her at this point are Taylor Swift, Barbara Streisand, Madonna, Beyoncé, and Janet Jackson. Ariana and Lady Gaga are actually tied for seventh in this category of people who've just dropped albums and immediately gone to number one. We thought this would be the perfect time to re-share with you our episode on Ariana Grande when we covered her song, Seven Rings. Welcome to one song with Diallo and Luxury. Actually this episode is just about one melody. Grande and Coltrane, Julie Andrews too. But Rogers and Hammerstein get all the loot. One song you listen. We talk. You listen. Inter. Pollation. Inter. Pollation. You like what you hear? Gee thanks. Please subscribe. One song. You listen. One song. You listen. Hey. Welcome to one song. Yeah. Luxury today's song was a huge, huge hit. I mean like a record breaking. Planetary smash. Absolutely. It's been eight weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 back in 2019. Also, this song reached number one in 28 countries. I'm talking Canada, Singapore, Portugal, far beyond that. It also went top 10 in 10 other countries. And it also was the second consecutive number one hit from this artist. And if that wasn't enough, this song is certified nine times platinum. That's right. Diallo, this artist's friendship anthem inspired by a post-breakup shopping spree. Treating herself and her friends to their quote, "favorite things" puts a modern twist on a classic Broadway tune. And today we're going to peel back the layers on how a famous melody went from the stage and screened to a pop banger several decades later. It's one song and that song is seven rings by Ariana Grande. I'm actor writer director and sometimes DJ Diallo Riddle. And I'm producer DJ, songwriter and musicologist luxury, aka the guy who ispers. And if you want to watch one song, please go to our YouTube channel and watch this full episode. And while you're there, please like and subscribe. All right, let's start. So a wig is huge debut in the theaters and all the rave reviews coming in for Cynthia Rivo, Michelle Yeo, Boeing Yang, and of course Ariana Grande now seem like the perfect time to break down one of her songs in the one song way for you, the one song nation. And I'm just going to go ahead and say this will probably be the most interpolation heavy episode we've ever done. You only get paid if you say it. Usually we talk about one song and how it's connected to many other songs, but today we will literally take you on the course of one song and one melody and how it crossed over many eras and many genres. That's right, Diallo. And of course this being one song the podcast, the show with Diallo and luxury, we will also be talking about the different ways that that song's melody was treated in terms of how much money the interpreting artists got paid or didn't get paid as the case may be because they were using such an iconic tune. Spoiler alert, sting still gets 100%. And it truly is a song that goes across Broadway to jazz, to trap pop or whatever we're considering Ariana's version of it. The way the melody is interpolated or just interpreted across genres, across eras, across time. And again, on the flip side, how expensive that melody is depending on its use is really interesting to track. So I'm really excited about this episode. Me too. And listen, I know we've already given you a lot of facts in this intro about how well seven rings performed other charts, but to truly realize how big this song is in the streaming era, I got to share some more stats. At one point, Ariana's three singles from her album "Thank You Next" held the top three spots on the Billboard chart. It went seven rings, then break up with your girlfriend on board, which was the third single off of the album. Then thank you next. The only other artist to do that are the Beatles in 1964. But Ariana is the first and only so far solo artist to ever achieve this record. We will see what, you know, that same thing happens with Kendrick Lamar's GNX. Ariana is the fifth artist to have multiple songs debut at number one. And who are the others you ask? Mariah Carey, Britney Spears, Justin Bieber, and Drake. See, if we mention Kendrick, we also mentioned Drake too. Everybody's happy or angry at us. Or suing the entire business. Yeah, we're giving soon. Lastly, seven rings is one of the best-selling songs in digital history. It's set records for most streams in a single day and week for a female artist. We're talking 15 million streams in the first 24 hours on Spotify and 70 million streams in the first week. Here's a bit of a backstory on her. She grew up in Florida where she was a theater kid. She performed in children's theater productions of Annie, The Wizard of Oz, take note, and Beauty and the Beast. And by the way, Ariana has wanted to be in Wicked since she was that theater kid. It's all about how me to learn. It's not about an attitude. It's the way you're viewed. So it's very strange to be. Exactly. It's just a dream come true. It's a dream come true. I've heard her in interviews talk about how like the pop music start him is almost an accidental like side project. The main thing has sort of always been just on she's a theater kid. Just want to be in Wicked. It was all just to land her in Wicked. Even this song, her use of a melody from a musical, right? I mean, this is her theater kidness is baked into seven rings. Ariana had a interest in making music. But first made a name for herself in the entertainment industry through acting. From 2010 to 2014, she starred on the Nickelodeon Inc. It comes victorious and Sam and cat. And Ariana started her music career in 2013 while acting on Sam and cat. Over the next five years, she released four albums. Yours truly, my everything, dangerous woman and sweetener. There's some great songs on some of these albums, by the way. Um, if you haven't really had the chance to explore her catalog, I'll always recommend the song. Love me harder. Break your heart right back with Childish Gambino. Bang Bang, which was a banger. Sweetener was a great album because they had collaborations with Missy Elliott and for Well Williams. Uh, just, you know, I guess when I went back and was looking at the woman's catalog, there have been great Ariana Grande songs for quite some time. I mean, like literally for the last 10 years, she's been sneakily entering my pantheon of like favorite female singers. Many of these singles hit the top 10, including the way problem bang bang. No tears left to cry. And all this leads up to thank you next. The album featuring the song we're talking about today. So Diola, before we dive into breaking down Ariana Grande's seven rings, I wanted to ask you, when did you first hear the song and what was your reaction? My relationship with Ariana is that I feel like I followed her throughout my career because I was a DJ. Like she's always had really popular party songs. And this was one of the ones that, you know, the second I heard it, I was like, Oh, what a, what a mainstream pop hit this is going to be because it's like, it's a familiar melody. It's got Ariana on it. She's kind of like, kind of like trap singing, you know, like I've heard people call this a trap pop song, which I think is like a hilarious being from Atlanta, being from like, you know, you could argue the town that gave the world trap music. It just seemed to check every single 2018, 2019 box. Right. So yeah, I guess my first reaction was like, I'll probably be playing this in the club. Right. Right. And it's interesting. Yeah. Pop music does have a habit of taking things from other genres and other artists and other successful areas and ingesting them and putting them on the charts. And that's what happened with some of the cadences and flow. We'll be talking more about that later from that come from trap that come from hip hop. There was something so familiar, but it still felt very current. It was something old, something new, something brought with something blue. Right. Actually, I, is there anything blue? I don't know that there's some blue notes. Maybe there's some blue notes. Yeah, not a lot of blue notes in this for my couple couple couple of blue notes on blue at times. Definitely something borrowed, which we're going to get into a lot of borrowing. A lot of, you know, if you consider the 50s old, there's something old and there's Ariana, which makes it and trap, which makes it new. There you go. I mean, there's a story behind the song in the melody. Speaking of borrowed and blue, actually, right. Perfect. Perfect connection. But there's also a story about just what inspires this song. Seven rings was inspired by Ariana ending her engagement with Pete Davidson back in 2018, followed by a trip where she took seven of her closest friends to a jewelry store to buy them rings. Luxury, I know there's got to be more to this story. I've heard bits and pieces. What can you tell us about the story behind seven rings? First of all, there's more than seven rings. I did the math. There's at least 10. There might be more. I think she's given out rings left and right. You know, I haven't gotten one. I haven't gotten one yet either. Maybe after this episode she'll like us so much that she will give us rings from Tiffany's. But you're right. This song's origin begins with the split from Pete Davidson from SNL. Yeah. And then she tweets on December 1st, 2018. So we have this perfect preserved