Do you do it in your daily communication or not so much?
I could use this post to explicitly call out several individuals (who's lewd disregard for punctuation I witness on Facebook) who don't punctuate anything. Ever. But I am a nice guy. I'll provide case studies instead to give you a clear picture of what I'm talking about.
Do you capitalize the first word of a text message? Do you use periods at the end of Facebook posts or text messages? How about IM conversations? I'm working on a wholly unscientific theory: failure to punctuate, spell, etc. may be the last great conveyor of emotion on display in written electronic communication.
If you haven't seen this yet, watch it. Now.
Not until thinking about this post did it occur to me: the tone of the letter is clearly skewed and 8th grade, but would its comedic value have remained intact if it had been punctuated correctly? What if the writer had thought through and edited the note before (presumably) sending it out using the personal message feature of a social network? Would it ever have been YouTube famous if proper punctuation (and grammar, and spelling) been utilized in its creation?
I have been thinking about this ever since a female friend of mine and I were having a conversation about...er...conversation; specifically, communication between her and her man at the time. I vividly remember her saying something along the lines of:
"I always know when he's angry! He doesn't punctuate any of his text messages and he misspells or forgets to capitalize things."
Food for thought: as our social interactions become more and more electronic, how much can we know about the person on the other end based not on what they say, but how they say it?
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Monday, February 21, 2011
Passing Tones: From the 80's Drum Sound to Auto-Tune
"Gonna let it rock/Let it roll/Let the Bible belt come and save my sou-oh-ohhll/Hang on to sixteen as long as you can/Changes comin' 'round real soon make us women and men."
"Jack and Diane" by John Cougar Mellencamp is just one of many examples of the "80's drum sound". Like most other great ideas, the 80's drum sound originated spontaneously. A British recording engineer named Hugh Padgham was goofing around in the studio with Phil Collins in 1980. In order to have communication between the control room and live room, Hugh had placed one microphone in the center of the room and compressed the dickens out of it so he could hear quiet conversation. When Phil started playing the drums, however, inspiration struck. Thus, the "gated" drum sound was born.
The effect soon spread like hotcakes. For most of the 1970's, the trend in pop had been to record drums as dryly as possible, "choking" the sound and emphasizing the beat.
However, as soon as "In the Air Tonight" blew up worldwide, other mix engineers began copying the gigantic drum reverb effect. For the first time, digital reverb technology became widely available cheaply. Soon, drums were living in giant digital cathedrals. In 1986, Paul Simon took this effect into entirely new territory with "Graceland", an album the paired a heavily processed drum sound with traditional African chants and South African guitar playing.
It wasn't until the advent of the Nirvana grunge sound in the early 90's that the polished, "slick" drum sound of the 80's went out of vogue. Pop music was free from any one particular production trope until 1998, when two more British blokes named Matt Taylor and Brian Rawling unleashed Cher's "Believe"on the world.
To achieve the song's signature sound, they had simply overused (or abused) Auto-Tune, a program originally designed to fix vocal takes that were slightly out of tune and save engineers, vocalists, and producers LOTS of time. Their manipulation of Cher's vocal performance created a distinctive "robotic" vocal sound that appeared here and there sporadically until T-Pain started writing symphonies with it and rappers began exploiting it en masse.
However, the backlash against ubiquitous use of Auto-Tune was swift. Artists including Death Cab For Cutie began speaking out about its use and it became an object of ridicule through parodies such as Auto-Tune The News. Jay-Z even went so far as to more or less condemn the assimilation of Hip-hop into pop by releasing a song called "The Death of Auto-Tune". Despite its hotly contested stature as enabler of modern sounds in pop music, it continues to be used widely by almost every performer in the music industry, in recording studios as well as live situations.
