“I could do that”(No actually you couldn’t): Beginnings of the Electronic Music rant, pt. 1

My electronic music rant is forthcoming; I wanted to do a little research first. In the meantime, here’s a related rant.


I believe that every critic should try to compose music once or try his/her hand at learning an instrument. I’m not talking a casual effort. Actually try.

For my part, I sang for most of high school and I made an attempt to learn the flute (Don’t ask me why) as well as the guitar. I’ve also tried my hand at lyrics and very briefly at composing. I have also made a hobby of covering songs and hiding them on my computer where they will never, ever see the light of day.

Because of this, you will never hear me say, “I could write a better song than that/ play better than that.” Whenever I hear someone say that I have the exact same response.
“Bring it.”
And if you do, I’ll shut my mouth and buy you a drink.

I’d like you all to take a moment and get some good headphones or a good speaker, or at least the best you have. Sit down and listen to a song you think is really fantastic. Not just the lyrics, but the sounds that make up that song, weather it's a minimal acoustic number or an ornate piece of electronic music or anything else. I guarantee you’ll hear the song completely differently. Even with a simple pop song.

To prove my point, lets examine a random song from the top 100
Radioactive by Imagine Dragons

Fairly simple song from the sound of it––it has a solid beat and catchy chorus.

Lets break it down:

The first thing we hear is the the drum work
Starts off simple enough, a strong, slightly distorted bass drum line, grows from there incorporating what sounds like an electric drum as well as a traditional drum kit.

While that’s happening we get a short guitar (two guitars, technically) intro, simple, not recurrent, but it launches the vocals

 Next we hear some subtle vocals, no lyrics yet, but the vocals and the electronic components start up right next to each other (for the record we are looking at four layers before the proper lyrics start

Now we actually get the vocals properly (layer 5) witch are meticulously tied back to the drum work and some keyboard work (6) that pins down the melody.
Finally,the harmonies round out the vocals (7)

And I’m not even diving into the subtelties of the song or the balancing of aformeitoned components.

For the record,  this is the first 58 seconds of the song. Less than a minute and there’s that much to a simple radio song. Radio songs have simple formulas and tend to follow age-old patterns. That is not to say they are bad, but they have a familiarity to them. Even with that formula there is complexity.

Arin, you say, I’m not saying I can write a rock song, that takes actual talent.. I’m saying I can do that “wub wub, beep, scree” stuff.
Looping back to last week’s entry, I should add a note. People riff on the ‘lyrics’ to dubstep and other electronic music because there aren’t traditional lyrics and what is there doesn't function the way we think it should.

It is very hard to put the components of electronic music into words because strictly speaking they tend to be the same instruments, but I encourage you to do a little exercise—consider this your homework. (I’ll go easy on you. Listen to, lets use an electronic music classic, Daft Punk’s “Harder, Better, Faster,” and just count the number of sounds, loops and so on that are present in that song and the variations thereon.
Take Notes, I’ll wait.
It will sound silly—you’re dealing with components that are alien to someone who listens to traditional instrumentation.

Even as a critic, here’s what my notes looked like:
First you get something that sounds like a car starting. Then two dueling sounds come in–– a lower, slightly more warped that because the backbone for the drum work, and a higher twangier one that becomes the backbone to the lyrics and the melody.
The lyrics are VERY simple. They are the same words over and over, but they become wholly different elements with wholly different feelings over the course of the song because of how they are tuned or warped.

Now pull out your computer and download or open a music composing program (ther are ones online that are free) Just try to duplicate that sound, let alone make your own.

Now go back and listen again. Not so simple is it?

What We Talk About When We Talk About Genre.

When I was growing up, alternative rock and grunge were really hitting their strides. Gravely voices and down-tuned guitars were familiar radio fixtures. From that, music lovers of my generation gained a strong aversion to pop music, but I am hard-pressed to get a really solid reason out of people beyond “it’s dumb.”
I admit I had this same aversion growing up until a few pop songs leaked in to my repertoire during high school.

Let’s look at a few the criteria for the alternative rock in the mid 90s through today:

1. Heavy use of guitars, and bass.
2. Minimal, if any, use of synthesizers and electronic elements. *
3. Often motivational, strong lyrics designed to be provocative
4. More focused vocals—usually only one lead vocalist.

Conversely, let's look at pop in the 90s and forward.

1. Light, if any guitar work, almost no bass work.
2. Heavy use of synthesized sound.
3. Simplistic, accessible lyrics designed to make the listener feel good and/or dance.
4. Use of simple harmonies.

