I usually reserve Mondays to look at near music and audio gear, but I think it's important to recognize an event that has shook the music world.
B.B. King passed away last week and while his millions of fans morn, the guitar world cries even louder. There have been many great and influential blues guitarists over the last 60 years or so, but none has risen to the level of Riley B. “Blues Boy” King.
While it may be true that 1965’s Live At The Regal album was the main wake-up call for his British progeny like Eric Clapton and Peter Green, who then passed it back to a new generation of guitar players in the States, to gauge his influence just on that record is to do a great man a disservice. B.B. had many lesser hits by that time and each one of them had guitarists crowded around a record player trying to cop his trademark licks. Those licks may not have been B.B,’s exclusive domain, having learned at the feet of T-Bone Walker, but he made them his own with his easily recognizable left-hand trill, the vibrato that so many a young would-be guitar god tried to emulate.
Although “The Thrill Is Gone,” his 1970 hit single, may have been his most identifiable song, the fact of the matter is that B.B. made many landmark recordings during his long career, most of the them live. Live At The Cook County Jail and Live In Japan, both from 1971, Live In Africa in 1974 (which was only released on 1991), even the “When Love Comes To Town” duet with U2 from their Rattle And Hum motion picture show B.B. in some of his best moments.
My favorite though is the little-seen Cafe Au Go Go video (seen below) from 1968 when B.B. was perhaps at his peak. For those that were used to seeing The King sitting during his performances in his latter years, this was a revelation. Commanding the stage as only one of the greats can, his voice and guitar roar in a way that happens on those rare and fleeting occasions when the muse is in the air. The footage is raw, grainy and sometimes out of focus, but it’s a chance to see the man at what may be his best.
We’re all lucky that B.B. was recognized for his greatness so early in his long life (if you can say mid-40’s is early), since there is so much of his career that has been documented since. Even though the world of guitar morns today, we can rest assured that Riley B. King will continue to influence and inspire guitar players for generations to come. May your next journey be filled with love and music, B.B. (Originally posted on Forbes).
For way too long mixers and mastering engineers alike have been forced to squash songs before their final release, first in an effort to sound louder than everyone else's (especially on radio), then to just keep up in level with what's already out there.
But squashing a song to within an inch of its life may finally be counterproductive, as most digital services are now each employing their own brand of normalization in an effort to make all songs the same volume level for a better listening experience.
Here's a great video from UK mastering engineer Ian Shepherd that explains how it all works using a number of hits from U2 as an example. You can check out Ian's blog for a lot of great audio information at productionadvice.co.uk.
Let's hope that this is the first step in the return to dynamics in music.
U2 song analysis have always been popular here, and I've done them for both "One" and "Two Hearts Beat As One" in the past, so when reader The Big Matthias asked for an analysis of the band's 2000 hit "Beautiful Day" from their 12 times platinum All That You Can't Leave Behind album, I was glad to oblige. The song won a Grammy for Song of the Year, Record of the Year, and Best Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, and hit #1 in many parts of the world despite only making it to #21 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. Like with all analysis, we'll look at the song form, the arrangement, the sound and the production.
The Song
“Beautiful Day is like many U2 songs in that they don’t follow what might be considered a standard song form. In this case, there are two bridges, and sometimes the chorus changes melody and arrangement-wise to almost seem like another section. The song form looks like this:
This is one of the few songs that has all five arrangement elements (and sometimes even more) simultaneously playing. There are a lot of different sounds that sneak in and out of the verses, but the chorus and bridges are about as dense as can be.
The song starts with a keyboard pad, electric piano and bass outlining the chords, and what sounds like a drum machine kick drum. When the vocal enters after 4 bars, so does a snare drum doubled with a tambourine. After 4 more bars, a guitar enters on the right channel and a keyboard pedal note on the left. On the last 2 bars of the verse, a heavily reverbed background vocal enters on the right.
For the chorus the band cranks up the vocal with the drums entering in full with a power chord guitar on the left and the same reverbed background vocal on right.