and amber record of this story's origin. She goes Ariana Grande at Ariana Grande tweets. Well, it was a pretty rough day in NYC. My friends took me to Tiffany's. We had too much champagne. I bought us all rings ring emoji. It was very insane and funny. And on the way back to the stew, she's stew. Like maybe she was saving characters. Maybe she's hungry or she's gonna eat some stew. I gotta hurry up and finish this tweet. Neomzo has like bitch. This gotta be a song LOL. So we wrote it that afternoon. Neomzo, who got name checked in that Ariana tweet, said we got to call the song seven rings. So she and Victoria and Taylor Parks start writing lyrics based on this story, the situation that they're in front of. It's funny little thing. I didn't even notice myself until I heard this anecdote. She tells this story at one of those billboard songwriting panels. So they consciously avoided in the songwriting using seven rings. You never actually hear, that's not a lyric, it's not the chorus, it's just the title is one of those kind of songs, like Blue Monday or kind of a few of those. What they did, which was the close second, was in the second verse, she talks about six of my lady friends, shall we say. So if you do the math, six plus Arianna herself equals the seven. So that's how you get to the seven rings. Funny little substory there is that apparently Arianna saw the price tag at Tiffany's and thought the comma was in a different place. So she goes, "Great, I'll get seven!" But it was maybe seven times more than she was expecting to pay. What's funny is that. I guess that we'd ten times more with her. Most of us make that mistake. He usually is really poor. And yet in Arianna's case, it's a chorus. Now the master hits on. It ends with more money to buy more rings. Although the amount of money Arianna makes from the song is surprisingly less than you think. We'll get into that a little later when we talk about this song. Yeah, I'll see what else we'll get into a little bit later. When we started the research on the set, I did not know just the role, the immense role that someone like Victoria Mone, who is a bonafide award-winning artist in her own right now, played not just in this song, but just in sort of building the Arianna Grande that I understood to be. You know, I don't really know, Victoria Mone. Can you play me something to introduce me to her? Well, listen, I know some of our listeners are going to be like, "Oh, man, you don't know Victoria Mone." Listen, this is why we're here. To those listeners who do not know Victoria Mone, she's one of the leading R&B artists of right now. And she had a huge hit with a song on my mama. It, I think, got nominated for a Grammy. It definitely won a Soul Train Music Award. And it's just a great song. And we'll talk a little bit more about Victoria Mone's role in this song in the show. But this is where the show takes a turn. Is that going to be my new catchphrase? Like, I'll just try to make drama happen. Like, it's a VH one behind the music. The turn is not that dramatic. But the song melody and the song, the main melody, does have a source. It is an interpolation. Yes. And part of why we set up at the top, this is a very, very special episode of one song, is because we're going to go back in time and talk about how this melody has been used in many songs over the year. And what year are we going all the way back to, Doc? Well, let's start with 1959 when the sound of music debuted on Broadway in 1959. But the original Maria was Mary Martin. So here from the original Broadway recording is the original version of the song, My Favorite Things. So it's pretty much the entirety of the melody that finds its way into seven rings. It should be noted, of course, one major difference is the feel. It's a waltz feel. It's boom, cat, cat, cat, cat, one, two, three. But what's interesting, and we'll get into it in the song, how they retain some of that waltz while not retaining it. Half of the song, basically, the top half of the song. Yeah. The lyrics and the music are all still a waltz. Still a waltz. But it's the beat and the bass line that are giving us straights straight 8th or 16th four feel. But can I say that's one of the coolest things about this song. It's like how many waltzes have ever made it into? Top of the top 10 in the modern day. In the modern age. So it's interesting how they retain some of the feel of the original and pretty much the entirety of the melody. So the story goes, now I'm going to move to the Rodgers and Hammerstein copyright organization. So just a really brief overview of who Rodgers and Hammerstein were. They are the composers of that song of that entire musical. They were a composer and lyricist team. Rodgers was the music maker, aka composer, and the lyricist was Hammerstein. So the storytelling and the actual song lyrics came from him. And between the two of them, they had Oklahoma, Carousel, South Pacific, the King of I, and of course, the sound of music, which is where that sounds from. Couple of tunes. Just a couple of small time off, off, off, off. Yeah, yeah. But these were massively huge in the 50s and the 40s and 50s. They won 34 Tony Awards, 15 Academy Awards, two Pulitzer's and two Grammys. Do we have-- it's not an E-God, but we've got to make up. It's a Patka. They were massive Patka recipients. So Hammerstein passed away in 1960 and Rodgers passed away in 1979. But the copyrights to their musicals are very maintained by conquered publishing. They're extremely valuable. There's a massive business there. And what happened was, according to the story, Arianna, what happened sometimes with these clearance stories as we hear is the mistake people make is putting it out without getting permission first. That's called getting it cleared. If you do that, you lose all your negotiational leverage. So if you go to somebody before you make the song, or before you put it out, you've got a little bit more of the ability to say, well, we want a lower number. We don't want to pay as much to use your song. What happened, according to Theodore Chapin, who manages the Rodgers and Hammerstein copyrights, is Arianna-- they'd written at least a demo version and brought it to them and said, we'd like to release this. And you can kind of see that caching. As I read some of these quotes from them, Chapin said he was, quote, "Initially taken aback by Miz Grande's song," which when I read quotes like that, I'm like, these are a bunch of white dudes from the Broadway theater world. And they're used to Broadway interpretations. And they're used to a lot of usages that are, I suppose, more directly on brand, audience-wise, and usage-musical-wise. So I think for them, as much as you and I hear hip-hop being kind of appropriated to them, they heard a complete foreign something that to them in their world was a little bit like, hmm, I'm not sure about this. There's a little bit of a, hmm, don't know this a little bit of, I don't know about this. What do you guys think? We let's have some younger people going on here. He said, quote, "We all listened." And our first reaction was, whoa. Then our second reaction was, this is kind of a cool idea. And third, I hope it's successful, because if it's not successful, Chapin worried, what's it going to do for the reputation of Rodgers and Hammerstein? Rodgers and Hammerstein's reputation will be mud on the streets. Bruns won't be talking about them at all. I love having all these quotes of what happened behind the scenes is so valuable to me, because it really speaks to the difference of generations. Generations, generations of worlds apart. It's so generational, I always say on this show. Baby moomers and all the generations before them, they need to understand, music is going away. If you want to be a part of the future music conversation, let the young come along and have some fun. I mean, be happy that you're getting paid. Like, as we've said, also on this show, a lot of people, especially in the African-American community, did not get paid for their contributions to the current modern musical tapestry. So just be happy, somebody's coming to you. I would be less concerned about like, oh, are they going to ruin the good name of HMS pinnacle? Like, no, just let people have fun. Yeah, and these guys, the Rogers and Hammerstein catalog protectors have a quote as the New York Times put it, conservative reputation for protecting copyrights. Again, all of this stuff is kind of code, because as Chapin, that same gentleman I mentioned earlier, theodore Chapin says later in this same New York Times article that I read, quote, "Over the years, there have been requests that have come in, and we've said, no, lots of owes in this know. No, no, we're not going to do that." And in parentheses, the writer puts, "He did not provide examples, which I read as code for hip hop." And it's pretty much right there, reading between the lines is barely necessary. So what they did was they demanded 90%, which to me is, okay, let's talk about this. What is a melody worth? To me, to, and I want to hear your opinion, because, and we're going to get into some other examples of borrowing is of the same melody and how much other people were charged. But I think a big part of this is the negotiation leverage, maybe that's lost when a big star comes to you and say, hey, we already made this. We're on a major label. On the other side of