The Science of Music...
For the past 8 months or so, unless you've been living under a rock, you've been hearing a song on pretty much constant loop about some girl on girl action. Whether or not Katy Perry actually kissed said girl and liked it, I do not pretend to know. But I do know why the song grew on you, why you probably didn't like it at first but later spent a dollar on iTunes just to hear it when you wanted, and why every time you're in the club you actually expect girls to start going at it when the song drops. It's the science of music.
If you take a close listen to "I Kissed A Girl," you'll notice something sounds very different about it than other pop songs from the past 5 years or so. It's the drumbeat. When Timbaland made his comeback in 2006 with the slew of hits he had for Nelly Furtado, JT, and others, he brought four on the floor back to pop and hip-hop. Four on the floor is where every beat has a kick- you've heard it a million times before in almost all dance/house/trance music, and more recently in Timbaland's "Way I Are"- try counting 1-2-3-4 to any of these songs and you'll hear the repetitive, thumping kick every beat.
Four on the floor is great, but it gets tiresome after a while, as does any music predicated around glowsticks and Ibiza. Pretty soon after Timbo brought it back, every producer and his mom was making beats with the same 4/4 drums. So Katy Perry's producer did something different. He gave her track what you can call a 12/8 beat. The terminology isn't important, so don't let it confuse you. All it means is that Katy Perry's track has a certain triplet timing to it- if you count the beats, instead of going 1-2-3-4, they make you want to count "a-trip-ah-let" for each beat. There's a rolling feel to the beat that makes it extremely catchy. One of the tricks to successful music is that it doesn't let the listener get bored. But really successful music walks a very thin line- it's new and catchy, but it stays within the range of what people know from previous music they've heard and isn't too far out there. Dr. Luke, who produced the track for Perry, knows this very well.
As you might have noticed, the music industry is based upon one business principle: ride it 'til the wheels fall off. When someone finds a formula that works, it is copied by anyone and everyone. That's why after Katy Perry exploded on the charts, a whole bunch of new songs had a very similar drumbeat. Christina Aguilera's "Keeps Gettin' Better," Pink's "So What," and most recently, Britney Spears' "Womanizer" all have a derivative of Perry's 12/8 hit. And you'll be hearing a lot more of it until your boy drops something brand new in the 09.
It's the coolest part of my job, and why I think record producing is one of the most powerful jobs you can have. A skilled producer can make you want to dance, want to cry, or just throw a 'bo in the club. It may just seem like a hot track to you, but somewhere in a studio at 5AM a year earlier, a record producer made you feel that way before you even knew it.
"I Kissed a Girl"
"So What"
"Womanizer"
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