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Post by Kapitan on Dec 15, 2021 13:22:27 GMT
jk's reference to Don Van Vliet (aka Captain Beefheart) as a visual artist in the multidisciplinary thread got me digging around at beefheart.com. I noticed that former Beefheart guitarist and all-around talented guy Gary Lucas recently wrote about his favorite Beefheart albums there.
Here is what he had to say about one of my favorites, Bat Chain Puller. It is interesting not just because this was a great "return-to-form album," but a great "lost album," as it went unreleased from its recording in 1976 until the Zappa trust released it (without involving the Beefheart estate) in 2012.
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Post by Kapitan on Jan 1, 2022 13:27:58 GMT
I know some of you, like me, do some amateur/hobbyist recording (or even some beyond that as working musicians), and so I thought you might be interested in this as a point of discussion or consideration. Robert Harrison, whom I've adored for 25 years now as both the primary singer and songwriter of the defunct Cotton Mather and recently as a solo artist, released to his Patreon his answer to the fan-submitted question "what do you think are the essential components to a great [rock and roll/pop] track?"
Harrison gave five points. The little descriptions for context are my own summaries of his descriptions.
1. A vocal you want to listen to. He clarifies it doesn't have to be a great singer, a great performance, but a compelling one. Hence famously people like Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits.
2. A memorable melody. You have to be able to remember it, or at least want to remember it. You want to hear it again. Maybe you want to sing along.
3. A compelling lyric. It doesn't have to be fine art, it doesn't have to be brilliant, or even insightful. It might be, or it might be dopey. But whether it's phonetically pleasing (just sounds good when sung), or cleverly worded, or wise, or whatever, there has to be something compelling about it.
4. Decisive and competent musicianship. Especially on the drums, he says, and I agree, you need (at least) competence. The track has to hold together, and to be a legendary all-timer, I'd say that the drums are maybe right there with the melody being sung or main riff as key to the whole thing. We've all heard a live performance where the guitarist might be quite good, but it's irrelevant because whoever is behind the kit can't keep time. You don't have to be virtuosic, but it has to hold together.
5. Decisive and competent production. This was interesting, and I liked "decisive" as the key. In our era (as he discusses) you really don't have to be decisive, technically speaking. You can always change the "amp" later, you can make that B3 organ into a choir or the violin into a trombone. He tells the true story of a friend of his who was given as part of a mixing job 64 tracks of drums, with the "benefit" of being able to do whatever he wants with it. I liked the perspective of, the band and engineer/producer really ought to know what they're doing and go for that, rather than just get things down and let the producer/mixer more or less create the record/product later. That's possible, but I don't think it makes for the best rock and roll/pop music.
Any thoughts, arguments, points of agreement, or essential items omitted?
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Post by B.E. on Jan 1, 2022 15:08:10 GMT
"what do you think are the essential components to a great [rock and roll/pop] track?" 4. Decisive and competent musicianship.
Especially on the drums, he says, and I agree, you need (at least) competence. The track has to hold together, and to be a legendary all-timer, I'd say that the drums are maybe right there with the melody being sung or main riff as key to the whole thing. We've all heard a live performance where the guitarist might be quite good, but it's irrelevant because whoever is behind the kit can't keep time. You don't have to be virtuosic, but it has to hold together. Not really disagreeing, just commenting:
Drums are an interesting part of the equation. Yes, they need to be competent, and sometimes incredible drumming can truly put a song over-the-top and make it a legendary all-timer. But, on the other hand, you hardly even need drums. Just a bass on '1' and snare on '3', possibly by use of a drum machine may still render a legendary all-timer. Hand claps or other percussive elements might even be more noticeable in the mix than the drumming! Ringo's a famous example of a great, non-flashy drummer. But, also think of Jeff Lynne's productions with Tom Petty and George Harrison, etc. I believe Beato has done videos on two Full Moon Fever tracks ("I Won't Back Down" and "Free Fallin'"), and I believe we discussed the latter on this board. Anyway, there's not much to those drums. Our very own Beach Boys had a pretty simplistic approach as well, in their own way. Dennis wasn't a great, technical drummer.
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Post by Kapitan on Jan 1, 2022 15:11:57 GMT
I agree with you, and I think Harrison would, too. Because I think the real key to that one was how it is essential to keep time, which isn't the same as being a technically great drummer (or percussionist), but just being competent, which I think he meant more like keeping time (or controlling time). You're totally right, and I guarantee he'd agree, that a strong backbeat can be everything you need to fulfill the requirement.
The issue is more if you have someone in that role who maybe can't keep time, or whose ambition gets ahead of his ability, and so ends up making a mess of it all.
