A kung fu fighter in a disco

Good production doesn't necessarily mean weird production - I think during the Golden Age of R&B a lot of critics, especially, got this wrong. I'm not sure I really listen to songs by this particular binary: "good/weird production" and "catchy melody" are both part of the same "initial impact", while things like lyrics and the more subtle production tricks are part of the "later impact" which keeps me hooked into a song.

I'd probably go for production though - if the production is beneath a certain standard I find songs unlistenable, while great production can definitely support a non-song.

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Yes, agreed on all points - I think it's worth asking why the binary has a life if it's insupportable though. Clearly the production on "Call The Shots" isn't bad - it does what it needs to do to support the song. And definitely the "wow weird production" thing has become a millstone for R&B which DOESN'T do that - tho part of what prompted this post was listening to that new Usher record and remembering the sheer joy of hearing an R'n'B track where you do think "WTF??".

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Lots of insupportable viewpoints have lives, inexplicably :(

Was thinking about my last sentence and wondering how to even separate 'production' and 'song' in some cases - eg what sprung to mind as a non-song made amazing by the production was Lumidee's 'Never Leave You', which has no tune and not many notes and is sung off-pitch. But the production itself isn't even weird - what's weird is the decision to make the backing JUST the diwali riddim and virtually nothing else. And what sticks with me are 'song' elements - vocal performance and lyrics.

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Maybe "MOOD" or "ATMOSPHERE" is to 'production' what "PERFORMANCE" is to 'song'. And they all bleed into one another of course.

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catsgomiaow.livejournal.com

The song/melody every time - although good production certainly doesn't hurt and can often add an extra depth or fascination to an already-good song. Production would never, EVER come first with me and it completely baffles me as to why everyone's banging on and on and ON about the *production* on the new Britney album (not that I've listened to it yet er sorry Kat). Hello people, are there any good TUNES on it? Or is she just reading from the phonebook in a monotone with some weird vocoder-thing going on?

This may be why I hate a lot of pop music - it's all about the production but it has no TUNE. Or it has ONE GREAT BIG SHINY SAMPLE and absolutely bog all else of note about it.

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With Britney one reason I think the record has legs is that the balance is pretty much exactly right (for my tastes): on something like "Piece Of Me" you notice the vocoders and the pterodactyl screeches and the weird chainmail rhythm track first, then the fuck-you lyrics and then you suddenly realise you can't actually get the song out of your head at all.

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blue-russian.livejournal.com

I think there are tunes, definitely, but I still don't have a great sense of them yet. That said, I enjoyed "Get Naked" about 100X more this morning after listening to Mark's lead in to it on Lollards, than I did when just listening to the album.

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--:D

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dubdobdee the Jay-Z to GN(IHAP)'s 'Umbrella'

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No tune + great production = focus grouped especially for me!

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piratemoggy.livejournal.com

There're a lot of truly ace songs that are done in AWFUL fashions by bad artists and so never make it for me. On the other hand, production cannot save a non-song (cf. most work by the Neptunes post-first NERD album) and there definitely needs to be some kind of artist factor to most things.

I think the Britney album has a very significant artist/performance appeal to it- it'd only be "alright" if it wasn't Britney and contextualised, I suspect. I also think the songs stand well as songs, with production being something that could've gone any direction and happened to pick a very good one, although not necessarily the only possible good one.

Has there been a thread about the Kylie album incidentally? I think it's brilliant. There's something that sounds a bit like 'Oh What A Night' at the end.

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I've not heard all the Kylie album yet. From what I have heard, I think it's a mixed bag, and actually a slightly uncertain approach to production might be one of the problems. (Like, I can hear what they're TRYING to do on "Nu-Di-Ty" but I think it's a total mess - maybe it'll resolve itself for me).

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piratemoggy.livejournal.com

Mmm, yeah, Nu-Di-Ty and all thereafter is actually crap but that's only the last three tracks, most of the rest of it works, although it is all a bit 90s indie on a few levels. [nb: I wouldn't have actually thought that myself except people keep whinging about indieness]

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Ah, well I don't know where on the album any of the tracks I have come - having completely failed (so far) to get a promo off EMI I resorted to downloading tracks off a gay disco DJ on slsk who had the record but in alphabetical order. Some of the tracks are definitely good, I like the one with the Gainsbourg sample.

I have had an issue with Kylie's voice since 1988 though, and it's not really abating.