The second verse changes in the bass is now playing 8th notes, driving the beat, with different guitar fills on the right and keyboard fills on the left drifting in and out of the mix. During the second chorus, a new background vocal enters on the right, this time lower in pitch and drier, so it’s more up front.
The same primary instrumentation continues for bridge 1, only drummer Larry Mullen switches his snare pattern to toms. The song then drops in intensity to another 4 bar intro, this time with a modulated guitar on left, and then it’s into bridge 2.
The first half of bridge 2 lowers in intensity with no drums, the bass playing whole notes, keyboard pads and the Edge playing a guitar arpeggio. The drums enter for the second half, building it up to a chorus, but it’s unusual in that it’s 4 bars of string and keyboard pads and background vocals.
Then we’re back to bridge 1 for a second time with exactly the same instrumentation as the first. It then goes back into a chorus, but only the first line is sung and a guitar solo enters on the right. The outro breaks down to only a tremolo guitar on the left and feedback that pans left to right.
The arrangement elements look like this:
The Foundation: bass, drums, drum machine kick, tambourine doubling the snare
The Rhythm: Edge’s signature arpeggiated guitar
The Pad: various synthesizers
The Lead: lead vocal
The Fills: back ground vocals, various keyboards and guitars
The Sound
“Beautiful Day” is a very dense mix with many different synth and guitar sounds appearing for short periods of time then disappearing, some never to be heard again. There’s a lot of sonic layering both with reverbs and delays. Edge has always been the master of delays on his guitars, but this song features deep dense reverbs on some of the synths and background vocals.
One of the cooler things is the panning during the song. The keyboards lean left and most of the guitars lean right except for the power chord guitar in the choruses, the arpeggiated guitar in the second bridge and the vibrato guitar at the very end, which is panned left. The background vocals are always on the right side (most unusually), and while Edge’s high vocal is bathed in reverb, Bono’s low vocal is drier and up front.
The drums are very small and tinny sounding (especially the snare), but this might be because that was the only way to fit everything together in such a dense mix with so many elements. The snare also has the tambourine doubling it on the verses, which makes it sound a little thinner than it really is.
Bono’s vocals are dry so he stays in front of the mix and the other song layers.
The Production
“Beautiful Day” has all the hallmarks of a song where overdub after overdub was tried in an effort to come up with something that works, then they decided to keep pieces of everything when it came to mixing. That’s the production trick here, where so many different tracks were able to blend together in the end and not fight one another.
That said, one of the best things about this record is the dynamics. While most records use different elements entering and exiting to build momentum and dynamic tension and release, “Beautiful Day” uses the plentiful dynamic skills of the band to go from a whisper to a roar. U2 has never been afraid to play quietly, and when you hear the transition from the first verse to the first chorus here, you understand how valuable an asset that is. Since it’s release, “Beautiful Day” has been one of the band’s concert staples, and it’s easy to see why.
Reader Gil Griffith requested a song analysis of U2's massively influential (as least from a charity point of view) "One," from their 1991 album Actung Baby. Rolling Stone placed the song at number 36 on its list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time", while a special edition issue of Q, titled "1001 Best Songs Ever", named "One" the greatest song of all-time. As with all song analysis, we'll look at the song's form, arrangement, sound and production.
The Song
"One" is a fairly simple song in that it doesn't have a lot of complicated sections or chord changes, but what's used is very effective. The form looks like this:
The bridge is quite unusual as it seems a bit out of place in terms of the chord changes and it's not really the peak like in most songs. The melody is very strong, especially the chorus, which is a trait of U2 songwriting and the reason why they write hits. Of course, the lyrics are what most people site as the tune's centerpiece.
The Arrangement
The arrangement is pretty simple; start out very sparse and add more and more instruments to each verse/chorus until it's about as big as it can get by the end. The song starts with sticks and tambourine and three guitars; an acoustic, an electric through a Leslie speaker and an electric with the tone controls turned down. The next verse the bass and drums enter along with another guitar playing a line and another rhythm guitar. On the next verse a synth string pad enters along with yet more guitars, and after the bridge a piano, a lead guitar line, and even more rhythm guitars enter. I wish I knew how many tracks they used, but there's a lot going on here.