that, you're like, caching, caching, caching. I'm going to ask for 101%, because you have no say in this matter. You're going to pay me and get all the money from the cell. Right, let me, let me get stay on the phone because maybe he wants a piece. So what's going on is. Things somewhere is like, I should have asked for 101%. Luxury, you're now in charge of my estate. Did not know that was a possibility. I didn't know he had a non-British accent. The value of a melody, the bottom line, and I'm going to spoil or alert, I have the answer. What's the value of a melody? It's how much leverage do you have? So in this case, if you don't have a lot of leverage because you're Ariana Grande and you're coming after the song's been made and you've already told them that your label's about to put it out, then you get 90% of the publishing is essentially taken away from you. Concerts Chief Publishing Executive Jake Weisley said, "Miz Grande's song, quote, wouldn't exist in its current form where it not for my favorite things true enough, but that still doesn't mean that 90% of it had to be taken away because there's so much transformation. We'll get into it a little later, but the transformation of the beat, the transformation of the chords, the transformation of the story that's being told. This story is the opposite of my favorite things. My favorite thing is about whiskers on kittens and all the. Simple life-simple things. Life-simple things. This is a story. But if you're Ariana Grande. Right, spending a lot of money at Tiffany's is a simple thing. And now, just to be clear, I'm not saying that Rogers and Hammerstein's estate, Concert, are greedy. Might be a little greedy. But definitely the melody from the A section of the original. But don't forget, there's an entire B section. There's AABA format, and they didn't use the B. I'm gonna just get nerdy for one second, but it's relevant here. ♪ They don't use them when the strings get in the B strings ♪ Like, they don't do that. Well, they don't. Now, they're part of the problem with interpolation and samples for that matter. Unlike cover versions, cover versions are clean. You're covering my song, 100% of the publishing. We don't have any mechanism to sort of designate. You've used this much of the song, This may be the case. many times in yours with this amount of transformation or not like you change their exertion, there's no mathematical formula to get to a number. So it's all about power and leverage, but I just have to point out in as many ways as possible that this song is transformed. And to me the 90% feels a little unfair. - Yeah, I think 90% is just a little hard. - That's throwing your weight around. I think 50% would have been fine because it is what makes the song feel like seven rings by Ariana Grande. But I have a problem anytime these artists take 100% you know, we go back to the, I'm reminding once again, alert to re-computer guns like this, such a small part of that song. - It's the musical bed. So I would say find 50%. But the top parts completely new. - The lyrics and melody. - You didn't write these rap. - That's right, that's right. And by contrast, just 'cause we're on the topic, the Pharrell and Robin Thick, the famous Blurrline case, they quote unquote only got, but only 50% of the publishing, it was a big fee that they had to pay. It was a two million up front or whatever, the number ended up paying. - Is that true? - So it's 50% of future royalties. - The way I say got 50%. - So from this point, that's amazing. Okay, I will say this. I still don't agree with that decision. I think that the notes are different, the drum beats fall in different places. So, but even then, they only got 50%. So it really makes those 100% deals look really increased. - Exactly. - And now this takes us to the next turn, in the life of the my favorite things journey. John Coltrane's version, such a classic. I could almost well up, just think about it. Jazz holds such a special place in my heart. I listened to a lot of jazz with my dad because my father was a painter. His paintings are in the Broad Museum, the High Museum in Atlanta. There are many collections, the hammer here in LA. He was a painter and a sculptor, and he worked in his downstairs basement, and all I ever heard coming out of there was jazz, whether it was Horace Silver, Charlie Parker, AK Bird, and then John Coltrane's version, and I'm so glad we're taking a little bit of time in this episode to explore the jazz connection to this song, because there's a whole generation of jazz artists who don't get enough love. And obviously on this show, we talk a lot about the stems, and I remember that when we first started talking about this episode, you were like, you know, jazz was recorded differently. You know, everybody was in the studio at one time, and they played it, and the mics were strategically placed, but it's not-- - It was performance-based more than it is, and overdubbed kind of crafted-- - Exactly. - Exactly, can we dive in a little bit into John Coltrane's "My Favorite Things"? - Yeah, let's listen to a little bit of "My Favorite Things" by John Coltrane, this is from 1960. - And to be clear, we're just gonna play a snippet. This is a 14-minute Odyssey. (upbeat music) - That's so amazing. It's so interesting to hear what is kept from the original, and what's transformed again in that. - Well, I mean-- - That's the language I think is important to use for these kinds of different uses of melodic ideas, because they kept the waltz, which is unusual for jazz. One, two, three. It's still in three times, essentially, but there's just one chord that they're staying on. They're not doing the chord changes, and as you pointed out, this is the beginning. This is the first 30 seconds. - Yeah, I mean, like this is 14 minutes into jazz Odyssey territory. - There have been so many episodes where it's been painful to stop the music, because you know that there's places-- - Good stuff coming up that you're saying. - I mean, like, just even to play that little snippet is just to sort of understand-- - You need more. - To sort of understate the majesty and the richness of all the places that John Coltrane goes on this song. It's almost like stopping the stems right before the chords. You're like, "Oh, I can't stop there." And I think to, and I can't wait to get into how this song came together, and what sort of like legal stuff goes into it. But, you know, I just want to say from the outset that it's 14 minutes long. We just played the part that sounds the most like my favorite thing. - That's right. In jazz terms, the head is the beginning and the end, usually. - Yeah, it's almost like if you read somebody's book and you took their opening line, and then wrote an entirely different story, you know, that's how it feels from a creative point of view. - I want to introduce a concept in a second, which is really core to what we're talking about here. But before I do, just a quick guess. Knowing this tune as well as you do, this rendition as well as you do, given the melody is syncopated. He adds more notes, actually. It's 14 minutes long, and 13 of those minutes are not this melody, right, that we hear in the head. How much do you think 34-year-old John Coltrane made from this song? How much publishing did he have to give up in other words? - Considering that he created 13 minutes of original music and was just a jazz genius, and it's 1960 and he's black, I'm gonna say he gave up 105%. - You're pretty much right. Yeah, that is considered a cover. It's considered a cover version. Now, of course, when we think of a cover, we might think of a YouTuber going on in Faithful Leasing and Acoustic version of a pop song, but the lyrics and the melody are the same. Sometimes there's some liberty taken with the melody that core changes are frequently changed. But Rogers and Hammer scene get 100% of the publishing from that, in spite of all of the changes that were made, and this is really important in jazz history, because in the '30s and '40s in the Vibhab era, something happens where, and I'm extraordinarily, like, compressing a lot of information in the way that the couple sent in since, but there is a history of, especially in the late '30s, a lot of this music is coming from the Tin Pan Alley tradition of the great American songbook. These are songs that are known as-- - It's on 28th Street in New York. - That's right, Tin Pan Alley was an actual street. Actual Alley, and that's where the songwriters of the day would crank out their tunes, and they'd be popular music, and the jazz renditions would, as in this situation, all of the publishing royalties would go to the original songwriters. So the jazz musicians would get paid per gig. That was how they made their money. They might have a record deal where they might get some upfront advances, but mostly you're getting paid per performance, and that's part of the rich tradition of jazz includes this unfortunate monetary aspect. Listen, this song has been covered many, many times over the years. Some of the more famous ones include There's a Sarah Vaughn from 1961, Al Jaro, pre-fame Al Jaro, 1965, Dave Brubeck that same year. By the way, John's second wife, Alice, did a cover, which is-- - Love Alice. - So incredible. - I like Coltrane, amazing artists. If you don't know Alice, Coltrane, definitely check her out. She's talking about a free-form