Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2014 November 28

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November 28

Two Tribes

Two Tribes by Frankie Goes To Hollywood opens with a melody sounding like a church organ. Is this melody based on an existing classical piece or did the band compose it themselves? JIP | Talk 06:24, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Between 00:05 and 00:27 in this video? The sounds are not "church organ" but a kind of "piano pad" and "strings". It was all composed on a Synclavier anyway I think. Contact Basemetal here 11:56, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

[[See also here for what a "pad" is... --Jayron32 13:24, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

See also here for what '[[' are Did you know the word 'bracket' originally meant the opening in the front of one's boxer shorts? Contact Basemetal here 13:41, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

From what I gather, but I'm having a hard time finding any clear credits, it was played and composed by Anne Dudley, and I found a snippet in a 2006 New Statesman where the writer "laughed out loud when she [Anne Dudley] spoke of how Frankie Goes to Hollywood wanted to sound like Shostakovich", so that might have been the inspiration. (The concept was, after all, to depict the Russian and the American tribe musically too, "an American funk line and a Russian line", see article). Maybe someone can find a more definite reference with the help of this suggestion. ---Sluzzelin talk 14:34, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

That they "wanted to sound like Shostakovich" does not mean they succeeded. It doesn't sound like anything classical to me and least of all like Shostakovich. Maybe that's why the writer "laughed out loud". Contact Basemetal here 13:31, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

So it's not based on any classical melody, but intended to sound like one? JIP | Talk 20:57, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Responding to JIP and to Basemetal: No, it doesn't appear to be borrowed or quoted directly from anywhere, yet it does appear to be meant to sound "Russian". I kind of interpreted the snippet the way Basemetal did, and thought that, if Anne Dudley did indeed compose that part, she perhaps was mocking FGTH's compositional request in the interview, but I'm really not certain that the keyboard intro was written or performed by her (though she did arrange the orchestral parts). Andy Richards is also mentioned as keyboard player on "Two Tribes" [1].

I agree that it doesn't sound like Shostakovich a lot — if anything, more like Soviet-commissioned work by Prokofiev (in fact I was sort of reminded of how Sting used Prokofiev's Lieutenant Kijé in "Russians", released one year later). Sorry, that's all I got. ---Sluzzelin talk 16:18, 30 November 2014 (UTC)