Tim Byron writes stuff
(or links to stuff).
(my other tumblr)
How do intermittent fasting diets like the ‘5:2 diet’ stack up? Are they just another fad diet that won’t work?
I was blithely unaware that this diet even existed until Alyx asked me to write about it, and have been amazed how many friends said they were on the diet afterwards. TLDR: The evidence for intermittent fasting having any beneficial effect on humans other than effects associated with weight loss is fairly thin, but like most diets, you’ll lose weight if you stick to it.
More articles about Daft Punk than you can shake a robot at; when The Breeders cannonballed into the charts; Big Star, and taking care to not take care when singing Take Care; what happened when Diana Ross collaborated with Nile Rodgers; what’s with all that bloody pretentious music; Justin Bieber’s uncomfortable transition into adulthood; house music in New York City; and Willie Nelson’s favourite thing goes mainstream in country music.
Me at the Vine linking to good music writing.
Roxette - Joyride
Fly, you fools! Or, alternatively, c’mon join the joyride. And what a joy ride it is.
I’ve (Tim B) spent a fair proportion of the last 48 hours talking about earworms on the radio stations 4BC Brisbane, ABC Gold Coast, ABC ABC Melbourne, and ABC North Queensland, because someone clearly liked my article in the Vine about why Daft Punk’s ‘Get Lucky’ is catchy from a music psychology POV.
I made a fuss in that article about the sheer amount of repeats in ‘Get Lucky’. But repeats aren’t everything. And Joyride is the perfect song to prove this. What makes this song catchy is not just the repeats but the sheer number of new things that Roxette introduce to the song in order to keep it interesting, most of which are hooks, most of which are things in the song you look forward to hearing.
I mean, ‘Joyride’ has an exceptionally catchy chorus, and Roxette would have had a hit even if the rest of the song was a little boring. But this song is studio-crafted to within an inch of its life to avoid boringness (seriously - the spine of the Joyride album on CD has ‘don’t bore us, get to the chorus’ written on it). This is Swedish engineering perfection in pop circa 1991.
—
So here’s a list of when Roxette introduces new things in the song (alongside repeating an infernally catchy chorus seven times):
0:17: a nice imitation of Paul McCartney’s carnival barker at the start of ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ - ‘step right this way!’
0:21: They make good on their promise to not bore us before getting to the chorus. (I’m sure starting with the chorus after imitating ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ is Per Gessel’s nod to how the Beatles started most of their big Beatlemania-era hits with a chorus)
0:25: What must have sounded like a state of the art massive-sounding drum beat in 1991.
0:30: Yay, awesome Rickenbacker guitar(mony) sound!
0:35: Catchy verse melody - ‘I hit the road out of nowhere…’
0:36: Catchy Stonesy ‘resolving-a-4th’ guitar lick
0:38: Catchy countrified guitar lick (and repeat)
0:49: Counterpoint section to the first two lines in the verse that ends in the very catchily sung ‘at all’
0:57: Catchy descending keyboard line not otherwise used in the song that nonetheless echoes the chords in this section
1:00: IN A WONDERFUL BALLOON
1:02: Quickfire catchy keyboard melody
1:09: That infernally catchy whistling
1:13: ‘And it all begins where it ends’
1:17: New catchy guitar riff
1:24: Build up of tension via extended drum fill, leaving the line ‘magic friend’ hanging
1:29: Release of tension in chorus (now with extra added rhythm section)
1:35: New end of chorus - ‘join the joyride, join the joyride’, linked in with the awesome Rickenbacker guitar sound riff that originally came after the original chorus
1:38: Keyboard arpeggios to keep the song moving
1:41: Repeats quickfire keyboard melody in new context (to denote new section)
1:43: New hip-hop-esque (for Sweden) syncopated drum beat
1:44: Keyboard sound vaguely similar to a wah-wah guitar does the Stones-y guitar riff instead
1:46: Acoustic guitar does the countrified guitar riff instead
1:47: Extra added vocal harmonies here compared to first verse
1:51: New loud drum fill to introduce the rhythm section and then the guitars are back in the mix!
1:58: “Whoa no!”
2:13: Big staggered harmonies on ‘magic friend’ with psychedelic vocal effects
2:30: Chorus repeated twice for the first time (you were expecting the middle 8? No, here’s another chorus!)
2:35: The melisma in Per’s voice when he sings ‘join the joyride’
2:39: New lyrics - ‘Be a joyrider’ instead of ‘join the joyride’
2:43: Marie going “ow!”
2:44: Another new catchy guitar riff
2:49: Infernally catchy whistling used as a part of the middle 8
2:59: What’s that Per? You thought of yet another catchy Bon Jovi-esque guitar riff? OK, well, I guess you can repeat it a couple of times in the middle of the song. You should save some riffs for the rest of the album though.