jazz odyssey. She free-formed times two in her version. Sun Raw, by the way. So it's a favorite-- - Another one of my jazz-- - For jazz odyssey. - Another one of my dad's jazz heroes. - Right. - Definitely Sun Raw. - And then Outcast did this drum and bass jazz cover in 2003. (upbeat music) - I've been listening to a lot of Apex Twin recently, so this is kind of getting my Apex Twin brain happy again. - There you go. - And by the way, just by contrast, 'cause we sort of did the spectrum of interpolation into cover, so when you get to cover, it's 100%. But what happens when it sounds like this? ♪ Rain drops on roses ♪ ♪ And girls and white dresses ♪ ♪ It's sweeping with roses and taking measures ♪ ♪ And all the sheets and before all the stains ♪ ♪ And I'll give 'em or I'll give these favorite things ♪ - Do you have a guess how much the panic at the disco build god then we'll talk usage from 2000? - Well, I would hope it'd be 100%. - Yeah, according to the public records of publishing 0% was taken for that usage. - How is that possible? - Now, it's possible that there was some deal like an amount was paid, some flat amount, but no publishing was taken. - That's insane. - That's a little bit insane. - That's insane, John Coltrane played a little slow bit and lost 100, well, there might have some other privilege going on there. - Yeah, I think that might be possible. - I'm gonna move on. After the break, we'll learn how seven rings was made. We'll experience that wonderful low end pleasure of the song's rumbling bass. And we'll find out how many rappers you can reference in one pop song, stay tuned. - Hey guys, it's Diallo. And if you live in LA or just nearby, we'd love to see you at our next live taping. It's gonna be Sunday September 6th at the Skurball Museum. It's basically the closing party for an excellent punk rock exhibit that's currently there. It's called "Outsideers, Outcasts, Rebels, and Weirdos" punk culture, 1976 to 1986. And we'll be talking about perhaps the most influential punk rock band of all time, the remote. So, come and join us if you can. Check our socials for more details and get tickets. We'll be at the Skurball Museum Sunday September 6th. Check it out. - Welcome back to One Song Luxury. Walk us through how seven rings got made. And with the journey this song and melody have gone through before Ariana and her collaborators make it their own, can you tell us something about the songwriting splits? - Sure, so we already know where 90% of it goes. Two dead dudes, and there, I should say there are states. And for decades to come, that's where the money will continue to go. - Do they think Ariana was black? Is that why they got 90%? - I mean, it's unclear. - 'Cause we all thought she was black for a little bit. She was dating Big Sean. She had, I've seen some of this ladies album work and let me just tell you, sometimes she looks like Beyonce. Sometimes she looks like, no, but seriously, it's possible. - Look at the album on positions and tell me that is not. - Intentionally. - And they see you grad. - That's a long way, right. - She looks like, she looks like she's filming. Anyway, I'm sorry. - No, my interpretation of some of those quotes I gave you earlier from their estate was a little bit, That was it. little bit my interpretation. Right. So 90% of the publishing proceeds from Seven Rings goes to the Rogers and Hammer scene of the state. Eight other people share 10% of the remaining royalties. Six of them are the top liners. And here's the stat that's kind of the most shocking. Ariana Grande gets 1.2% of the publishing on Seven Rings, her biggest song, which is one point way easy, 1.2% of the publishing. It's crazy. She's like, good lawyers, though. Yeah, they were like, this point to make all the difference. You can buy another dog. I think she has a lot of song like this. You could probably buy Seven more rings. If the song is gigantic. So it's roughly broken down like this. About 6% shared among the top liners. And they include Victoria Monet, Taylor Parks, Neumze Vittia, and Cadence, aka Kimberly Amchrizia. So together, those top liners who wrote the lyrics and melody, or I should say, interpolated the melody and made some transformations and told the story of the song, are sharing about 6%. And then the producers share the other 4%. And those include Charles Michael Anderson, Michael Foster. Those guys are known as Social House, and they actually go by Mikey and Scooty. And then the third producer is Tommy Brown, who goes by TB hits. And he's been Ariana's producer since her first album, and actually discovered Social House, Mikey and Scooty, and brought them in. There's a Pittsburgh connection that I think they share. And he brought them in to write for Ariana. This is the first thing they came up with. This is the first song that they helped with, because there are other writers on the song. To me, can I just say right off the bat? And this is no shade me and throw any of these other writers. You say they're 10 writers. To me, I hear Victoria Monet. If you know her own solo work, this feels like a Victoria Monet. That's really interesting. I'll break it down even more. It's funny. It's interesting you mentioned that. And again, to be clear, and I'll explain the language a little bit. Top liners in songwriting parlance means the people who wrote the lyrics and melody, whereas in this case, the producers made the track, made the beat. Now, those lines are often blurry. Some people do, when they're all together, some ideas get thrown out and, you know, who did what starts to blur? But for the sake of clarity and to your point, what's interesting is among those five top liners who share this 6%. Ariana Grande gets 1.2%. Victoria Monet actually gets 3.6%. Good for her, man. It's interesting that you noted some of what you hear to her distinctiveness. Yes. When I found out that Victoria was one of Ariana's writers, it really did make me go back and look at some of Ariana songs and be like, oh, yeah. Is there anything in particular about Victoria Monet knowing, like being a fan of her work? Do you hear anything specific in this song, like her cadence? It's not even just the cadence is definitely there, but even just the way that the phrases come together and the topics and some of the slang. Because again, like, you know, I say this as an Ariana fan, there's always been something black in her music. And it's an effable thing that's so nuanced, trying to put your finger on exactly why it's authentic versus not authentic is really hard to do. It's tough. And I mean, like, let's just rip the bandaid off. I didn't know until we were doing this episode that she was just a talent. I figured that, okay, so she's not black, but she's like Latina. And then you come to find out that her name is actually Ariana Grande. You know, you just like, wait a second, but I do feel like, look, her talent is, you know, kind of unimpeachable. Yes. And the fact that she is cool enough to know that, oh, Victoria Monet, that's somebody, along with these others, she's going to help craft what I'm doing. I think she's just, I think she's probably a cool person. It's like when I found out that Sia wrote diamonds for Rihanna. Well, all of a sudden, you're like, oh, yeah, that could have been here. You could have easily been a Sia song. And as a person who writes for others, I'm always happy to see a writer, you know, write for other people and then get the chance to do their own thing. A lot of your stuff gets changed, even just the way that it's said or, but every now and then they'll say it exactly the way that you pitched it. And you're like, wow, something in my head, you know, came out of that person's mouth. I'm remembering as you're saying that, I'm thinking about, well, we already talked about, she's an actress, she's a theater kid. And what she's famous for and an expert at is impressions and sort of inserting herself into a character into another role. I mean, look, some of her most famous comedy work when she's on SNL is doing impressions of other actresses, like this famous moment from Fallon when she does a Wheel of Musical Impressions. I do like this. That's Ariana Grande doing Britney Spears performing Mary Hat little lamb. It's really funny. She's genuinely good and she's inhabiting the role. So there's something interesting kind of plugging all these things together where she's got her team of writers, some of whom are black. And together in the room, they craft something for her that's based on her story, that's based on her moment. And in this song, she inhabits a different cadence, a different flow, a different rhythmic way of delivering her lines, which really comes from Trap music, which really comes from hip-hop. So let's start where the song starts. We start with some synthesizers. And we've got the snims. So let's start with the synths. Okay. Well, Scooty of Social House tells the story that they're in the studio. This whole thing with the rings and the champagne goes down. And this is their first time in the studio with Ariana. So they're like a little bit star-struck. And Ariana says, "Hey guys, can you make something that will sound cool?" Quote kind of like sound of music. Make it sound like the sound of music, but not. It's the full quote. So as Scooty explains, we don't play piano, we piece stuff together. Again, that's Scooty half of the Social House production