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Sorry didn't see this post before my SnP one above!

As usual for me with Britney I'm only really interested in the presentation of the message rather than the message itself - tho you might argue the messages on Blackout are her most interesting or sophisticated yet. There's a prospect that after the initial thrill of the album's sound /prod values wears off I might pay more attention to what's beyond that but I don't know if there is really anything of much value there for me.

The actual songs being quite good in and of themselves is just a nice bonus!

In 'Call The Shots' there is one big thing that draws me in and that's the little split and repetition of the last word of the line in the chorus. It's a nice, simple but clever effect. That and the chorus reminding me a bit of Annie's 'Heartbeat'.

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I should unpack that a bit more really because it's not like I don't appreciate good songs. I think most of the songs on the Feist album are excellent and exciting production isn't such an issue on 'The Reminder', it being quite a different thing. Horses for courses. I'm not looking to Britney for 'good song'. Nor Girls Aloud.

I basically think 'The Reminder' has better songs than 'Blackout' but the latter may be a more exciting and interesting artefact because of the context and the approach behind it.

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blue-russian.livejournal.com

I guess I'm the opposite of Lex - offhand I can't think of a production so bad that it would totally ruin a really good song for me, whereas no matter how much you polish up Mariah or Celine (or Van Halen, for that matter), if the underlying song bores me, it bores me.

(Caveat: I guess I should note I'm mixing my terms a little bit - "production" in the first instance (e.g. Pavement) is very different from production in the second (which is more like "arrangement" in my mind).

I am definitely one of those people who thinks the ability of indie bands (or acoustic folky types or whoever) to "succesfully" recreate pop hits in their own style is kind of proof that the underlying song is absolutely fantastic.

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A better binary might be "performance" and "song (inc production)". Great production and great melodies are often dragged down by tired performances, while great performances are often unstoppable despite the song.

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I think the 'song' people so far tend to listen to different genres beyond pop than the 'production' people.

So maybe pop is a particularly bad or good kind of music to ask this about - my hunch is that this kind of continuum is one way a lot of people on Poptimists vary. (I'm really not expressing myself well today).

Dismissive reviews often accuse records of undercooking the songs or overcooking the production - rarely the other way round (though overcooked, bitty songs and thin or generic production really turn me off records).

Bad production/songs balance - songs which sound straitjacketed by their own production, either scared to do anything elaborate, or scared to leave particular things out ("here's where the orchestral bit happens").

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jeff-worrell.livejournal.com

Ha! I didn't see this before I started on my Bertrand Burgalat post. But I guess I've partly answered the questions in that post!

More thoughts (or more examples) later, when I've had a think.

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Also I shd make clear that on the "production" side of the ledger I'm putting all kinds of individual hooks (Lumidee going "uh-ooh, uh-ooh"), riffs - anything where the appeal is repetition, and also performative techniques (like melisma, or someone's guitar tone).

So on "Sexy! No No No..." what makes me like it isn't the production per se, it's the hugely propulsive riff underpinning it. That riff is pretty much invariant, it doesn't develop into anything that might count as a song, so I'd count it on the non-song tally.

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awesomewells.livejournal.com

Is there a difference between 'production' and 'arrangement' here?

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jeff-worrell.livejournal.com

It looks like it! Tom's idea of "production tricks" seems to include musical ideas added by producers (and/or the producer as auteur) as opposed to just the producer showing the artist's ideas in the best light.

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i think my long-ago (and never properly followed thru) proposal that the SHINY NU-POP of c.2001-02 was a kind of chartprog related to this idea, that different creative levels of the "object" were operating in different cultural clusters, and that these clusters were creatively (and fruitfully) at odds with one another

i also felt -- and again this hasn't been followed thru (dalek chap 234589094 ahoy) -- that the opening up to public gaze of the process of gatekeeping-as-"creative"-input (and war for control) was a STAGE or ARENA or FORUM in which the two struggles could be energised or amplified or dramatised

which demanded a species of concept alb -- pop as an opera abt the drama of "making pop"* -- and that lovely doomed britney is the first to have moved anywhere CLOSE to the concept i had in my head

*(aka "let's put the struggle on here!" as the hi-concept of a musical!)

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As phrased tho, that concept album sounds kinda sterile and inward-looking - which I know it isn't or needn't be, but how to find/express the links between that and the listener's life rather than the pop-maker's one?

