The Song Fight Bulletin Board

QotD: Is there a piece of minutia in a song that you are fascinated by?

For instance, I love the song "She's Not There" by the Zombies. Over the years, the thing I find myself enjoying the most about the song is listening to the singer as he tries to catch his breath on the 2nd chorus. It's just the smallest thing, a deep breath that someone with protools would've cleaned up if the song was recorded years later. But I love that little oddity and when I sing along, I always find myself doing the breath.

The way the vocal drops out for a second here and there during the verses of Lauryn Hill's Doo Wop (That thing). It just sounds like really bad punch-ins to me, and I can't believe you can have a monster hit like this with such careless tracking.

ken wrote:The way the vocal drops out for a second here and there during the verses of Lauryn Hill's Doo Wop (That thing). It just sounds like really bad punch-ins to me, and I can't believe you can have a monster hit like this with such careless tracking.

I hadn't noticed that until now!

Ever since I first learned that most of the lyrics to "In the Air Tonight" were improvised on the spot, I tend to picture Phil Collins in front of the mic, desperately trying to come up with the next line as he sings. It explains some of the odd structure of that song. I also wind up focusing on some of the cool production tricks they used to mask that structural looseness, such as spot-effecting single words of the performance.

I'm 100% positive that I have other examples of this, but none are coming to me right now. I'll probably post again as they do.

David Bowie's Reality is my favorite of his "late" period (now known as "mid"?) albums. In "New Killer Star" there's a bridge that appears early on, then repeats at the end. The first time around there's a slight intonation lift in the backing vocals when it returns to the verse. It's a great effect, subtly raising the harmonic center. At the end the bridge repeats, so you wouldn't expect that lift at the repeat, only when it resolves. But I hear it, like it was cut and pasted. Honestly, it might just be my ears playing tricks, but secretly I curse both him and Tony Visconti for even letting it suggest such a cheap production slip.

ken wrote:The way the vocal drops out for a second here and there during the verses of Lauryn Hill's Doo Wop (That thing). It just sounds like really bad punch-ins to me, and I can't believe you can have a monster hit like this with such careless tracking.

This is all over the Beatles (Paul McCartney's amateur backup band for the young ones). Except it involved razor blades instead of punch-ins.