Helping Lorde Rule The World

Michael Levine is my guest on the current Inner Circle podcast, so it's only appropriate that we take a look at a very cool video where he shows about how he helped Lorde do a dark and moody version of "Everybody Wants To Rule The World," which eventually became part of the soundtrack for the Hunger Games: Catching Fire soundtrack.

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Lorde "Royals" Isolated Vocals

Here's a very interesting example of modern vocal production. It's the isolated vocal track from Lorde's big hit "Royals." Here are a few things to listen for.

1. What you'll hear sounds like it was a center channel extraction from the original record, as you can hear bits and pieces of the other tracks slipping in along the way.

2. The song is deceptive, since it sounds so sparse as compared to other hits that you hear these days, but there are a lot of vocal layers going on, especially the background vocals. It sounds like the harmony vocals are at least triple tracked so they're very thick.

3. The lead vocal is very squashed in places, not that it bothers the ears in the final mix.

4. There's a lot more reverb on the vocal than meets the ear during the mix. It's a nice long dark hall, which is unusual in these days of shorter decays.

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