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Post by Kapitan on Jan 19, 2022 20:52:13 GMT
It's an interesting article, anyway. Below I've quoted the lede, and then a couple interesting paragraphs. It also goes on to discuss other possible reasons, or symptoms. Hard to say which. There are even a couple of sentences (not quoted below, but in the article) that I suspect kds might have secretly authored. But maybe the most interesting sentence in the article in my opinion is this: "In fact, nothing is less interesting to music executives than a completely radical new kind of music."
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Post by kds on Jan 19, 2022 20:54:54 GMT
I'd like to think my upgrading to Spotify Premium has something to do with this.
Seems simple to me. You want newer music to have the same impact as older music? Make it better.
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Post by Kapitan on Jan 19, 2022 20:57:46 GMT
I'd like to think my upgrading to Spotify Premium has something to do with this. Seems simple to me. You want newer music to have the same impact as older music? Make it better. And here is the aforementioned paragraph I suspected you ghost-wrote!
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Post by kds on Jan 19, 2022 21:13:19 GMT
Ha,
Nah, if I ghost wrote that, I'd come out and actually say it rather than hide behind the "baby boomers tell me" front.
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Post by Kapitan on Jan 19, 2022 23:04:57 GMT
A new Rick Beato "What Makes This Song Great?" that I thought some might enjoy, here's part of the soundtrack of my youth--and the tune that won me first prize in a lip synching contest (in which I was the guitarist, er, tennis racketist?) in 5th grade!--Bon Jovi's ubiquitous "Livin On a Prayer."
I appreciate that Beato called out one of my favorite parts of this song, the bass line in the chorus. In fact, it has always been one of my favorite bass lines ever, for the very part he calls out: the moving line during the second "whoa-oh," when it walks up from the D to the G major, then arpeggiates that chord downward before going to the C. (So D....E-F#-G-D-B-C) It isn't complex by any means, but it's just so right...
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Post by B.E. on Jan 29, 2022 19:54:19 GMT
Just a fun exercise. Might be enlightening for those (like myself) with limited knowledge of music theory. Or useful for aspiring songwriters/musicians.
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Post by Kapitan on Jan 29, 2022 20:29:51 GMT
Absolutely true. My college jazz guitar teacher used to say that often, that a note is never necessarily wrong. That said, you do need to play them intentionally and ideally understanding (not necessarily technically, but at least instinctively) how it's working, what its effect will be. Because otherwise, it can be "wrong." You're soloing over some chord changes and you are approaching a final cadence where there's a big V7-I, and as it lands on that I chord, you play a b2. Unless you were going for NONresolution, for dissonance, it's a wrong note. But you sure can play a b9 in some situations, whether as a passing tone or within the chord proper.
I've heard it said (also in the jazz context) that if you play a wrong note, just play it again. (Then again, Miles Davis said not only did he not want his band members repeating themselves, he didn't even want them to play the same note once... )
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Post by Kapitan on Jan 31, 2022 20:21:59 GMT
Just a headline, and really just a comment on a headline. I saw a story in Rolling Stone titled "The 20 Best Billie Eilish Songs."
Unless I'm crazy, she only just released her second album last year. So even accounting for non-album singles, etc., how many songs has she released? Maybe 30, 35? Pretty funny at this point in her career to do a Top 20 list! (And no, I'm not even commenting on whether I think there are any good Billie Eilish songs. I'm irrelevant to her career--and she doesn't need me buying her music, obviously! She's doing just fine.)
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Post by kds on Jan 31, 2022 21:04:33 GMT
Just a headline, and really just a comment on a headline. I saw a story in Rolling Stone titled "The 20 Best Billie Eilish Songs."
Unless I'm crazy, she only just released her second album last year. So even accounting for non-album singles, etc., how many songs has she released? Maybe 30, 35? Pretty funny at this point in her career to do a Top 20 list! (And no, I'm not even commenting on whether I think there are any good Billie Eilish songs. I'm irrelevant to her career--and she doesn't need me buying her music, obviously! She's doing just fine.)
Maybe it's my imagination, but I get the impression that the music media are doing everything they can to put out press on Eilish, even if they're ranking the top 80% of her output to date.
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Post by Kapitan on Feb 2, 2022 15:53:08 GMT
Rick Beato on what he considers the best 2-chord songs in rock/pop history.
He gives three, and notes that they use these progressions:
IV-V i-bVI i-bVII
However, he then asks whether there could really be a song with two chords that don't use one of those progressions. Specifically, he says, "maybe you could do I-IV, but I couldn't think of a good I-IV song."
Funny, because that's the first example I thought of when I saw the title of the video, and I assumed it would be what he discussed!
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Post by Kapitan on Feb 4, 2022 12:18:57 GMT
Are CDs really coming back? Maybe, maybe not. Here is a 21-year-old quoted in this Pitchfork story looking into the format's rise in sales.
It seems that perhaps, between a few artists apparently pushing out CDs in advance of vinyl (of which there is a backlog in production), the Adele effect, and nostalgia for Y2K (I am so old...), it might not be an actual, sustained revival.
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