For this prompt, I decided to go with the song Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Tears for Fears. Tears for Fears is a British pop rock band that started in the 1980s. Their first album had hit number one in the UK but, they didn’t hit the US until their second album released. Which had two singles, Shout as well as Everybody Wants to rule the world, hitting #1 on the US Billboard Hot 100. However after their world tour, the band had split but reconciled a decade later in 2000. Recently, they had gone on tour this past spring and are performing in the UK the day this assignment is due. I had listened to this song when I was younger but it was only until a few years ago, when I rediscovered the song, when I started actively listening. Listening to the song, I think the rhythm of it follows a ¾ signature due to the drum accenting every meter. And from my research, the song has a tempo of 112 BPM which is just slightly under allegro. The piece follows a alternate verse-chorus form where it goes from verse one, chorus one, verse two, chorus two. But after that, following the bridge and the third chorus, there is a solo from the synth at first and a guitar improvisation afterwards (right around the 2 minute mark). This was most likely a song Tears for Fears made to appeal to a general audience and assumed that it would be slowly forgotten after a while. However, thanks to the use of the song in media like TikTok, Tears for fears still gets 14 million monthly listeners and has over 800 million streams for Everybody Wants to Rule the World on Spotify. I think the most musically interesting part of the song is the guitar solo. There is a part where the guitar plays an intro riff right before the solos start but after it ends it uses the same pattern but in a higher key. It’s a little hard to listen for but if you focus just on the guitar you can hear it happening.
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