If the the criteria of alternative rock songs are applied to a pop song, then of course the listener is going miss the powerful lyrics, or the deep bass. The manufactured feel will come across trite and shallow.  Conversely, if the listener was raised on pop music, the gravelly voices might great on their ears, or the bass might feel physically uncomfortable.
However, if one takes a moment to hold these genres to their own standards, a lot more music suddenly sounds good. Example, Backstreet Boys don't make good rock songs. The music is too simplistic and the lyrics are two-dimensional. However, they make fantastic pop music, their harmonies, while simple, are very strong and and their beats are incredibly easy to dance to.

Conversely, 90s Alt rock classic The Goo Goo Dolls, would make a terrible pop band. No harmonies to speak of, one of the vocalists sounds a bit like a gremlin (which is part of h is charm from my end) and the heavy guitar work almost drowns out the vocals on some songs. However, they are an amazing alternative rock band. Innovative guitar tunings are combined with killer vocals and passionate, evocative lyrics to make a perfect storm. The lead vocalist also stands out brilliantly.

This is why I take issue with genre biases. I would have missed out on a fabulous show if I’d turned my nose up at pop music this past summer. I don’t even know how many rock shows I went to, that I would have missed if I’d turned my nose up at them.

Pop and alternative rock aren’t the only genres that face this problem. Time and again, I have to rationalize my love of certain less popular genres and explain what makes them innovative and powerful to me. This dialogue is part of what makes music so wonderful; everyone has an opinion, a pet song, or genre, and often takes if very personally if their music is insulted.

However, you can’t listen to the same thing every day and expect to have new music fall in your lap. It is imperative to sniff out the things that make you itchy and maybe listen to some songs that are just plain bad in order to find things that really speak to you as a listener. The more you grow as a fan, the more you sniff, the more unexpectedly wonderful things you'll find. In the era of YouTube and Spotify, there is literally nothing to lose other than time and the odd brain cell and there are literally thousands of songs to gain.

In short, keep your favorites close, but keep your ears sharp, you never know what you’ll run into.

Next topic: Dubstep and Innovation.

*for the purposes of this piece I don’t mean things like electric guitars and basses,  that's a given in non-acoustic music,  here I am referring to  things that are computerized and/or completely digital.

Music Wednesday/Announcement

In the sprit of updating this bad boy more regularly, I've decided to start updating every Wednesday in addition to my usual updates when there are concerts or albums these will include, but are not limited to the following areas

• Musings, rants and other thoughts on Music and related topics
• News and news related commentary
• Top5 or ten type lists
• Catch up––things that I’ve missed reviewing for whatever reason
• Youtube gems––both in the good and the really bad.
• Single/ song of the week reviews
• Blog updates/news/notes

In the sprit of this, here’s an explanation of my ranking system

First the basic numbers, I use a one through six system

1. You have to work to earn a one. I would hesitate to call bands/albums that earn this rank music.
2. Bad, but tolerable.
3. Fair, not bad, or good, just right in the middle.
4. Good, it’s the bottom end of the good ranking
5. Great. You have to work for a five. Five used to be my top ranking before a band blew the roof off of my system.
6. Phenomenal, beyond anything else I've heard. I've given fours or fives to most of my top ten bands. You have to be spectacular for this.I rate bands on different criteria depending on genre (see upcoming rant on genre), the band’s progression and, in the case of a live show, the quality of the sound system in the venue. I’m not going to fault a band for the venue having a bad sound system, but I will call them out on poorly tuned instruments. There are a few basics, however, that most of what I review is judged by.

• Instrumentation—how well tuned are the instruments?, how precise are they  and how complex/innovative they are while respecting the genre?
• Vocal quality (If there are vocals)–– Is the singer enunciating, do his vocals fit the song? Do the vocals keep in time with the song?
• Balance: Do the instruments and vocals mesh well  (Or are they pleasantly dissonant)? Is one instrument out preforming the others?
• Recording quality(on albums): While this isn’t entirely the band’s fault I still hold them accountable for what they put their name on.
• Have they improved since their last album/show?(if there was one) Are they innovating or stagnating as a band? While this is a hard one, I don’t feel it's fair to put, for example, a really young band’s first album up against a seasoned band’s fourth album.
• Not a criterion per se, but I should throw in that I review bands based on the sound, performance and/or album, not the band itself. It’s not personal.

There are tons more criteria, but these are some basic components of what I look at.