* The Foundation: sticks, drums and bass
* The Pad: mellow guitar in the 1st verse and later the strings
* The Rhythm: tambourine, acoustic guitar
* The Lead: the vocal
* The Fills: various guitars
The Sound
U2 has never been entirely concerned about the sound of their records, going more for feel instead. That said, this one sounds pretty good, despite the massive amount of guitar and keyboard layers. The vocal has a medium reverb that disappears as the song progresses and the track builds. There's a short timed delay present that you can hear on the sticks and tambourine in the intro that's used on the instruments as well. You can occasionally hear the compression used on the various instruments, but it's used in moderation so it's never obtrusive.
The Production Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno have worked with U2 on most of their hits and you can tell they're very organic in their thinking. Two sections prove that - the intro and the end. First of all, the song has a count-in, which you hardly ever hear on records since it more or less denotes a demo. You can also hear guitar hum underneath. Most bands wouldn't have the courage to leave those in. The ending, on the other hand, is very ragged, which is almost unexpected, considering how well the rest of the song is put together. That's the U2 way though, as leaving a ragged edge is what they prefer.
There's a lot of stories about the producers, engineer (Flood), and band struggling over the mix for weeks. It's not surprise with all the layers, but given that, I'd say the mix ended up being one of the centerpieces of the songs.
Reader David Pigman had a number of requests for song analysis, but one was particularly interesting and that's U2's "Two Hearts Beat As One." This was the 2nd single from the bands massive breakthrough album War that became an international hit and pushed the band to stardom. As with all song analysis, we'll look at the song itself, the arrangement, the sound and the production.
The Song
"Two Hearts Beat As One" has an unconventional form, as do a lot of U2's songs, and looks like this:
Intro, Verse, Chorus, B Section, Chorus, Interlude, Verse, Chorus, Interlude, B section
What's interesting is that most songs use the B section as sort of a bridge between the verse and chorus, but this one has the B section coming after the chorus, and then uses it as an out-chorus as well. Interesting.
The Arrangement
U2 normally has some interesting arrangements, but this one is pretty straight ahead. For the most part they stay within the power trio format of guitar, bass and drums, but add just enough extra elements to keep it interesting. In this case it's the use of Edge's harmonics in the chorus against his quarter note chunks. Both compliment each other well.
* The Foundation - Bass and drums, although Adam Clayton's bass pushes the song.
* The Pad - Edge's guitar harmonics during the chorus, but they're not played like a traditional pad.
* The Rhythm - Larry Mullen's disco high-hat during the verse.
* The Lead - Bono's lead vocal.
* The Fills - The background vocals against the lead in the chorus.
The Sound
A number of things jump out about the sound. The first thing is how little low end there is on this record. Second is the short room sound on the drums, especially the snare. It almost sounds like a double. Third is the amount of reverb on the lead vocal, which is a lot. The top end is rolled off so it doesn't get in the way, and it's slightly delayed, but there's a lot of it and it's pretty long.
The Production Steve Lillywhite does a good job here just capturing the feel of the band yet not getting too heavy handed with sweetening and layers. There are a few, but not many. Plus the energy of a live U2 show is captured, which is the ultimate goal of every producer in the first place.
That's right - even superstars like Paul McCartney, AC/DC, Bruce Springsteen, Jonas Brothers, Coldplay (big surprise), and U2 are struggling to fill seats.
For certain, the economy has finally caught up to the concert industry, but that's not all. The high prices and perceived gouging have caught up too. Couple all that with the fact that most of these mega acts have toured in major locations so much that it's not an event any more, especially for what amounts to be such a big bite out of the the consumer's pocketbook.
In fact, demand is so low that the legal ticket scalper StubHub has begun selling tickets at a massive loss instead of their normal hefty markup. Indeed, it's been reported that some consumers "have already purchased tickets as low as $1 for Springsteen and Coldplay, $9 for Kenny Chesney and $10 for the Jonas Brothers this season, with tickets listing for as low as $16 for upcoming McCartney shows this weekend in Maryland," according to the Reuters article.
