Kylie Minogue’s Padam Padam (2023) from her album Tension has an unusual tonality that deserves to be described as a key factor in its hypnotic, seductive, dangerous and exotic aura.
The special spice used is not particularly common in pop music - the Phrygian Dominant scale, in this case in C - which could also be described as the fifth mode of F harmonic minor.
The notes are C, D flat, E, F, G, A flat and B flat, giving the the scale intervals of semitone, augmented second, semitone, tone, semitone, tone, tone.
The flat second and major third combine to give the tonality a tense, exotic character, often associated with Spanish flamenco, gypsy/Klezmer or Middle Eastern traditions.
This creates a sexy, mysterious, almost Middle Eastern flavor, while still keeping the track grounded in pop accessibility.
It’s a fitting strategy for a song on an album called Tension.
The Phrygian Dominant scale’s characteristic dissonances help build that slightly unsettling, hypnotic tension — perfect for the track’s sensual, pulsating feel.
The underlying synth motif features a hint of modal vamping, temporarily introducing the tension created by dischordant semitones to create colour from the use of the mode without changing chords during part of the progression. One way it does this is by staying on a C major chord for the first four bars of the verse, but throwing in an Ab in the harmony fleetingly on the offbeat of 4 at the end of bar two, and then, in a repeat of the same harmony in the second two bars, using the Ab on “4 &” as a transition into an F minor chord for two bars.
The next two bars create tension in a new way - perhaps unexpectedly not changing chords, but changing the bass to a first inversion instead - F minor on Ab for one bar. This is followed by the more serious tension in the final bar of the progression involving an arpeggiated Bb, D, E - which can be described as a flat 7 flat 5 chord, or Bb major flat five, or Bb diminished major - cultivating the tension of the Bb and E natural in the same chord (not to mention that the D natural is outside of the scale). An F is thrown in on 4 &, which could be described as both resolving the tension of the final two-beat chord and introducing a tension to be resolved down a semitone to the major-third E in the C major chord on beat 1 of the repeated progression.
The chorus chord progression is essentially the same with small variations: the more prominent driving new baseline uses the other most exotic semitone tension of the scale - the Db - in place of the Ab featured in the chorus, again both for modal vamping and then to transition between chords. And using that same idea, the Bb diminished major chord is replaced with a strident use of chord II of the scale - Db major. It’s fitting that the most powerful use of the Middle Eastern feel is reserved for the climax on the final beat of the chorus chord progression right on the “Pa” in the final “Padam”, resolving to the major I on “dam”.
Phrygian Dominant is said to be more common in rock, metal, and fusion genres than in pure pop, though I haven't studied any genuine examples of these. Here's a quick discussion of instances that do and don't provide a hint of it:
The Offspring’s “Come Out and Play”. This song is mostly in B natural minor, but the solo guitar riff that first appears at 0:25 turns Phrygian Dominant in nature because it both flattens the second and raises the third.
It has been suggested that Metallica’s “Wherever I May Roam” (1991), which has an E tonic, might be in Phrygian Dominant because of the flattened second. And the Phrygian dominant scale could comfortably be played along with it in many places, because it often uses open-fifth power chords. But when the third of the scale does appear - usually in the lead guitar or vocals, it is a G natural, showing that that the scale is really just Phrygian Mode, while Phrygian Dominant would require the G sharp.