9weeks

After a lot of talk in the comments of the previous post, I decided to finally get started. Hopefully others will take a cue and follow the same timetable.

To recap: in this iteration of the 9weeks project, I hope to create a song which is stylistically similar to the other songs that will be contributed, and expect the same of those songs by concurrent mechanism. Additionally, in keeping with the theme of “image to sound” I will examine the various ways that visual and psychovisual cues affect our interpretations of music.

In the comments I talked a lot about how music in the 1980s had a very specific range of tempos and was therefore audibly similar even when the styles of that music were radically different. I think this is why we can group such disparate artists as A Flock Of Seagulls, The Time and Eddie Money under the umbrella term of “80s”, although having a time period for these artists certainly provides an easy denomer. Even so, take some copies of “I Ran”, “777-9311″ and “Take Me Home Tonight” and see how easy it is to mix them together. You barely need to adjust the pitch!

The 80s are often seen as a benchmark era due to the fact that they represent the turning point from the industrial age to the information age. This was evoked in popular music of the time by using mechanism as a metaphor for relationships and sexuality. There are many examples: Dazz Band’s “Joystick,” Zapp and Roger’s “Computerlove,” Parliament’s Computer Games album and the song “Flashlight,” Midnight Star’s “Operator” and “Freak-A-Zoid,” and virtually everything by Kraftwerk.

In contrast, the recent retro revival in modern music today, which references that era of music, are almost completely devoid of lyrical abstraction and in fact offer unusually concrete lyrics. Gwen Stefani is a good example, as is the lesser known Chromeo.

Images are, themselves, not concrete things; you can’t drive a picture of a Ferrari or swim in a river on a map. By definition, lyrical imagery follows the same rules. Therefore I intended start out to write lyrics for this song that would evoke a metaphorical imagery similar to the songs I noted above. Following the same general rule as those bands, I picked a piece of technology from the modern age and created a story around it which can be interpreted either literally or figuratively.

Here, then, are the lyrics for my proposed 118 BPM pop song, “Laptop”:

She’s got beautiful design
Turning heads wherever she goes
But it’s much more than skin deep
She displays a bright and gorgeous glow

And right before your eyes
She can do the same things as the girls at home
A little slower for the same price
But she’s optimized for on-the-go

And when we’re movin’ together
To the rhythm of the city beat
We’re a steadfast team whose growth will never slow
‘Cause when that train hits the station
And I’m back up on my feet
I can bring her anywhere I want to go
She’s my laptop

And all my people say hey (hey) hey (hey)
Aren’t you worried that you’ll lose the girl
In the hotel rooms and cafes
See you drag her all around the world

Then you give her lots of sensitive data
‘Till there ain’t no secrets left
She could be long gone tomorrow
Then you’ll suffer from identity theft

‘Cause when she asks for the password
And I whisper to her in her ear
I know my information is secure
‘Cause she’s got secret encryption
‘Cause my info’s near and dear
And that’s how I know I’m the one for her
She’s my laptop

(On a side note, many of these lyrics were taken verbatim from adverts for the new Apple MacBook and the WikiPedia entry on laptops.)

Next week: assessing production: Virtual analog synths and classic drum machine samples!