I have found that it is easy to date a recording based on whether or not it contains the infamous "80's drum sound". Most songs containing it are seen as "corny". It is natural that the recording industry moves from one "trend" or "sound" to another, but Auto-Tune seems to have lasted longer than any fad preceding it. Is it possible that Auto-Tune will "date" recordings the same way the 80's drum sound does in the coming years? Will perfectly-pitched vocals go out of style like spandex, big hair and keytars? What would modern pop sound like if vocalists still had to nail the notes in order to make a hit recording? Would performers like Fergie, T-Pain, and Ke$ha have careers?
It remains to be seen, as soon as "I Gotta Feelin'" hits oldies radio...
"Jack and Diane" by John Cougar Mellencamp is just one of many examples of the "80's drum sound". Like most other great ideas, the 80's drum sound originated spontaneously. A British recording engineer named Hugh Padgham was goofing around in the studio with Phil Collins in 1980. In order to have communication between the control room and live room, Hugh had placed one microphone in the center of the room and compressed the dickens out of it so he could hear quiet conversation. When Phil started playing the drums, however, inspiration struck. Thus, the "gated" drum sound was born.
The effect soon spread like hotcakes. For most of the 1970's, the trend in pop had been to record drums as dryly as possible, "choking" the sound and emphasizing the beat.
However, as soon as "In the Air Tonight" blew up worldwide, other mix engineers began copying the gigantic drum reverb effect. For the first time, digital reverb technology became widely available cheaply. Soon, drums were living in giant digital cathedrals. In 1986, Paul Simon took this effect into entirely new territory with "Graceland", an album the paired a heavily processed drum sound with traditional African chants and South African guitar playing.
It wasn't until the advent of the Nirvana grunge sound in the early 90's that the polished, "slick" drum sound of the 80's went out of vogue. Pop music was free from any one particular production trope until 1998, when two more British blokes named Matt Taylor and Brian Rawling unleashed Cher's "Believe"on the world.
To achieve the song's signature sound, they had simply overused (or abused) Auto-Tune, a program originally designed to fix vocal takes that were slightly out of tune and save engineers, vocalists, and producers LOTS of time. Their manipulation of Cher's vocal performance created a distinctive "robotic" vocal sound that appeared here and there sporadically until T-Pain started writing symphonies with it and rappers began exploiting it en masse.
However, the backlash against ubiquitous use of Auto-Tune was swift. Artists including Death Cab For Cutie began speaking out about its use and it became an object of ridicule through parodies such as Auto-Tune The News. Jay-Z even went so far as to more or less condemn the assimilation of Hip-hop into pop by releasing a song called "The Death of Auto-Tune". Despite its hotly contested stature as enabler of modern sounds in pop music, it continues to be used widely by almost every performer in the music industry, in recording studios as well as live situations.
I have found that it is easy to date a recording based on whether or not it contains the infamous "80's drum sound". Most songs containing it are seen as "corny". It is natural that the recording industry moves from one "trend" or "sound" to another, but Auto-Tune seems to have lasted longer than any fad preceding it. Is it possible that Auto-Tune will "date" recordings the same way the 80's drum sound does in the coming years? Will perfectly-pitched vocals go out of style like spandex, big hair and keytars? What would modern pop sound like if vocalists still had to nail the notes in order to make a hit recording? Would performers like Fergie, T-Pain, and Ke$ha have careers?
It remains to be seen, as soon as "I Gotta Feelin'" hits oldies radio...
Monday, February 14, 2011
A Hazy Shade of Winter
I stole the title of this post from the title of a lesser-known Simon and Garfunkel song that seems to sum up this special three week period at Butler University every year called February. Second semester is vanishing like melted ice down the drains on the street and spring is playing with all of us by refusing to show itself for more than a fleeting moment. It's awkward.
In the spirit of this awkward time of year, I feel compelled to critique two awkward pop songs that have been hyped hard but, IMHO, aren't delivering on their promises.