team. Two of the three producers that worked on the song, they did all the music. So they just, quote, started pressing keys. And apparently, the first thing they did was this. So those are just octaves on a keyboard. Mapping up the four chords that we hear in the rest of the song. And then they, they double it with another synth that does the same thing, but it doesn't, it has more high end to it. And that sounds like this. And then together, it's this. And apparently, it sounds like the inside of like a cool clock. Yeah. There is a clock like this to it. And you see like, you can see, it's almost like you can see gears inside of a clock turning, each tooth, perfectly matching up with the other tooth. Like, why does it feel mechanical? There's something mechanical going on. And even the speed of it is sort of like seconds, because it's slow. This is a 70 BPM song. It's very, very slow, boom. Or a 140 BPM fast. Right. Exactly. But it's 70, it's almost a second per beat, which is what a clock is. Yeah. And probably is more the trap official BPM more than the 140. Yeah. Yeah, I got to say, like when we were preparing this episode, I was driving down the freeway. The sonic separation of these individual parts is so clear, like on a, like a good sound system. Like, it really does make you appreciate how it's, how it's mixed. Yeah. Like the mixes. It's really simple, but big, simple and big, simple and big. Yeah. Yeah. There's not a lot happening here, but there's enough because once they played that according to the story, again, from Scooty from social house, we just started pressing keys. They played what you heard. And Ari was like, yeah, that literally the first thing they played was the thing. That's why you got to be in the studio sometimes though. You know, the people love to send you an MP3 nowadays. But like, if you're in the studio, you might catch something that they will think like, oh, we're just fooling around here. And she was like, no, that's it. That's it. You got it. So those chords, though, that's just really simple, very standard. The four chords that we've been talking about for a few episodes now, it's one to six to four to five. Yeah. It's a differently arranged version of what we heard on the killers. And it's a differently arranged version of the same chords you hear and with or without you. These are pop music chords. You'll hear those same four chords looping in a lot of pop music. So it's important to point out that I'm making that point a little bit to point out how the second half of the chords are simpler than in the original, than in the sound of music version. My favorite things. I'll play that for you briefly so you'll hear the difference because that's part of the transformation. I'm really making the case here that we're hearing a way different song, not by 10% different from the original, but I think a lot more. Quite a bit. So that's the same one. Six. But now listen now. Which is so showtunes. It goes through eight chords in that period of time. And they way simplified it to just two chords in in Ariana's version, which again, transformation is the name of the game. It's not the same anymore. It's transformed. Yeah. New lyrics, new context, new everything. Okay. So there's a few more cool moments in the synthesizers. And by the way, there's not a lot of them. I think there's a total of maybe five or six synths. And we've heard two or three of them, because I think there's some layers in there. There's a counter melody that gets introduced after that section that I just played for you. And it sounds like this. Which by the way, can we just give credit where do that's a hook and it's own right, right? You know, when you're talking about the value of all the melodies being used, will not lie to you now. You know, like you can totally take that. - You could do that and that would be a totally different song. - That would be a completely different song. - I agree. I think there's a whole different song to sing there. So it does beg the question, whose decision was it to use? My favorite thing, do you not know? - It might be a noble, but given the story of the anecdote, I just told the fact that it was Ari who said, "Can you make it like sound of music but not?" You know, to me, I'm like, you know, she probably has a show kid, right? Is a theater kid? - Yeah. - It's likely that she might have come from Ariane. - It might have probably came from Ariane. She's a theater kid. She loves these plays and musicals, I mean, she grew up on this song. - There's a toy piano melody in here, am I wrong? (laughing) - So some of these stems have labels that God knows where they come from. My guess, I'll actually a lot of times, is it's probably the name of the preset. So here's the probably preset called Toy Piano, and this comes in in the bridge. (gentle music) - So Yuri, oh, that's horror music, death music. Don't go in the closet. - Where is that in the song? - I have never heard that in my life. - That's in the bridge, and I'll give you a little context vocally. (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) - Wow, that is some cute trap. - That is some cute trap. - Some of the cutest trap is over there. (laughing) If there's cuter trap out there, I almost don't want to hear. - Oh, there is, there is. - Oh, there is, okay. All right, let's get to, well, this is one of those moments because it's modern pop. We haven't, it's not the first time we've said that the bass is the 808. That happened on Juice World, that happened on Doja Cat. But all the bass content is coming from an 808 kick drum, and here it is. (drumming) (coughing) (drumming) - That is so low. Those lowest notes are almost entirely low. - It's so low, it's so damn low. I live in L.A., so I experience a lot of this stuff while driving around. There are some lows in this that you have to have a certain level of speakers available to you in some form to even appreciate-- - Get to spend some money for too long. - Some of the rumbling-- - Need destroyed, yeah. - Like it's really just power. - Damn, there was summer renaissance on Beyonce's album. It has like a rumbling low that's like so damn low. I'm just like, what is that? (upbeat music) - How is that achieved? - You don't wanna do that on any cheap system 'cause it's gonna destroy it. - Well, you just won't actually really even hear it. But I gotta say, when I'm DJing and I hear that stuff, I have an appreciation for it. It's just like-- - Oh yeah. - How low can you go this low? - That's meant to be heard in a big open space. - Yeah, or in the comfort of your car. - Right, right. - There's something so warm. - Oh, warm, it's exactly the right word. So that's the only bass content. So I'll play that for you with some context. That's happening when we're in the pre-chorus. In fact, it doesn't happen until the pre-chorus. - Yeah. - What's happening on top of that is the keytar, which again, I think is a preset name. - Yeah. - That's this synth. - Let's hear that. (upbeat music) - And what's already interesting about just those two elements, and I haven't even brought the percussion the beats yet, is you're getting two different rhythmic fields happening at the same time. Because on the top of the song, meaning not the drums or the bass, everything on top is still kind of faithful to that original waltz. And before I play the actual beats of the song, let me just give you an example of what that could sound like. So let me play, let me play it with seven rings with sound like, if it were a waltz. (laughs) But here are the synths that you've already heard, a little bit of the vocals, and everything's a little bit waltz-y. ♪ But there's the Tiffany's and Battles and Battles ♪ ♪ Bollywood tattoos ♪ ♪ Like getting in trouble, lashing ♪ - What's crazy about waltz music, by the way, the history of dance music, a European dance music, I should say, is the waltz. Like the waltz was like the hottest dance of like, the 70, 90, 80, 90, whatever. That was the sexiest possible beat imaginable. That is not the beat in the song. I will now play for you the actual beat, and you will hear how interestingly they blend a very different feel on top of that waltz-y, three, four-time feeling thing. There's that trap hi-hat with the snare, and you get those 30-second notes on the hi-hat a few times. And the way that locks it. - Man, those hi-hats are doing so much work. - They're doing a lot of work. - Hi-hats, man. From the time that Lex Luger started producing for Rick Ross, I was like, hi-hats mean so much. - Very distinctive part of trap. - Yes, it's such an important part of trap. I wasn't even trying to make the connection to trap specifically, but now I just happen to bring up Lex Luger. - Oh no, you're absolutely right. - And Rick Ross, and that is sort of like a classic moment in the development of traps. - It's not only without the beats, but it's without the hi-hat, you wouldn't have that feel. It's the hi-hat, it's the 30-second note, the flutter. - It's doing so much for your ears. It's doing so much for your ears and in your body. Like the second you started playing that, I'm gonna be like. - Right, which you need because it's so slow at 70 BPM, and we're half-time. The kick and snare on its own aren't really giving you enough. - I mean, it's not terrible. It's pretty awesome because we all love an 808. That's a distinctive 808 kick and snare. But you need a little more energy, and that comes from. - Like, I literally got like the stink. Like, you know, that beats the tight face just now. - Like, you were angry? - Like, I was five times like, oh, this is cool. - That's cool, dude. - To put it in some one like. - Yeah, that's everything. That is absolutely everything. (laughing) It's almost painful, it's almost everything. You gotta be real cute to keep a cute face when that symbol comes in. - Well, I'm gonna add some things back now. So now that we have that full beat, let's bring it in with the 808 bass, and that gives us this, and that syncopation happening where the bass is landing, is syncopated, and it's sort of interacting with her vocal, which we'll hear later. It's where she isn't singing or vice versa, because she probably heard the beat completed before she placed the notes perfectly. So what's fascinating to me when I was breaking this down is just, you have two different songs happening almost. 