When Bad Things Happen To Great Songs

Firstly, I want to thank Mike Senior, a Sound On Sound contributor, for the inspiration for this little ditty. Its been in my head for a while, but due to an article in the latest edition of the magazine, it was the prompt I needed to get my fingers tapping. I am not going into the technical side of things too much, Mike does a far better job in the article, but its more of a rant about, well, you will see.

"No Gospel Choir This Season? La La La I Can't Hear You"

Loudness, Strings and Key-Change Things The X-Factor, love it or hate it, you just can't get away from it. Some say that it has brought music to the masses, some say it is a great launch pad for talent without which they may not get their shot at recognition. I say it is an opportunity to recycle the same songs year after year and possibly ruin a few new ones to boot. Oh, and for people, who clearly have no friends kind enough to tell them they can't sing, to expose themselves (not literally, we have Britains Got Talent for that) to the ridicule of millions. Every once in a while a real talent (Leona Lewis for example) is found, whilst for the bulk of the contestants, who may get an album of material out of it, with a few key cover songs from the show thrown in to pack out the song-by-numbers tunes they are contractually tied in to recording, are soon forgotten, destined for a life of club personal appearances and maybe some gigs on the function room or even Butlins circuit. That is just the nature of the business that we call show. Oh yeah, don't forget the OK magazine "deals". They went into it, its not a new show format, so in part, they should expect what they are going to get. So I am not going to waste time writing about that, or for you to waste reading it, I think my contempt for it all is quite clear at this point. My big gripe really is the weekly shows that are put on and the tracks that are played and sometimes released on the back of this whole fiasco. Part of me wants to slap whichever publisher agrees to let them be used, and maybe some of the time the writer should stand up and say no, but for now, lets call them collateral damage in what appears to be a war against good songs. Year after year we can expect a bunch of the same tracks to be wheeled out with maybe the odd arrangement change. Yes, we refer to Somebody To Love, With a Little Help From My Friends, Angel of Harlem / One / I Still Haven't Found What I am Looking For, Angels (any Robbie goes down a storm) and maybe Tracks of My Tears. Let us not forget the famous Big Band, 60's / Motown, ABBA or Movie nights, where the same old same old tracks are crowbar'd into the evening, with tenuous links in some cases to what the night is meant to be all about. And breathe....... The main issue I have though, is in the arrangement of these tracks. Which is generally formulaic, for want of a better word, and for some reason the producers (yeah Cowell, that means you too!!!!) do because they think they know better than Messrs Mercury, May, Lennon et. al. You don't! I could try and explain the formula using some fancy comedy picture, but as I am not too great at this, see below... 1. Soft Start Pained expression? Check Solo acoustic guitar / piano? Check 2. Building 1st Chorus Bring up the level of the strings? Check Add a synth of more orchestral sections? Check 3. Building Verse / 2nd Chorus Looking even more pained, like having a full cavity search at airport?

"No, I didnt pack them bag myself, what ya gonna do 'bout it??"

Check More strings, synths, vocal level becoming inaudible? Check 4. Middle 8 / Bridge Bobbing head up and down whilst singing to the floor? Check Vocal levels becoming irrelevant in the mix with the other instruments shouting "listen to me!!!? Check 5. Delivery Of Motherload Key Change!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! One whole step? Check Check

Indoor fireworks?????? Check Check

Backdrop raising to reveal gospel choir????? CHECK CHECK CHECK, OH BABY CHEEEEEEECK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mixer - "Hey, is xxxx microphone even working?"

Producer - "Does it matter?"

Check

And thats how we do it baby! I have a similar formula for another type of entertainment, but we shall leave that for now.

Why Biffy? Why?

I suppose the final thought I have and need to mention is this years' sorry tale, with the winning track being a murdering of the Biffy Clyro masterpiece, Many of Horror (a name clearly too unsettling for the X-Factor audience to even dream of buying into!).

Now, this is a band that has been around for a long time and are just starting to reap the rewards they so richly deserve, but I can't help but think, why would a full on rock band, who had only released the track not too long ago, allow the producers / Cowell to, well, I won't use the "r" word, but lets be honest, the song would feel pretty grubby afterwards, "ruin" the song with such a shocking mix, arrangement and the unholiest of key-changes at the end?

Maybe the devil does indeed walk among us.

And maybe he wears his belt too high above his waist.....

Ritchie

Once again, thanks Mike for the inspiration!