On the way in to work, I heard yet another example of the deplorable trend of taking the vocal tracks of slow songs-- in this case, "The Kids Don't Stand a Chance" by Vampire Weekend-- and replacing the musical backing with a 120 beats-per-minute dance beat that sounds like it was generated by a high-end Casio keyboard. These turn up over and over, and every time it happens, it annoys me to no end.
But why should pop music be the only genre to get this treatment? Thus, a poll suggesting some other slow songs that ought(?) to receive this treatment:
Feel free to nominate your own favorites.
- Log in to post comments
More like this
As is often noted, most modern recordings of Christmas songs range from utterly bland to excruciatingly awful. There are some that sorta-kinda work, though, and a bare few that are brilliant:
In the interest of promoting, you know, music that doesn't suck, it's perhaps worth taking a look at what…
The kids are off at Grandma and Grandpa's, so Kate and I went out for a nice dinner Thursday night, and I found myself with a bit of time to blog... but no particular substantive ideas. The whole "publishers behaving badly" theme of last week seems to have run its course, between Random House re-…
Snowball, the sulphur-crested cockatoo, is an internet superstar. He's known for his penchant for grooving to music, notably Everybody by the Backstreet Boys. As the music plays, Snowball bobs his head and taps his feet in perfect time with it. If it speeds up or slows down, his rhythm does too. He…
Listen to the following three short audio samples. Your job is to say whether the tempo (the rate at which the notes are played) is speeding up or slowing down. Even if it sounds like it's maintaining the same tempo, make your best guess as to whether it's speeding up or slowing down.
[Update:…
4'33"
Tiny Dancer by Elton John, lol
Funny - I have no idea what you are talking about.
Sounds as though it might be for the better though.
Steve-
I had the same reaction. Just like when I hear someone complain about something on television.
I voted for Danny Boy, but that doesn't mean I won't go out and do a trance version of greensleeves. :P
@Cuttlefish
Thank you, that's beautiful you made my day ;)
It's been done a number of times with Canon in D. Check out how this kid rocks it with a guitar at about 160/min [est]
on Youtube. There are a lot of interpretations of Canon in D, the piece lends itself to improvisation.
Well, ya' learn something new.
It seems that there is glut of Canon Rock Composite here .
@Cuttlefish
what Thony Christie said :)
If it is on your iPod, delete it!
If it is on the radio, change channels. Duh.
f it is on your iPod, delete it!
If it is on the radio, change channels. Duh.
I see you're not familiar with the cornucopia of radio options in this area...
Man, do you know how many songs are already, without having enough self-awareness to know their roots, dance remixes of Pachelbel's Canon?
Re: remixes of Pachelbel's Canon: At least one comedian has ranted about it.
"Greensleeves" has also been done. My mother owns both of Kenny G's holiday albums, one of which includes an up-tempo version of "Greensleeves". I haven't heard anybody try this with "Silent Night", but Mannheim Steamroller recorded a dance-track arrangement of the Hallelujah Chorus on one of their Christmas albums (while on another of those albums they did the reverse, turning "Jingle Bells" into a slow song).
I had already had enough of this trend after the first two that I heard, back in the mid-to-late 1990s. "Total Eclipse of the Heart" is a pure power ballad, and making a dance version of it drained all of that power away. The original version of "Tom's Diner" was a capella (just Suzanne Vega singing, no instruments) with pauses thrown in for dramatic effect, and of course the dance version had to remove those pauses, which were a big part of why the original version was so effective. A good arranger like Chip Davis (he's the brains behind Mannheim Steamroller, mentioned above) might be able to get away with this. The perpetrators of the "Total Eclipse" and "Tom's Diner" remixes were hacks.