'Cause the top of the song, like what I was doing the Waltz before, you know, that has a different feel, it has a flavor, but then you give it this underpinning of 808s, and you give it the underpinning of Trap, and that's the combination that when the song came out in 2019 was like, oh, here's some magic out. - I mean, it still kinda works now. Can you give us that a little bit more of that, 'cause it's so much fun. - Just going here again. - Our drums, that low end bass, there's all the low stuff. - And I'll start the low. - I'll give you all the low end, and I'll start building back the synths. (upbeat music) You know, the lesson that's repeatedly shown to me as we do these shows, and I'm looking at this song, and from beginning to end, it's four chords, the whole time, beginning to end, there's about three different ideas that come and go on four different synthesizers, right? - Good for them, because I think the biggest mistake people make all the time. - That's what I'm saying. - And modern music is overthinkable. And from top to bottom, like listening to the beat, we had that high-hat percussion loop, the kick in the snare. There are so few things happening, but you don't need anymore. And like the opposite of maybe, I don't know, the Steely Dan episode or the Future Rush episode we'll be doing, like the complexity. Sometimes when you have the capabilities, the skills, the musicianship, and the craft, and the jazz and Berkeley background, you really want to put it in things, and that's fine too, but it's not necessary all the time. And it won't get to you in number one in 28 countries. That's for sure. - I'm telling you, there's something infectious and simple, especially I think in hip-hop and R&B and nowadays pop, where it becomes very easy to overproduce and overthink. When I think about some of my favorite songs that are currently out there, they only have to be the radio single. I'm just like, you know what? This is really just an 808, some symbol, some drama. Like one element. - But just one element. - Also bonus, sonically, when you mix that together, when there are fewer things, they all sound bigger. - Yes. - That's just like 101 mixing, but it's also something that I, in my own life, forget about constantly, 'cause I'm like, "Well, everyone should think, "and you find yourself adding way too much." And it makes everything you've added smaller, diminished by contrast. - I always say when I'm reading someone else's script, or even writing my own scripts, those things that I cut out that I might like but something about 'em, but when I cut 'em out, it makes everything that I love that much stronger for leaving it. - Man, you know what, it's funny talking about this, because I literally just talked to my publisher. I turned in 18 months of work, right, before the break. And yesterday was the big meeting where they said, they told me, "We love it, but 50% has to go." (laughing) That was my big conversation yesterday. And it's like, "Okay, okay, I might have to get some help, "which babies to kill, but like." But that is, it's gonna be a better book. It's gonna be a better movie. It's gonna be a better song when you reduce, reduce, reduce. - Absolutely. There would be no hit song called "Seven Rings" without the vocals of one Miss Ariana Grande. So what can we say about the vocals? And more importantly, what can we hear? - Well, let's start with verse one. ♪ Back this to Tiffany's and bottles of bubbles ♪ ♪ 'Cause with tattoos we're like getting in trouble ♪ ♪ Lashes and diamonds, AT&M machines ♪ - AT&M machines, I love that, I love the phrasing there. ♪ When myself all on my favorite things ♪ - Same melody, but opposite meaning of the Julie Andrews, you know, the sound of music version. - Getting to your favorite things. - Oh, absolutely. Getting a little bit into the Ariana Weeds, if you will, the AT&M machines. That's just funny phrasing to me. Also, you can hear like the slight break in the vocal, like that she didn't sing at all in one breath. - Sure, it's probably calmed from multiple. I'm not sure that I'm hearing a doubling on that, although it might just be, you know, buried. - It sounds very similar. - It sounds good. - Lashes and diamonds ATM machines. - But there are doubling in the backing vocals on some certain lines, so I'll play that for you from that section just on its own. ♪ ATM machines ♪ - Oh, I see. - ♪ I might solve all of my favorite things ♪ - So together, that sounds like. ♪ Diamond ATM machines ♪ ♪ I might solve all of my favorite things ♪ - It's very subtle, but it adds a little depth and a little bit of nuance. - I love it. Let's hear a little bit of this next part, because this, to me, feels very Victorian-money. ♪ Woulda thought it turned me to a savage ♪ ♪ Rather we tied up because in my strings ♪ ♪ My mom checks like I woulda sink ♪ - So it's, yeah, so I love, yeah. - First love, yeah. - There's so much going on. - There's so much going on, yeah. - I have some thoughts. - The Rhymer in me loves it when people do things like Sandbitch, Savage, you know, like it's, you know, my favorite of all time like that is on a Lost Boy song where he says, "Me and my crew will remain raw, "chopping through your crew like a chain song." I'm like, wonder which word they came up with first? (laughing) 'Cause remain raw is like, so you typically hear. - That doesn't get said ever. (laughing) - But I think it's fine. I mean, obviously, this totally worked. This part, even more than the first half of the verse, feels like, this feels like R&B, even more than pop. - You're absolutely right. There's a modification to the melody that she starts to make here. The beginning of the song, it's completely faithful to the original sound of the music version. And then she's starting to mess around with it. And progressively as the song goes forward. And by the way, appropriately, we haven't heard that yet. We haven't heard any of these other distinctive signs of another rhythm that it's about to kick in. So she's starting to kind of like gradually ramp up. We're about to get on the highway. - We're about to hit the pre-chorus, which again, for like the fourth or fifth episode recently, the pre-chorus is a pretty major part of the song. - Let's listen to that pre-chorus. - My neck is flossing, make big, the puzzles, my glass is popping. You like my hair, G-thanks, just bought it. I see it, I like it, I want it, I got it, yeah. (laughing) - To me, you asked me earlier in the show like what I thought the first time I heard this song, that line in particular jumps out to you on the very first, so you like my hair, G-thanks, you just bought it. So much to say here. I thought that was a great line because you could argue for decades, there has been sort of this negative connotation that only black women wore extensions, weaves, wigs and all this stuff. And here Ariana is like making it very clear. No, pretty much all women who are going for a certain look are doing this. And nowadays it's not even like controversial to say like, you know, women wear extensions and wigs too. So I thought that that was pretty cool, but not everybody thought it was cool. - One person is prettier. - Yeah, so Princess Nokia was not a fan of that line. She has a song from 2017 called Mine, where she says regarding her hair, it's mine. I bought it and it sounds like this. (upbeat music) Now, to be clear. - Let's play, should we play Ariana again? - Yeah, oh, if you even need to, but go ahead. - It's puppet, you like my hair? Do you think? Just bought it. - Now these are different, but. - Oh, they sound very similar. - They sound similar. - It's legally similar, but. - Very similar. - I think some of our listeners are gonna be wear this and some, and many are probably not, but two chains, the wrapper. 