Song of the Day #28 - Kelly Clarkson - Since U been gone

I really admire a very good production of a pop song where you can hear that the producer has used all the tricks in the book to lure the listener inn, keeping them entertained and bring them to new ecstatic heights. For me it's quite normal to get this excited and I had forgotten that it's not like this for everyone else when I mentioned it at work the other day... hehe.. My colleagues are usually a very open group, but this time they all stared at me in an intrigued but surprised fashion. Maybe I can open your ears to this brilliance?

I know a few pop songs that are so good that they literately can make me cry and get chills. The best one though, is Since U been gone with Kelly Clarkson. I have written about this before in the blog, and I don't think I can explain it better a second time, so here, I have to quote myself. The original blogpost.

The first vers is a perfect build up... The sound is quite tight. The drums are very mechanic and a bit muffled, and the sound is almost a bit electronic. Then the second guitar enters and promises that something is gonna happen and keeps the groove going. As a final sparkly touch there is this third guitar that is very high and single notes. And then come the moment that gives me shivers and brings tears to my eyes. All the other instruments than Kelly's voice is cut away as a moment of quiet before the storm, and then booom... the music foldes out and uses the whole spectrum. Kelly is one of those girls that sings like she would die if she wasn't allowed to sing on this song. And that really gets to me. Then on the second verse is a bit more rocked up version of the first one. But the second vocals are added on, that's a really cool effect all through the song that I really like too; almost all of it is done with a double vocal of Kelly, either just similar or with a slight second melody. Makes the sound deeper and fuller. Then for the second chorus that again gives me shivers... and now the bridge that is also quite brilliant... It just takes of and flyes og and just when it's boring almost everything is cut away for a few beats which makes it interessting, Then it quiets down and the the electronica drums from the beginning are back with one distant guitar. Before a great build up and just doing all that is possible to make the last vers explode, before ending almost where it started.

And oh... The producer is not surprisingly Max Martin, the pop mad man behind all pop sensations:

he crafted a string of worldwide hits for pop artists like the clean-cut boy bands The Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC, Britney Spears, P!nk, Swedish starlet Robyn and the Swedish eurodance star E-Type among many others, in the mid/late '90s to mid 2000s.

Wikipedia

But even though he is knowen as the ultimate teen pop commercialized producer but he is very very good at what he do in that genre and makes a lot of really perfect choices, I think.
More on the song

Just read there about the song being very similar to The Strokes song Last Night.
And that is actually quite true... at least when it comes to the rhythm. Love The Strokes song even more though :)

Song of the Day #27 - Arctic Monkeys - From Ritz to Rubble

I discovered Arctic Monkeys around about the time when the record with this song came out. This is when Arctic Monkeys was still incredibly young and talented. They are still young and talented, but we are talking teenagers here. What appealed to me was first the energy of the thing, but soon I caught myself catching a phrase here and there of the lyrics and then did something quite uncommon for me, I looked it up and found out that it's one hell of a fantastic youth tale about going out on a Saturday and trying to sneak into bars etc. Alex Taylor has a very unique language and phrasing and I love the way he play with timing and words in this one.

Here it is in a fantastic live version from Later with Jools Holland. Maybe the greatest music show in history. And those guitar riff, and that bass riff and those drums. This is a good song in all the ways necessary. 

Song of the Day #26: Blur - Essex Dogs

After a fantastic good Blur concert last night, it was not much else that could start up the Song of the Day posting again. I have all ready written a lot about this song in a previous post, but let me explain a bit more about. When I was 17 I went out and bought the album Blur by Blur. I played it again and again and again and had never heard anything like it. You must all remember that this where in the days pre-"Ok Computer". It took me a while to realize that it was actually a guitar and not a chain saw in the beginning of the song, I didn't even know it was possible to do something like that. Then there is the mood of the song, so dark, so deep, such simple bass lines, but still so beautiful self and the lyrics could not have fitted my 17 year old self more; The dream of escaping to the city from the countryside.

You'll catch flu
Or you'll catch the city

and:

Watching dogs somersault through sprinklers on tiny lawns

Such a fantastic lyrics line. If I am not mistaken the whole song is about Damon moving from London to Essex when he was young.

So, enjoy! It's a perfect song to sink into on a cold and dark and rainy day like this..



Other posts about Blur

Great interview: Fran Healey on the new record and beeing a rock'n'roll father

Not much to say about this one except, Fran is always a person who gives good interviews and it sounds like Travis in general is in better form than ever, it looks like it have suited them well to be a bit apart and be fathers. Also I really like the fact that Andy and Dougie has contributed a lot to the songwriting on the new record. Very exciting to hear the whole thing soon. The album is just around the corner, and if I know Travis right, they will be in Oslo before you know it.

Song of the Day #25 - Daft Punk - Get Lucky (Ft. Pharrell Williams & Nile Rodgers)

Some bands and artists are just pure quality and everything they touch turn to gold it seams. Pharrell and Daft Punk are both creative artists that I have envied for just that. They know what it takes. Pharrell produced some of the best Justin Timberlake tracks for instance, Daft Punk are just the grandfathers of that brilliant groovy, elegant pop disco sound from France. Put the two together, and the result is of course quite astounding. And surprisingly much like Michael Jackson. Enjoy and have a good weekend, folks!