Production Cliches

[joeysimms]

yes, "2000 man" is a good tasteful example of that....

2000 Man by the Stones? Is this a cover you're talking about?

I think he is talking about the first song on the software slump..

I've never heard it, is it a cover of the stones' song?

Leathur. Yards and yards of tight, shiny leathur.

[citizenkeith]

You forgot one thing, writing a decent fucking song might be nice as well.
Pax, Steve

Well, I was just talking about production techniques. Of course, a good song rules... but that's also a little subjective, isn't it?

[YOUR KONG]

After the bridge, go back into the verse with just vocals over a twinkly synth arppeggio. Very 2002, I remember it on acts from Jimmy Eat World to Disturbed. Especially lame if the band doesn't have an actual keyboardist.

Guitars and/or cymbals that could be just sampled TV static.

[corinpills]

at least 50% of all of the emo bands who play at the club where I work have got at least 1 song where after the bridge, everything drops out except the whiny singer and all the rest of the guys in the band clapping. usually all the girls and guys-in-girl's-jeans in the audience clap along. it almost always goes from there to a snare roll (to give the other dudes time to get their hands back on their SG's) and then the singer/guitarist does a distorted slide down on the E string (or a pickscrape) to the last chorus which is played for nearly as long as the rest of the song combined. then they say, "Thanks" to every human being in the club.. crowd, bartenders, door guy, promoter... EXCEPT the soundguy who's been pushing the monitors way beyond a volume that they've EVER heard their vocals in practice. psh... next they sell a shitload of crappy cd's and get laid after the show.

.

That sounds great! Where do I sign up?

[apropos of nothing]

Strummed guitars, nearly as a whole (accented strumming-patterns are cool. Strumming on every half, quarter, eighth, sixteenth is not.). Dudes who can't carry a tune in a bucket attempting to "sing". Tom-fills (Tom patterns are cool -- diggadiggadiggadiggabuddabuddaboom is trite as hell). Four on the floor pretty well sucks.

I'm getting a little tired of skwonk as a baseline. I appreciate skwonk as a dynamic device, but a whole show/album of it gets tiring.

Oh, and songs about relationships. There're other things in the world. How about songs about places. Or songs about someone who is not your ex/girlfriend/boyfriend.

Basically my aesthetic is that dynamic is cool. Lack of dynamic is tiring. I'd rather tread across a bajillion dynamic trite-isms than suffer a single song of non-dynamic. Sucks for me, cuz the non-dynamic aesthetic has been "in" since the early nineties. The pendulum's gotta swing.

[flanneljammies]

I'm getting a little tired of skwonk as a baseline. I appreciate skwonk as a dynamic device, but a whole show/album of it gets tiring.

What's a skwonk?

[Rolsen]

The sound that results from trying really hard to sound like you've not tried too hard.

[Dr. Sausage]

Strummed guitars, nearly as a whole (accented strumming-patterns are cool. Strumming on every half, quarter, eighth, sixteenth is not.)

Whats wrong with strummed guitar?

[corinpills]

Four on the floor pretty well sucks.

.

Umm, I don't know about that. Maybe it's overdone, but four on the floor worked on a lot of great soul music and a lot of rock bands do it really well. Now, four on the floor with the bass drum on all the off beats, I can do without.

[nacho459]

at least 50% of all of the emo bands who play at the club where I work have got at least 1 song where after the bridge, everything drops out except the whiny singer and all the rest of the guys in the band clapping. usually all the girls and guys-in-girl's-jeans in the audience clap along. it almost always goes from there to a snare roll (to give the other dudes time to get their hands back on their SG's) and then the singer/guitarist does a distorted slide down on the E string (or a pickscrape) to the last chorus which is played for nearly as long as the rest of the song combined. then they say, "Thanks" to every human being in the club.. crowd, bartenders, door guy, promoter... EXCEPT the soundguy who's been pushing the monitors way beyond a volume that they've EVER heard their vocals in practice. psh... next they sell a shitload of crappy cd's and get laid after the show.

I had a band that wanted to do those claps on their CD, and I flat out wouldn't let them.

I hate the over use of bands saying stuff like I want this to sound Vintage.

[joeysimms]

The sound that results from trying really hard to sound like you've not tried too hard.

[Dr. Sausage]

I had a band that wanted to do those claps on their CD, and I flat out wouldn't let them.

I hate the over use of bands saying stuff like I want this to sound Vintage.

[twitchmonitor]

Room, room, room.

[oobedoob]

Basically my aesthetic is that dynamic is cool. Lack of dynamic is tiring. I'd rather tread across a bajillion dynamic trite-isms than suffer a single song of non-dynamic. Sucks for me, cuz the non-dynamic aesthetic has been "in" since the early nineties. The pendulum's gotta swing.

I remember one particular band practice trying to explain how I wanted dynamics like bebop-- fast = FAST!!!!! slow = SSSSSLLLLLOOOOOOWWWW.
Same with loud and soft.

Thing is, I can only listen to bebop for so long before I start wanting to take a break and listen to Dave Brubeck or something. Metaphorically speaking, that is....

[apropos of nothing]

I'm getting a little tired of skwonk as a baseline. I appreciate skwonk as a dynamic device, but a whole show/album of it gets tiring.

What's a skwonk?

skwonk/skronk/squonk. Its a adjective used to describe a band who heard Sonic Youth and thought, well, that's cool, but they're just a little melodic. Sometimes used to describe '70s fusion or some of the new free jazz as well.

Strummed guitars, nearly as a whole (accented strumming-patterns are cool. Strumming on every half, quarter, eighth, sixteenth is not.)

Whats wrong with strummed guitar?

Nothing in itself -- see below.

Four on the floor pretty well sucks.

Umm, I don't know about that. Maybe it's overdone, but four on the floor worked on a lot of great soul music and a lot of rock bands do it really well. Now, four on the floor with the bass drum on all the off beats, I can do without.

I'm not really describing soul or rock uses there (though I prefer the soul to the rock) -- what I'm talking about is drum-machine 4/floors. Just been to one too many dance-clubs where this is what I heard all evening.

None of the examples cited and responded to are all that bad in and of themselves. If there's a skwonky song or a four on the floor groove song or a strummy strong, I'm all okay with that.

A whole album or whole set of any of these is likely to wear on me pretty quick.

I know some of you have been rippin on overstated dynamic, and I can dig that. But I'd rather hear overstated dynamic than no dynamic at all, which when I go to clubs, I hear rather a lot more of that than I'd strictly prefer to.

That's all I'm saying.