Songs and Production

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

What draws you more into a track you enjoy? The song - the melody, words - or what's done to it - hooky noises, production tricks, disruptions? And where does the performance fit in?

This may seem like a really unsupportable binary but it's one which has a certain amount of traction in the word outside Poptimists and maybe even some within it.

For instance many reviews of the Britney album seem generally to be treating it as - for better or worse - a record which stands and falls on its production rather than the songs or performance (and are explicitly making that distinction). And the reason *I* like the Britney album I think is the way the production seems to be making war on the songs, never totally winning but never letting them get out unscathed either.

For another example of what I'm fumbling towards, look at the two latest Girls Aloud singles. "Call The Shots" and "Sexy! No No No..." seem to work in quite different ways - the former resting on its melody and 'songcraft', the latter on the impact of its production. (You may of course completely disagree).

I feel this entry is very clumsy - sorry - but I think there's a conversation worth having here!

Comments

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

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.