3:07: New catchy piano riff
3:09: Synth horn, as counterpoint to catchy piano riff
3:16: New ‘I’ll take you on a skyride’ section
3:23: ‘ROCKS YOU LIKE A BABY’ (note echoes and instruments cut out - they want you to surprise you into feeling like you’ve been rocked)
3:40: You’ve heard the chorus so many times now that they figure you’ll get bored if they don’t do something different. So this time the chorus has no backing instruments apart from drums
3:50: Repeats chorus three times in a row for the first time in the song, with noticeably loud synth horn stabs to distract you from the fact you’ve heard the chorus three times in a row.
4:06: The pinnacle of the song, the part I look forward to the most when I listen to ‘Joyride’. What is it? It is, of course, Marie shouting “ROXETTE!” just in case you’ve forgotten who you’re listening to. And then they sneak in chorus number seven while you’re still snapping out of being confused why they would shout the name of their band in a song!
4:18: You thought there’d be another chorus, right? SURPRISE! Instead, there’s some more infernally catchy whistling when you weren’t expecting it! (to fade)
-TB
Me at the 90 Percent Hits tumblr, possibly analysing ‘Joyride’ by Roxette in slightly too much detail.
What to do when your favourite band’s record label won’t release their new album; seeing Daft Punk in a field in America in 1996; listening to the first Neutral Milk Hotel single; when plagiarism sends you mad; Vampire Weekend’s new sound; the polar opposites of female country groups; The National have fun with death; on why the Human League sum up the sound of the 1980s.
I’m sure you’ll be shocked (SHOCKED!) to discover that, if you click this link, you’ll find me introducing some of the better writing about music of the week. I mean, who would have thought that writing such columns was something I of all people would do? Ahem.
Tim Byron calls upon 2DayFM, Ariel Levy, Jon Snow, to explain ‘Blurred Lines’, a song made by a man who, when asked if the video is degrading to women, replied “Of course it is. What a pleasure it is to degrade a woman.”
America: this will probably be your #1 single in a month and a half! After all, a month and a half ago in Australia, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’s ‘Can’t Hold Us’ knocked Pink and Nate Ruess’s duet ‘Just Give Me A Reason’ off the top; this just happened in the US. So yes. (Predictably I talk about feminism and ‘good girls’ and why female fans might want to be liberated by Robin Thicke and co.)
Falling - Julee Cruise
As any good semiotician will tell you, things are always interpreted within a certain context: no-one, anywhere goes in cold when they listen to a particular song. A whole bunch of assumptions and experiences go into making you feel or think a particular way about it.Interestingly enough, without the background knowledge of Twin Peaks, from which ‘Falling’ is taken, we all four of us hated this song (though as 10 and 11 year old boys, we probably wouldn’t have stood a chance of understanding Twin Peaks when it aired, so would have hated this anyway). Even more interesting is that one’s feelings towards Twin Peaks were predictive regarding how we felt about the song now. While Danny and Tim Byron both quite like the TV series, but still don’t care much for the song, Twin Peaks is very much part of the fabric of my universe - I watch it all the way to the bitter end every year, I constantly ask myself What Would Agent Cooper Do?, the visual components of the series constantly prey on my mind, and as a designer I’m forever trying to slip Twin Peaks easter eggs into my work. Even on the most personal of levels, Twin Peaks is there: the first conversation my wife and I ever had was about Twin Peaks apropos of absolutely nothing (she had no clue I had even seen it when she told me she’d been watching it). If they had Twin Peaks conventions like they have Star Trek conventions, I would go in full costume.
As such, the music of Twin Peaks is always there with me too, and I’m pretty comfortable with that: within the context of the show itself, the moody, torch-song pastiche of ‘Falling’ and its very Lynchian contrast of naivete, innocence and the sinister and uncanny works so very, very well, particularly in the way Lynch uses it as a leitmotif throughout the series. For me it is icy and haunting, a naive paean to salvation sung through whirring synths and that slow-as-molasses baritone guitar figure, which suits the themes of the show perfectly: we tell our children confected lies of a sweet, comforting world, when the reality is that salvation is but a dream.
One aspect we didn’t talk about in the podcast is that ‘Falling’ and Cruise’s other performances on the Twin Peaks soundtrack were all written by David Lynch himself (with help from the always wonderful Andre Badalamenti). Lynch’s obsession with 50’s and 60’s torch songs, their innocence and how he can twist that when set against modern knowingness is so well handled in the music of the show. Cruise’s voice adds a spookiness to these songs, and I think ‘Falling’ is the perfect tonal touchstone for the show, and will always take me into that universe, which is pretty much the place I want to be.