The offenders are Britney:
and Ga Ga:
Let me preface all of this thoroughly unscientific criticism with a short disclaimer: I live in a frat house. When a song drops on the radio and the right name is attached, you can pretty much bet that it'll be blasting in my basement at three A.M. the next weekend. I don't just know pop songs, I feel them. By which I mean I feel their bass lines pounding through my walls all night long every weekend of the academic year. I have memorized all of the random noises Wiz, T-Pain, Jason Derulo, and Weezy F. Baby put at the beginning (and end) of their tracks. I feel compelled to sing along with songs whenever they are playing, even in non-frat situations, if my fellow crooners aren't getting the tonality of the original performers' voices right. Obsessive? Most definitely, but it comes with the territory. I literally live with pop, for better or worse. In sickness and in health. 'Till Monday morning do us part. Perhaps that's why I am acutely sensitive to the let-down I think both of these songs represent.
"Hold It Against Me" is a pop song that wants really really badly to be a dubstep song but ALSO wants to be cranked in a soccer mom's minivan and on a thirteen year old girl's iPod. It's not slick enough to be classic pop, but it's not gritty enough to be dubstep. The main issue is the toothless, disappointing dubstep breakdown that takes off at 2:15. It doesn't "wub" nearly hard enough and seems to have been lowered in the mix by some record label stooge. Heck, even the GameBoy breakdown at the 2:09 mark in "Please Don't Go" is more aggressive and interesting. "Hold It Against Me" has some identity issues to work out as far as I can tell. If pop is female, and dubstep is phallic, then Britney's newest work is decidedly transgendered, and not in a sexy/dangerous David Bowie or Debbie Harry way. More in a head-scratching, awkward Pat kind of way.
A scientifically-generated physical representation of "Hold It Against Me"
This song could fail a whole lot less if it was produced by a real iron stud of dubstep, like Skrillex A.K.A Sonny Moore. Never heard of him? Educate yourself:
This guy deserves an award for being the first producer out there to get trance/electro major-key synth lines in bed with dubstep bass and a very distinctive vocal chopping style. It's just icing on the cake that Sonny is a retired vocalist for seminal hard/metalcore acts Bring Me the Horizon and From First to Last who took up programming when his voice began failing him. It's an amazing "indie goes pop" Cinderella story if you ask me. All rivers really do flow to the sea.
"Im'ma make you dance."
Envisioning a collab between these two is downright scintillating. I can almost hear Brit's shimmering, pubescent pop purr over Skrillex's grinding synth sounds. I'm sure there will be a remix on YouTube bringing this vision into reality before I finish spell-checking this post. Below is PROOF that pop vox and dirty "wub wub" synth can play nice, courtesy of a producer known as Chrispy. Granted, this Rhianna chopping, verse omitting gritfest works better than most entries in the same genre diary to be found on YouTube, but it is an interesting glimpse into the future of pop.
For the record, I have seen roomfuls of (mostly) civilized, upper middle class college students dance to this song in ways strippers would consider a little exotic.
For the record, I have seen roomfuls of (mostly) civilized, upper middle class college students dance to this song in ways strippers would consider a little exotic.
Anyway, now on to the latest GaGa offering. It's not bad enough to be "bad", it's just not spectacular. I can almost hear RedOne sweating in the studio, trying to make more hits for an artist who has already had more worldwide #1's and music industry-transcending success than most of her peers will ever dream of. The strangest part of this whole affair, however, is that this single comes off of what is currently touted as being a "rock" album. Judging by the late 90's trance sound of the single, however, the Gaga "rock" sound needs a reality check. I'd be deeply saddened to see this become the "Rebirth" of Ms. Germanotta's career.
Being the devil's advocate I am, though, I think the disappointment factor of this song is a matter of contrast. It's possible that GaGa's amazing run of success is a fluke that is nearly impossible to keep running, but we the people now expect it from her because she delivered so much so consistently for so long. Who else besides Michael Jackson has released so many anthemic pop singles and packed them on to
Anyway, now that I have managed to post five (about to be six) YouTube videos in a single blog and hate faster than a speeding locomotive, I'll leave you with my current absolute favorite pop jam:
Goodnight, Internet. Sweet dreams.
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