Pedal points!

"Got to Get You into My Life"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lp1HWhnpfvs

every Hüsker Dü song

― flappy bird, Thursday, June 9, 2016 11:22 PM (two years ago)

Really?

somebody pointed it out upthread--joni mitchell is the queen of pedal points

Pavement - "We Dance" almost qualifies, there's a brief A-major containing a C# but all other chords in the song pedal around the D on the b-string.

Your Song (the intro)
Maybe I'm Amazed ("maybe i'm a man")

"Xanadu"

"Even in the Quietest Moments" by Supertramp wins this - the backdrop of a constant D in the bass throughout the entire song underlies a shifting palette of major, minor, dominant, and diminished chords, often with 7ths atop them. There's at least seven different chords in the verses and chorus, more if inversions are counted separately. très cool

Opening riff and chorus to Cliff Richard, "We Don't Talk Anymore"

"Pandora's Golden Heebie Jeebies"

ooh i like that this thing i like has a name. is there a name for its kind of opposite, e.g. when a bassline changes under a repeating melody (if that makes sense)?

My favorite example of this is Peter Gabriel's "It Is Accomplished" (from Passion). The whole song is one four-note sequence (A-G#-F#-E) while the bass creates new chords each measure (A B F#m C#m A B E). The bridge is the same four-note sequence with the bass adding a new chord and sequence (D E, repeated).

There are so many Genesis and Phil Collins tracks that make use of this.

Holger Czukay to thread.

"If I Needed Someone"

The Human League - "Mirror Man"

"Love American Style" (on the "By the dawn's early light, my love" section).

ooo nice one

"A Groovy Kind of Love"

A pedal on 5 when it goes to the ii chord!