2011 comes out with a song, obviously 2011, long before Princess Nokia, long before Ariana's seven rings, comes out with a song called Spinit, and this is what it sounds like. - Now, if you are me, and I was DJing a lot in 2011, like I was probably DJing like two, maybe even three times a week, this song was huge, it was super Atlanta, and it was super trap. I don't think that the Princess Nokia line comes out the way. I think where Princess Nokia might have something to stand on is the idea of the hair, I bought it. But as far as the cadence, I didn't want any of our listeners to hear her cadence and think, "Oh, Ariana lifted the whole thing." No, they're both referring back to this two-chains song, which is also interesting because I think at some point, he had to talk to Ariana, and I think that's the reason why he's on the remix to seven rings is because, it was like, when you sample another artist or you pay homage, you interpolate up-- - But that's the best way to handle this. - Yes, exactly, put them on the dare remix. - Right, right, right, right, get them involved. - Shaboozy, Shaboozy, we need Jay Kwan, tipsy on the remix. - There's a whole story there. - That's the nature of this episode. It's the interpolation episode. - It's the interpolation episode, and it's a really muddy line. Where is it? 100% is clear for a cover, and then over here, almost everything else is unclear and opens in negotiation. I don't think, however, that rhythmic cadence, flow type situations, where if it's an homage or a reference, then that perfect solution is you're saying, put them on the remix, et cetera. I don't know that dollars need to change hands, and maybe as a token, there is a flat fee, but certainly not IP. I don't think publishing should change hands-- - You need to give him a percentage. - You don't need a percentage. Don't give him the whole kit and caboodle. - Right, and to that point, I'm gonna say, 'cause we're about to move into the next section, there is a circumstance in that song, where what I just described did take place, and it took place over this part of the song. - Want it, I got it, I want it, I got it, I want it, I got it, I want it, I got it. - So that's technically the chorus, is that hook. Two things I wanna say about it. First thing is that, maybe most importantly, is there's wonderfully a word for this. Full credit, by the way, to one of my favorite YouTubers for music fans, Adam Neely, is the one who educated me about that being called the Scotch Snap. So the Scotch Snap is when you have that data, data. It's almost the opposite of the swing, den, den, den, den, it's short-long, short-long. And it's metrically accented 16th note followed by a dotted eighth note for music. - Which is what I'm sure two chains was thinking when you record it's been it. - Here's a bunch of examples. - I need that Scotch Snap. - And you've heard that in Beyonce. You've heard that in Lizzo. You've heard that in two chains. ♪ Body, body, thank you, body, baby, baby ♪ - So that's Post Malone. It's Beyonce. It's just a thing one does. It's a root change. - It's a root change, it's a choice made. - Why do the Scotch get the crutch for that? - It'll get the crutch for that. - Isn't it crazy that that comes from music history? And particularly the naming of it as the Scotch Snap comes from it being a part of traditional Scottish music. For example. ♪ So her practicality comes through the ride ♪ - All right. Also shows up one more thing. It goes even further back to early English Baroque music. Like this. ♪ I don't come, come, come, come, come, come ♪ - By the way, if I go over two chains this house or me goes this house and I hear that recording, then I'll give you this. Otherwise, no, this is ridiculous. - Yeah. - Scotts don't get to claim, did it? - Well, they don't get real. - That's his on it. - I'm not saying we can give them non-road music. - Okay, guess what? - Guess what? You have a choice because it's also called the Lombard or the Stradsby. So you don't have to call it the Scotch app. - You have to call that shit the fucking Southside of Auburn Avenue. (laughing) - I get full credit to Adam the Abbey. - Then the part of A Town, 'cause Shots fired, sorry, I love the Scotch app. (laughing) Shout out to everything Scotland. Nobody gets to play that app. - They can't have it. - All right, that app. - That app. - That app. - That app. - I can't call that crap. - I'm not saying that. - Again, full credit. - Go to the mattresses on this. - Full credit to Adam Mealy, a long video on YouTube that he does about that. And, you know, someone who didn't see that video and thought he could sue, was this gentleman called Josh Stone, who goes by Dott, because he did this song. - It was, it was, get it. Dott, you need it, I got it. You want it, I got it. You need it, I got it. It's all for a price. - And what year is this? - Now, Josh from 2017. - Yes, it's still after two chains. Two chains is 2011. - But, he claimed that he played that song to Tommy Brown, one of the producers. - Okay, okay. - And there was a settlement in March 2020. - Yeah, I think people listed. - So, he got paid. - I think people settled all the time, 'cause life is too short, okay? - It does happen. - But, 2017, Josh Stone. Hey, I'm still freaking out in these clubs. I still DJ, I've never heard that shit in my life. - Expendent is a hip-hop classic. I would make the case. It was unavoidable for a while. When two chains was really, like, I always said, I think my New Year's Eve message in 2013, no joke, was I wish everybody at 2013, like two chains is 2012. Because that man had a fantastic 2012, in which I probably played Spinded a million times. So, I think some people are just hustlers. Maybe he did play that. But, it's one of those things. If I do a song that sounds just like, (laughs) if I do a song that sounds just like, hey Jude, and then I play it for a producer who ends up saying, hey Jude's got a really fun part. I want to interpret like, I don't get to go back and say, hey you sampled my hey Jude's sound alike. That's ridiculous. - The reason is that part of how this stuff works in a court of law is that it is relevant that they have access. - Oh, you know what I mean? The class of law me. (laughs) - I'm the last person on earth to be supporting these, to me, Spisha's claims, to use your word from this episode. But, in my mind, that's the, well, we can't call it the Scotch nap anymore, but it's the Strapsby, that's the secondary term for it. And you want it, you got it, I would argue, it was a commonplace expression. You can't own commonplace expressions. They're not bad. that protectable, you can't own the rhythm. And therefore, in my mind, look, I think you're right. I think you should let us know. - Let's skip to this part of the bridge, where she does a little bit of a meagocie thing. (singing in foreign language) ♪ When you see the max they factor like my ♪ - Biggie reference. ♪ Go from the start to the booth ♪ ♪ Make it up back in one loop ♪ - This is almost like a history of rap cases in this section here, right? The triplet flow and the biggie interpolation for reference. - Can I make up one lyric? - Yeah. - Black card is my business card. (laughing) I feel like sometimes people will write stuff or people would sneak in like, (laughing) is it shade at the artist themselves? Like, I don't know. Just to write the line, black card is my business card. I feel like whoever wrote that line was kinda like, (laughing) let's see if she'll sing this. (laughing) - Maybe that was Victoria. In other words, my business is in black music. Anyway, Ariana is known for her vocal stacks. We have to get into that. Do you got some to play? - There's some great backing vocals in here. Let's hear some of them. I'll build them up 'cause that's always fun. Start with the lowest note. - And then I'll add, that's the G sharp. Here's the E. I'll add the high C sharp. And then there's another triad. ♪ I see ♪ - It sounds like Christmas for some reason to me. - The whole thing sounds like I'm in the Macy's perfume department. - It really has that. - The whole song. - When you walk in the store and they're all wearing black and they're spraying you. - I am gonna start feeling. - And it's a little bit too sweet in this section, but you're putting up with it because you got presses to buy. Like, did I hear seven rings of mine? - There's a lot of sweetness. Then we've got some, hmms. (humming) And that's happening in verse two. ♪ I meet a Southern ♪ ♪ They say which one I say now ♪ ♪ I want all I'm ♪ ♪ Happiness is the same price as that button ♪ - Nice, right? And then there's some fun little sounds. We've got some hooves in the background. I'll play them isolated and I'll show you where they are. (humming) ♪ I got it, I want it, I got it, I want it, I got it ♪ - Like whoops. ♪ Like my hair, she thinks, just bought it ♪ ♪ I see it, I like it, I want it, I got it, yeah ♪ - There's hoots, there's hoots, I didn't notice. - I like those hoots. - Here. (humming) - I think that's all Ariana. - You think she did that first hoop? - I don't know. - But the first one, no, here's the first one I slated. (whooshing) - I don't think that's all right. She's good at mimicking it by-- - But by the way, that's a bridge too far. - I remember when Shady Lowe came out with the Southern hip-hop classic They Know. It literally, it goes from horns to a prominent whoo. And you cannot miss when you combine those two. That's a hit out of the game. - That's a hit out of the game. - There's one more crazy moment that I wanted to play. So in the pre-chorus, the second pre-chorus, it lands on this insane. I wasn't able to break apart what chord this is. There's like 9s and 13s, and I don't even know. But I'll play it for you and listen to where this section ends. - My smile is beaming, my skin is gleaming. The way is shine, I know you've seen it. - Now that's either, by the way, I'm not even being generous. I'm pretty sure that's an intentional chord with like, I don't know, flat nine or something. Or it could just be-- - No, that