It's also been reported that Live Nation is extending its half price ticket deal at ampitheaters as well as expanding its summer long "No Fee Wednesdays" promotion to include more than 1500 smaller shows at clubs and theaters.
Could this be a turning point in the concert business? Has the final music industry bubble burst? We'll know by the end of the month when the summer concert season ends.
There's a case being made that artists who support the Performance Rights Act are being penalized secretly by the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB). Bono, the most vocal supporter of the bill, found the Put On Your Boots single from the current U2 album with a minimum of airplay despite a huge promotional pitch by the record label, an opening spot at the inauguration concert, and a few other prime opportunities afforded only to superstar acts.
While support in the music community has grown for the bill, the NAB has ratcheted up its lobbying effort against it, spouting all sorts of doom and gloom about what will happen should the bill pass. The Performance Rights Act pays a royalty to the artist, not the songwriter, each time a song is played on the radio. Until now, artists with massive airplay (like the Righteous Brothers, who's You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling is the most played song in history) have never received a cent for any airplay. The United States is the only country that does not pay performance royalties.
The NAB claims that having to pay a performance royalty will force all radio stations to convert to talk radio because of the increased costs of doing business. This line of thinking, of course, has no basis in fact. Radio stations are immensely profitable and are increasingly owned by large station groups and broadcast conglomerates. A performance royalty will slightly cut into those profits, but the NAB acts as if it's so much money that the stations can no longer stay in business.
Believe me, if it were as bad as the NAB claims it will be, station groups would be shedding their stations faster than an MP3 stream, which might actually be good for radio in the long run since the stations would probably be more local in their programming again instead of using the homogenized national playlist that we're forced to listen to now.
Some think that even if what the NAB says is true, it would still force a return to local programming, only with the artists signing waivers against any royalty collection. History says that this won't work. When radio first started in the 20's, owners tried to make a go of it without the higher priced "stars" of the day. After a few years of mediocre ratings, they finally gave in to using star power and their ratings and the fortunes of the industry soared.
The Performance Rights Act is coming to a vote in Congress soon. It should be interesting which lobbying group, the one for the broadcasters (the NAB) or the one for the record labels (the RIAA), comes out on top.
Nielsen SoundScan reports that U2's new album "No Line On The Horizon" sold 484,000 copies last week, yet the press seems to view this amount as a disappointment. Consider that the next closest album (Taylor Swift's "Fearless") sold only 52,000 and the U2 release looks better all the time.
But what they're not telling you is that on-line research company Big Champagne estimates that another 431,000 copies were illegally downloaded in the same period. Put both figures together and the reach of the album looks pretty good, especially for these economic times.
In my upcoming book "Music 3.0 - A Survival Guide For Making Music In The Internet Age" I outline the new thinking regarding music releases, and in this case, the basic concept goes something like this. You release the album to sell the tour, not the other way around like in the old days.
U2 is truly following the tenants of M30 perfectly, but it's probably too early to predict how successful their tour will be. As with everything else, the economy has the ultimate say in their success.
U2 is scheduled to play Letterman for 5 straight nights starting on March 2nd. While on the surface this seems like a perfectly good strategy to promote a new album, the band overlooks the reality of today's music world. Unfortunately, most of the demographic that U2 wants to reach aren't watching Letterman, and if they are, they'll probably be half-asleep when the band appears.
Gone are the days when an appearance on late night television actually meant a boost in sales. In it's heyday of the 70's, an appearance on Saturday Night Live meant a sales bump of 100k or more the next week, but those days are long gone.
If U2 really wanted to goose their sales via television they'd play daytime television like Oprah or Ellen. If they wanted to be hip they might have chosen Jimmy Kimmel or even Conan, but Letterman is no longer considered hip and certainly won't help sales as a result. Hard to believe that's what it's come to these days, but the major influencers are not who they once were. Then again, perhaps U2 could care less about sales at this point in their careers and just want to party with Dave.
This was the 2nd single from the bands massive breakthrough album 
that became an international hit and pushed the band to stardom. As with all song analysis, we'll look at the song itself, the arrangement, the sound and the production.