-TC
Tim Coyle wrote this for the 90 Percent Hits podcast’s tumblr, because ‘Falling’ was a #1 single in Australia! Apparently in Australia (says an older friend) Twin Peaks was the 1991 equivalent of Game of Thrones, the biggest cult success of the time; people were scrawling ‘Who Killed Laura Palmer?’ on walls and the like.
Anyway, I just wanted to point out that I don’t ‘quite like’ Twin Peaks; I do love the show. I think it’s as good as the shows that followed in its footsteps. I own the gold box set and have watched it several times since discovering it 4-5 years ago. I also found the soundtrack CD cheap and particularly enjoy the jazzy Audrey music, which I often play on bass for fun. By the way, did you all ever hear the ‘Diane…’ tapes? Worth a listen.
Dimples D - Sucker DJ
Tim Coyle mentioned in the podcast that Dimples D was a rabbit in the headlights in the clip; I don’t think she’s quite that bad, but she’s clearly not quite a music clip natural either.
I do wonder about the circumstances of making the video, though. I mean, this was a song originally recorded in 1983. Dimples D, I guess, recorded that for her friend Marley Marl…and went back to her life. By 1991, was she a mum? Had she settled down? I mean, it’s 8 years later, and that’s probably what people do by that point (she does have an air of ‘mum’ about her in the video clip, though maybe it’s just my associations with the early 1990s fashion). Maybe she found God, sings in church, and would only do the video if she was allowed to wear the huge crucifix earrings.
I can only imagine that her old mate Marley Marl rang her up one day and said, “hey, did I tell you I did a remix of your song for kicks, featuring the I Dream Of Jeannie theme as a sample? Anyway, looks like we have a hit in Austria - oh, I mean, Australia. You know, put another shrimp on the barbie! Want to make a cheapie video?”
It must have been a weird conversation for her. Did she say, “yeah sure!” with a sense of nostalgia for the past? Did she still harbor a desire for fame? Did he have to talk her into it? Was she looking in those cameras wondering about whether the babysitter was doing their job properly?
In any case, I hope she got a tour of Australia at some point and got to see a kangaroo or two and hold a koala at some point.
-TB
For the 90 Percent Hits tumblr, I possibly get carried away extrapolating about Dimples D’s life in 1991 based on the video clip of Sucker DJ (a #1 in Australia in 1991)…
Earworms are often called ‘involuntary musical imagery’ in academic jargon. The reason for this is that the phenomenon is involuntary (you can’t help getting songs stuck in your head, whether you like them or not) and the earworms are ‘imagery’, in the sense that you imagine them (they’re playing in your head rather than in real life). Research suggests that almost everyone experiences earworms, and that most people seem to experience at least one earworm daily. And some songs seem more likely to become an earworm than others. ‘Call Me Maybe’ by Carly Rae Jepsen is so ‘earwormogenic’ that even mentioning it in passing in this paragraph has probably made it stick in your head. Considering its chart success, chances are that, right now, more people around the world have ‘Get Lucky’ stuck in their heads than almost any other song. It’s stuck in my head now. So what is it about the song that makes it so damn catchy?
Look at the fetching music psychology hat that I’m wearing for this piece I wrote!
(This was meant to go up later this week, I guess, but yes, album leak. So my editor must have pressed ‘publish’ late yesterday afternoon, which I discovered this morning when I had random people tweeting me about it! (I spent much of yesterday afternoon concerned about making our internet router work, so I had no idea).)
The session guys who fueled 1970s soft rock; the making of PJ Harvey’s Rid Of Me; 30 years of the Violent Femmes; what makes a good singer?; Kitty Pryde on Danny Brown; Sound City and the allure of vintage gear; Laura Mvula, the next Adele?; and why the Melvins make good rock and good metal.
This week’s links to some of the music writing worth reading.
Parents who chose not to vaccinate their kids are taking a big gamble; they’re letting their kids be exposed to potentially life-threatening viruses because they’re trying to avoid their kids becoming autistic, or suffering other side-effects of vaccines (which do exist, but which are almost always minor). Statistically, it’s a bad gamble - the odds are rigged against them. It’s like betting that New Zealand will beat Brazil at soccer. The problem is that every parent who makes that bad gamble makes the odds worse for the rest of us, because every unvaccinated child decreases herd immunity.
The Sydney Daily Telegraph has a campaign at the moment to change the law so that NSW child care centres can refuse to take unvaccinated kids, and some things like that. I have clearly been on a quest to become Ben Goldacre recently, so I discuss the science behind it.