was intentional. - I think that's intentional. - I'll tell you, this is a musical theater lady. - This might be the-- - What a racial episode. That is the blackest sounding part of the whole song. - The word crazy. - Listen to that. ♪ Is shine, I know ♪ ♪ Is shine, I know ♪ - There's intentional dissonance in there. - Oh, yeah. - Play gleaming again. ♪ My smile is beaming, my skin is gleaming ♪ ♪ The way is shine, I know you've seen it. ♪ - If that person picks up what you call like, you know, customer service, you know some things. - That's crazy to me. - And I love that they left that in or chose to do it. I really don't know, 'cause that dissonance is dissonanting, but in a way that's interesting. And in the context, I'll play it in the context of the song. You just, it just sounds cool and interesting. ♪ Is dreamin' the way ♪ ♪ Is shine, I know ♪ ♪ You've seen it, I've seen it, I've bought ♪ - You've seen it. - All those little throw away. - You've seen it. - I love it. And by the way, just one more shout out to Victoria Monet, one of my favorite artists right now. She's got a song called "All Right" and we played a little bit of "All My Mama," which was a big hit for her, but let's play a little bit of "All Right" because I think that you'll hear some of the Victoria vibes on that song that you've heard on "Seven Rings." ♪ With the body to light ♪ ♪ With the good, the feeling lies ♪ ♪ All right ♪ ♪ All right, with your body to light ♪ - Diallo, as we wrap up this episode, what do you think the legacy of "Seven Rings" is? And for that matter, the legacy of this melody is going away, do you think we'll hear it again? - Probably hear it again. - You know, it's already been a big hit in the world of Broadway. It's been a masterful song in the world of jazz. And it was a huge, huge song in the world of "Trap Pop," - Right. - A-k-a, R-n-b, hip hop, and the cultural force that is Ariana Grande. - Global chart-toppingness of this song, yeah. - Listen, we'll probably hear it again, but I think that in a weird way, the real legacy of this song, extending beyond its beginning and its end, is just to say that a couple of things are true. I feel like in the pop road, it's always good to bring in something that is at least familiar or sounds familiar. - Right. - And that was the element that they got from Sound of Music. It brought in something that was completely of the moment in the year of 2019, which was that sort of trap high hat symbol. - Yeah. - And those wonderful lows. That contrast of high and low is never anything that leaves the failure, in my opinion. And then you just have the perfect star for the movie that you wrote. Ariana was the perfect star for this song, if it was the movie, if it was the TV show. This song was the perfect vehicle for her at that time. Post-Wicked Ariana may not sing this song quite the same way, you know? She's developed as an artist and some of the people who she worked with, some of her collaborators have gone on to do their own thing. But I do hope that we continue to see Ariana because I think that her voice is absolutely undeniable, her talent, she has that sort of it factor that, you know, makes you want to listen to her music. But she's an exciting artist to watch. - Yeah. - And I'm curious to know what she's going to do next. - Yeah. - And I'm excited to see even who she's going to collaborate with. At this time, she was collaborating with Victoria Monet in the success of Wicked. She's collaborating with Cynthia Orriva. I think that, you know, the lady got good taste. - Yeah. - And she continues to entertain us. (triumphant music) ♪ I want you, I love you ♪ ♪ I'm in love, she's my dad ♪ - I think one thing that I'm realizing as we talk about this, and now just to be sort of nerdy for a second about copyright law, the goal of it is to equally protect the first creator with the rest of the public. Musical ideas should be protected, but then they should be in the creative comments for other people to reuse. And the thing that gets left out a little bit to me is we've really traced this melody from when it was new and no one had heard it. And then through exposure on the stage and then on in film, by the way, on the stage, only New Yorkers are hearing it, right? And then the recording comes out in people by the record, over time, more and more people hear it, and more value gets added to it, which unfortunately, and this is just capitalism, and I'm sorry if I'm Bernie Sanders of Musicology over here, but the fact of the valued only gets added over time, which gives them more leverage to say this is more of a valuable melody, but Ariana made it an even more valuable melody, valuable melody. It's 28 countries, which may or may not have, I think by the time in 2019, the song came out, plenty of them had heard my favorite things from the sound of music, right? There's no doubt that a new generation heard it, in a different way, there's a lot of transformation. And to me, I think that is unfortunately not built into the negotiation for a melody. I think Ariana Grande should get a cut of the publishing of the original version of the song, because she added value to it. - I like that. - That's something that could happen with copyright law. - That would be kind of cool. - Joseph Fishman of Vanderbilt. I know you're listening with your wife. Thank you guys for saying you like the show. Make that change. Tell your students to do that. - One thing I wanna add to that is that we've talked a lot on the show about people who come in at 190%, 100%, 105% apparently. But there are people who, back when I worked at the record label, they would actually put out CDs and be like, "Hey, sample my music." And these were not nobody's. Like sometimes, these are like people who had big, big hits, but they understood that getting sample or interpolated would actually bring more value to their catalog. So we do spend a lot of time talking about people who could be considered greedy, but we also wanna recognize that, if you do the research, you have friends in the music industry who know this kind of stuff. Like they can tell you, "Oh, Richard Ashcroft really wants people to sample his songs right now." Like there are people out there who are like this. That's just a random example, but there are people out there who want to remain-- - We'll talk about the verbal showings in another episode, for sure. - Clearly that was my back door waste thinking of a verbal reference. But no, there are people out there who wanna be sampled, wanna be interpolated. And I think that's totally legit too. The other thing I wanted to say is that this one song, more than others, really does sort of track the timeline of one song. We always say that most of our songs are post-1960, and up to the current day. Well, this is literally, we started in 1959, and this is a song that has changed over decade, decade to decade-- - We're really tracing it on the melody. - Yeah, it's like one melody is really what this episode is being called. - This is the one song episode about one melody, and we've had a great time doing it. Okay, luxury, it's time for one more song. This is the segment where we share a deep cut or a hidden gem with you, the one song nation, and with each other, you go first. - Well, since we've been in sort of a jazz mood, these last couple episodes, we did Boston over with the far side last time, and obviously today John Coltrane did. I was thinking that one of my favorite jazz songs, another interpretation of a classic from the Tin Pan Alley era. The song is dream a little dream of me. One of my favorite versions, though, is on this Ella Fitzgerald with Count Basie record. And there's one moment in particular that I adore. It's the organ, so, solo. It just gives me chills. It's like one of my favorite last songs of the evening songs to DJ sometimes when it's late night. I love that. It's a good time in the night. It's a good time in the night and this organ solo. And then she comes back with a modulation. It gives me chills every time. That's Count Basie playing that really chill organ. It feels really old and dusty and then they make the key change and she comes back. And one of my favorite voices ever on Planet Earth is Ella Fitzgerald. My one more song is by T.K. Mitesa and I hope I'm pronouncing that right. But this is a song that I really like a whole lot and this is 24k. And I always want to hear more from you know this is off of her album from 2023 called last year was Weird Volume 2. That's a great that's a great title. Volume 2 no last year. As always if you have an idea for one more song you can find us on Instagram and Tiktok. You can find me on Instagram @DIALO and on Tiktok @DialoRule. And you can find me on Instagram @LUXXURI and on Tiktok it's luxury spelled the same way but two extra x's at the end. That's right luxury xx. You can also watch full episodes of one song on YouTube right now. Just search for one song podcast. We'd love it if you like and subscribe. And if you've made it this far I think that means you like this podcast. So please don't forget to give us five stars, leave a review and share it with someone you think would like it. It really helps keep the show going. Luxury help us in this thing. I'm producer DJ and songwriter and musicologist luxury. And I'm actor writer director and sometimes DJ D all over me. And this is one song. We'll see you next time.