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the listener is also a pop-maker! an (old-skool) opera is not well able to explore the stage-rushing audience as they "become" the auteurs (not those auteurs)*; but the current shape of the relationship between star and audience, and between (cowelloid) svengali-producer and malleable but utterly hungry wannabe, is i think WAY more contested and contestable

*(in fact the problem with quadrophenia AS an opera abt this is that it has to confuse the MODFAN'S rejection of his idols with his ARRIVAL at ARTISTIC CONTROL AND MATURITY: ie by hatin on sting phil daniels BECOMES pete townshend) (which doesn't fly -- it's another version of the punk-rock contradiction i think)

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have you heard 'Make Me A Song' by Kiley Dean? it sounds like EXACTLY what you describe:

[Timbaland]
What you hear is not a test
Wha wha wha wha wha

[Kiley Dean]
I'm on a mission
Sun is out
My skin is glistenin'
Got my jeans on
Tank top, chillin'
With my girlfriends
Looking fabulous
My tan is just amazin'
Turn it up
That song is blazin'
(Call Me) [this is an interpolation of 'Call Me' by Tweet!]
I'm headed to LA and
Gotta make sure I ask Timbaland

Can you give me a song like Rock The Boat, Rock The Boat, Rock The Boat
Can you give me a song that you and Missy wrote, Missy wrote, Missy wrote
Somethin' like Get Ur Freak On
Cause Kiley needs something to sing on
Make me something I can get my groove on
Somethin' I can get my groove on

3 o'clock at the studio
Timbaland is playin' Hootnanny kinda low [interpolation of Bubba Sparxxx!]
Felt the love in the room
Soon as I hit the door
Bubba's pacin' around gettin' ready to flow
Tim is in the corner doin' a track
Bobbin' his head
I know he's feelin' that
Take his headphones off
And he looks my way
And he asks me what I wanna do
And I say

Can you give me a song like Rock The Boat, Rock The Boat, Rock The Boat
Can you give me a song that you and Missy wrote, Missy wrote, Missy wrote
Somethin' like Get Ur Freak On
Cause Kiley needs something to sing on
Make me something I can get my groove on
Somethin' I can get my groove on

And then he asked if I liked this [Timbaland beat]
Oh do you like this [Timbaland beat]
But do you like this [Timabland beat]
And then he flipped it
And then we start to move
We're gettin' in the groove
He says it's just for you
And I'm glad I asked

Can you give me a song like Rock The Boat, Rock The Boat, Rock The Boat
Can you give me a song that you and Missy wrote, Missy wrote, Missy wrote
Somethin' like Get Ur Freak On
Cause Kiley needs something to sing on
Make me something I can get my groove on
Somethin' I can get my groove on

[Timbaland]
I think I got somethin' for you
I think I got somethin' for you
I think I got somethin' for you

twist in the tale = Timbaland did not write 'Rock The Boat'!

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'Timbaland did not write 'Rock The Boat''

An excellent comment by Kiley on the misleading ubiquity of RnB producers tho. See also loads of people thinking that Dr Dre produced 'Addictive' and The Neptunes getting credited to stuff that wasn't them but was clearly inspired by them. Perhaps.

Edited Date: 2007-11-19 05:44 pm (UTC)

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"tunes" = the mere conventional blah blah of the blah blah

yes yes "what ELSE can be a hook?" is one of the things sukrat's minions can school poptimists in; but sukrat's minions are often absurdly allergic to the admission that they are merely after other types of hook

a different type of hook = a different world-view (possibly intuitive and unexamined) = battles of types of hook = the cruise-clash of communities, to the benefit (or ruin) of both/all

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whalefish.livejournal.com

I tend to be grabbed by the song first, particularly with Britney/Girls Aloud-esque pop music. If the song doesn't hook me and pull me in I often never give it enough of a listen to notice the production.

Like with the two Girls Aloud singles mentioned really - as big and clever as the sound on Sexy! No No No... (I blush just typing that title) is, the song as a whole's never appealed much to me.

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katstevens.livejournal.com

I tend to hear the production first, tune second, words last. It's no surprise that I like minimal techno really! 'Call The Shots' is an exception - great production (I still love that 'Place In The Sun' theme tune noise that's a bit like a bird call or something) but it draws my attention to the melody and lyrics rather than obstructing it. Sonic & structural variety is very important to my enjoyment of a song, and the main reason I dislike acoustic cover versions.

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