Will Future generations will laud the wildly theatrical Trapped in the Closet as the work of a lunatic?
“Trapped in the Closet” is an urban opera, R&B opera, or hip-hopera released by contemporary R&B singer R. Kelly in 2005. The songs relate an ongoing narrative, which Kelly and Jive Records promoted by releasing each chapter to radio stations one at a time. This also serves as the first official single off R. Kelly’s album TP.3 Reloaded. The only chord progression used is an Am chord (with a C in bass which then slides down to an A) to an E-Major chord (with a G# in the bass, which then slides down to an E) with crescendos and more instruments added at some points, thus adding suspense. The song then returns to its tonic E-Major chord. The songs tell the story of a one-night stand that sets off a chain of events, which gradually reveals a greater web of lies, sex, and deceit. In November 2005, six more chapters were released, for a total of twelve, on DVD. Nearly two years later, in August 2007, ten more chapters were released on DVD and shown on the Independent Film Channel (IFC), and
Trapped In The Closet Every song ever written has at least a subtext of dialogue. The act of writing down words, setting them to a musical arrangement and then performing them is to editorialise your emotions, and to construct dialogue and narrative where previously there were none. It’s a neat trick, and one we have all fallen for a million or more times. The songs for this week’s list needed more, though; they needed the ability to step outside of their own world and report back, or comment upon it. Let’s think of it as three-dimensional writing – the writer of the pop song both within it, and detachedly gazing upon it and themselves. It’s quite a brain-freeze.So all this week’s songs contain dialogue, but only one is built entirely from dialogue and that’s Tom Waits’ I Never Talk to Strangers which, via the smart contrivance of an at-the-bar conversation with Bette Midler, finds Waits’ washed up drunk persona – whose “life’s a dime store novel” – finally finding love. Don’t You Want
