Recording: Backbeat

In addition to maintaining a blog that almost no one reads, I also have a YouTube channel that almost no one views. It's where I upload covers of whatever I feel like covering.

This time, it's Backbeat by Dagny, a Norwegian pop singer I like. Naturally, I don't expect this one to be a big hit for Bad Gateway ^{(if Trent Reznor can be Nine Inch Nails, I can be Bad Gateway)}. This makes me thankful I'm not a real musician, and don't need to care about things like hits (unlike Dagny).

I think all music (even an amateur cover) is made of small, entertaining details. Here's some stuff I was thinking about when I was recording this:

• The repeated two-note bass harmonic at the beginning, inspired by the harmonic intro from Tom Petty's Mary Jane's Last Dance
• There are two tracks of me clapping that come in and out of the left and right ears at different times, sorta like the clapping part the end of Trains by Porcupine Tree. Mixing clapping to blend with the drums, but also be punchy is difficult.
• The bass guitar fill was fun, and sort of meant to feel like the palindromic bass fill at 3:44 of Paul Simon's You Can Call Me Al.
  • Fun fact: His fill is palindromic (mine was not) because the second half of it is just the first half played backward on tape. Bakithi Kumalo is a brilliant bassist.
• The "Hey. Hey. Hey hey hey hey!" bit at the end faintly in the left backing vocal was inspired by Coheed and Cambria's Blood Red Summer.
• Generally trying make use of negative space. What you don't play is sometimes more important than what you do.
• I was reading a Butch Vig article about music production and his experiences producing Nirvana's Nevermind and The Smashing Pumpkin's Siamese Dream albums, so I used a few production tips from there.
• Doing a guitar solo behind your head forces you to play differently than you normally would.

That's pretty much it, you should check out all the above albums/artists unless you hate objectively good music. Yeah, I said objectively. Take it up in the comments section. Oh wait, this blog is a Popocracy.

Also, here's my cover: