The Score Magazine - Archive February 2015 issue! | Page 21

mike Alonge Musicians are repetitive. Instrumentalists, vocalists, producers and songwriters alike have tendencies and patterns that are often observable by oneself and by the audience. Even the most respected musicians have repetitive characteristics (albeit much fewer than the average musician). A good musician knows their tendencies, and often strives for deviation in their original works, drawing inspiration from peers who fundamentally approach music in a unique way. However, it’s this inspiration and collaboration that is often missing in pop music, creating a bottleneck of musical diversity. Much of pop music often sounds the same because it largely is the same. It is the same because the same people create it. Perhaps there is no better place to observe this than in the modern genre I like to call “pop hop”, encompassing the current mix of pop and hip-hop, as performed by artists such as Iggy Azalea, Drake, Nicki Minaj etc. Iggy Azalea’s recent smash hit “Fancy” featuring Charli XCX has become wildly popular, providing a promising start with her newly formed relationship with Def Jam Recordings. More recently, her single “Beg For It” featuring MO was released, and if you had a slight suspicion that the two choruses sounded similar, you were on to something. In fact the two choruses share roughly the same vocal riff in two different keys. While “Fancy” is written in Cm and “Beg For It” is in Ebm, the first bar of each chorus shares a highly similar riff. Both riffs are comprised of the 7th, 5th, 4th, and 3rd positions of the key in that order, in almost identical rhythm. In other words, play “Fancy” three keys higher and you have roughly the same first bar of the chorus. The relationship with the position in the key and the lyrics is outlined below. “Fancy” 7 5 4 3 I’m so fan-cy “Beg For It” 7 5 4 3 I know you like the The very first time I heard “Beg For It”, I couldn’t help but feel cheated. Iggy Azalea had repackaged a chorus, much in the same way that commercials do to emulate famous songs without having to pay for the license, or like how a movie will sing the “Happy Birthday Song” in an ever so slightly different way to avoid paying royalties. But Iggy Azalea is not avoiding any royalties. These choruses sound the same simply because they are written by the same person, Charli XCX. And after all, while Charli XCX is a successful songwriter, she is not a classically trained one, and mimicked her previous work in a haste to provide the eager Iggy Azalea audience with another song to buy. Of course, this could have been an intentional mimicking, attempting to trigger an unconscious association with the popular predecessor “Fancy”. But Charli XCX isn’t the only redundant songwriter in pop hop. While the previous example illustrates the reuse of a catchy hook, artists have also relied on the recycling production tools in their songs. In pop, some aspects of production have done particularly well in accentuating certain portions of the song, and thus have become heavily reused within the genre. The best modern example of this is the “hey, hey, hey...” chants found in may pop hop songs today. If you are having a hard time picturing these chants, below is a list of current songs and when these chants first begin within each song. “Fancy” by Iggy Azalea - 0:30 “I Don’t F#@! With You” by Big Sean - 1:00 “Who Do You Love” by YG - 0:40 “Rack City” by Tyga - 0:41 “I’m Different” by 2 Chainz - 0:43 “L.A.LOVE” by Fergie featuring YG - 0:38 “Na Na” by Trey Songs - 0:30 “2 On” by Tinashe - 0:43 “Don’t Tell Em” by Jerimih - 0:30 “You and Your Friends” by Wiz Khalifa - 0:09 To be clear, the background chants depicted in these songs are 100% identical, as if the track has literally been copied and pasted into each song. Not only this, but these tracks all begin at very similar points, entering the song at 36 seconds on average, and only deviating from that average about 13 seconds in either direction. In other words, these tracks are the same chants and are used in roughly the same way in tens of songs! In hindsight, it stands to reason that yet again, there is one culprit behind all of these songs, and his name is D.J. Mustard. Dijon McFarlane, AKA D.J. Mustard is a partial writer of each and every one of these songs except Iggy Azalea’ Fancy. Furthermore, he is affiliated with Def Jam, the label to which all the listed artists belong. Here again reflects a situation where one individual is projecting one- dimensional songwriting either due to a lack of creativity, or an effort to squeeze every last penny out of one original idea. This begs the question, why does this bother me? And why does it bother many of us consumers who cynically proclaim, “All pop sounds the same”? It’s because music is an art, not a commodity. We want our airplanes to be designed well, and sold for decades, but we want every song, every album, and every performance to be original. But the truth is that pop music is a commodity in many ways, and punctuated nuances are destined to become trends and re-treads, and in part for good reason. I personally quite enjoy some of the songs I pointed out earlier as being unoriginal, and even paid for them. I just don't find them musically inspiring. Accordingly, I can leave you with some information that you already certainly knew as a musician. If you are looking to be a student of music, or to reach a higher level of adulation and gratification for truly artistic music, don’t listen to pop. If on the other hand, you’re just looking for some catchy music to put on in the car while you zone out, or a fun beat to dance to, turn the dial to the local pop station and enjoy. Just be prepared to have that familiar thought, “Have I heard this before”? The Score Magazine www.thescoremagazine.com 19