Gold sounds
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You're totally discounting any of your readers having it already, but that's because you're an idiot.
It is quite a popular song, though.
What's it about? It's all about two sounds. It's kinda hard to describe. It's a sort of truncated 'huh', sounded twice, each on the beat, just before Patience of the Grates gets into the repetition of 'nineteen' and 'twenty-twenty' that almost counts as a chorus. You might have heard it on their single, 19-20-20. It happens twice in the song. The second time is better than the first. The second time, though, leads into a smaller version of the chorus than the first, which seems to make it less important than the first, but which affords the opportunity to be more forceful, because you don't want to be boring and put the best bit at the end of the verse - stick it in the middle.
It's about the force of each 'huh'.
She doesn't have the most attractive of voices. Oh, in spite of that, though, she knows what to do with her voice. Listen to the rest of the song, and there are bits here and there where her voice jumps from singing lyrics [actual words] and into making great noises. Split seconds of noises. If you want to go into specifics, a good example is how she transitions the end of a few of the words with vowel sound endings [like 'baby' and 'he'] into the next phrase of the lyrics.
I think it comes from singing with gusto. When she sings, 'my baby', the last note only wants to go higher and higher, but there's little time for it to happen before she has to sing the next line, so this weird noise, a squeak, is forced from her. [I guess, also, that it's her style to sing like that.]
That's why the 'huh' is so great. Forget lyrics, in fact, fuck lyrics, it's about noise.
Each 'huh' is given a nice little space to live in the song. They're given breathing room. Waiting a beat is a long time in this up-tempo number. You know Patience needs to give them breathing room because it takes a lot of air to sing so many repetitions of 'nineteen' and 'twenty-twenty'.
I love that breathing-room gap when they're coming to the chorus [now, wait another beat]. You can feel a tension, from the stillness after the air is pushed by the speakers sounding each 'huh', to the white noise of the chorus, 'nineteen-twenty-twenty' ad infinitum.
Good sounds. I don't know about the rest of the band, the rest of this song, or their other songs. I'm sure they're great.
posted by Martin at 21:06
7 comments
7 Comments:
Now you make me wanna listen to this song...
It's interesting how you generally seem to have a preference for music that emphasizes its 'sounds' more than its words or meanings. I reckon it's a different genre altogether...
I guess it could be compared to people who like, say, jazz...which primarily involves vigorous instrumental musicianship as opposed to...Fazmusic. But with jazz it's more of an emphasis on generating tune progressions than the actual sound. Maybe that's why I've never heard you listen to jazz before.
And then there's music that is highly dependable on lyrics... like Monty Python's 'Always Look on the Bright Side of Life'. *grunt*
Then there're bands that do both..like the Beachboys.... Surfer Girl V.S Good Vibrations?
We've had this debate before. How important are lyrics, really? As a generator of sound through its pronunciation? I guess it really depends on what type of music we're talking about. But I find musicians who consider lyrics as a tool to opportunitize vocal manipulation really clever. It gives the music another whole level of depth...
Apologies for the rambling. I couldn't resist!
I'm recording Muse's version of 'Can't take my eyes of you' with my brother at the moment. Lots of fun!!! :)
Sorry people, but despite words to contradict myself posted earlier, you're meant to be listening to these sounds as you read.
I'm trying not to write a review here. It's about bringing the element of sound to advarp. I don't want to have to pipe the sound down the internet whenever you load this site, so I give you the opportunity to work out downloading for yourself.
I know, it's too much effort [those photos were so much easier]. I wouldn't, either. It's for me. If [it's a big 'if'], later on, you come across these songs, come back to this and see if your thoughts compare with mine.
This isn't working. More photos to come.
Thanking you, Lin, for your comments.
You know what, fuck it, I'm going to keep at it. Why am I giving up so soon?
you sound so fucking desperate martin :p
anyways, that song, I've heard it n number of times...never really paid much attention. I have that phrase repeating in my head now though..
19-20-20 19-20-20 19-20-20 19-20-20...
Her voice...though, the 'huh's, it's cool, somehow reminds me of B-52's "Love Shack". But I gotta listen to them both again to make sure...
Loooooooooooov SHACK!
My baby, grr grr!
It's a GREAT song.
I was always trying to avoid referring to them as the plural ['huh's], because it is such an awkward arrangement of punctuation and letters. Where does the 's' go? Before or after the quotation mark [or is it an apostrophe?].
But, Steve, you've broken hearts, so I guess I can refer to them in that manner from now on.
'Huh's.
I just wanted to use the phrase, 'break hearts' in a sentence.
Who's got a deck of cards?
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