Hotel is the slow one, 68 BPM. The singer parks on D, the fifth of the key, for 53% of the whole vocal track. The band rotates chords underneath so that one held note serves as a different color on almost every chord change. The harmony borrows F (bVII) from Mixolydian and lingers on E, so the ground shifts around while the voice does not.
Hotel · Hooray For Earth
G major · 68 BPM · slowest track on the record
At 68 BPM Hotel is the ballad on True Loves, slower than every other song on the album (Sails 112, Same 112, True Loves 143). The whole-song 2-second chord-root count is B 31, E 25, F 24, A 21, D 17, G 17. In G major that reads as iii, vi/VI, bVII, ii, V, I. The F at 24 windows is not in G major scale as a diatonic chord; F is bVII of G, borrowed from G Mixolydian or straight-up modal-rock cliche. Chord duration is stretched enough at 68 BPM that each of these bar-length windows lands on a full chord change.
favorite momentF chord (bVII) in a G-major song. The modal borrow that gives Hotel its floaty ceiling.
Vocal parks on D · 53.2% of the whole vocal track on one pitch class
Vocal histogram: D 53.2%, G 15.8%, C 7.8%, F 5.7%, A 4.7%. Over half of every voiced vocal frame is D. This is the parked-vocal hook, the extreme case where the singer refuses to move. The chord-root histogram shows six different chord roots taking substantial time, so D-the-note is landing on a different chord function almost every bar. That single held D is the 3rd of Bm (iii), the root of D (V), the 5th of G (I), the 6th (or 13th) of F (bVII), and the 7th of E (either Em or E). One note, five different chord duties.
favorite momentThe math itself. 53.2% of the vocal is one pitch class, and each chord underneath reframes that D as something new.
Bass leans on F (31.7%) and E (22.2%), tonic G at 20.9%
Bass histogram: F 31.7%, E 22.2%, G 20.9%, C 8.8%, B 6.1%. The tonic G sits third at 20.9%. The most-used bass note is F, the flat-seventh, which anchors the F chord (bVII) that Mixolydian borrow. Bass E is 22.2%, so the E chord family (Em vi, or dominant of vi) is also anchored more than the tonic. The ii (A) shows up at just 1.7% in bass, so the ii-V-I cadence has no bass-side push at all. The song does not resolve in the traditional sense; it just keeps rotating F, E, G under the parked D vocal.
favorite momentBass F above the tonic G in count. The ground note is the bVII, not the I.