oh and by the way: I think one main place you see this often -- from the early 90s through the present -- is in loopy electronic music, for reasons having to do with the recording process, and the way that "writing" and "production" are the same step. if you're toying with loops or arranging a song and you solo a particular track, you might suddenly hear some rhythm in it that's counter to the rhythm of the whole song (especially with things like fluttery loops or three-step delays or arpeggios, etc.), and that becomes really easy to play with. so I feel like in a lot of (say) early-90s loop-based electronic stuff, you'd get people who'd bring out something like that and then switch the beat around -- and these days you get the same thing from acts like the Field, where there are lots of rushy loops and delays going on that could be placed against the downbeat on whatever rhythm you wanted.
that same tracking process seems like a thing with rock bands, too -- basically anyone who writes/assembles music using a computer is going to be that much more likely to solo one instrument, notice another way it could fall against the rhythm, loop it, think about it, and maybe write a bit into the intro or something that toys with that.
― oɔsıqɐu (nabisco), Thursday, 19 November 2009 01:57 (fourteen years ago) link
Do any Grateful Dead songs have a downbeat?― Meade Lex Louis (James Redd and the Blecchs)
― Meade Lex Louis (James Redd and the Blecchs)
― Mark, Thursday, 19 November 2009 02:00 (fourteen years ago) link
As far as the intro to"Just What I Needed," you want to hear the big chord as ONE. I listened to it all the way through several times and tried to count it out and when the downbeat came I knew I was off but my brain immediately corrected so I didn't know how far off. So finally I just backtracked a few seconds and then I was immediately able to tell that the big chord was on FOUR or FOUR,FOUR-AND.
― Meade Lex Louis (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 19 November 2009 02:06 (fourteen years ago) link
This commercial fools you into thinking that the keyboard part is on the downbeat until the rest of the instruments come in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQwdfhwYdS0
― Evan, Thursday, 19 November 2009 03:48 (fourteen years ago) link
Lennie Tristano - Line Up
http://www.google.com/url?url=http://popup.lala.com/popup/360569458054722392&rct=j&ei=Jd4ES7-mFo7ilAelwvSjDA&sa=X&oi=music_play_track&resnum=1&ct=result&cd=2&ved=0CAgQ0wQoADAA&q=lennie+tristano+line+up&usg=AFQjCNH0UyDyrjCBMH_aa_fHfDjbIlHkbQ
I have actually spent YEARS trying to understand all of the faux-shifts in this, and I still can't figure out what's going on from about 1:10 to 1:28
― Bay-L.A. Bar Talk (Hurting 2), Thursday, 19 November 2009 05:59 (fourteen years ago) link
Sparks - Decline and Fall of Me. I also have this happen in my head with a lot of Ethiopian music where, if I concentrate hard enough, the entire mood and context of the song shifts.
― mason, Thursday, 19 November 2009 07:08 (fourteen years ago) link
Drive My Car introEverybody's Got Something To Hide Except For Me And My Monkey intro
"I'm Free" The Who, back and forth verse and chorus are seemingly different downbeats
― billstevejim, Thursday, 19 November 2009 07:44 (fourteen years ago) link
Devo "Satisfaction" is my favorite one listed here so far.. sooooo disorienting.
― billstevejim, Thursday, 19 November 2009 07:45 (fourteen years ago) link
relax! it is survivor, not limp bizkit.
I prefer Limp Bizkit to Survivor fwiw.
― billstevejim, Thursday, 19 November 2009 07:47 (fourteen years ago) link
Re: All Along The Watchtower, I haven't heard it incorrectly in so long, I forgot that this was one of those disorienting intros.. I recall being in 5th or 6th grade and forcing myself to hear it correctly.
The intro of "A Day In The Life" is like this also but only because the fadeout from "Sgt Pepper (reprise)" makes it difficult to hear where the song actually begins.. If you hear the version on "1967-1970" the downbeat is obvious.
― billstevejim, Thursday, 19 November 2009 07:58 (fourteen years ago) link
"The Impression That I Get" intro, and prolly lots of ska
― billstevejim, Thursday, 19 November 2009 08:03 (fourteen years ago) link
I always found it fun to try and do that, then switch back and forth in my head, like you do with one of those drawings that's two things at once -- you know, how fast can your brain flip back and forth from interpreting it the right way to the backward way
yeah, i think this is actually a super important musician skill. like if you're playing with someone and they do an intro that you know you're feeling wrong, being able to force your brain to shift to the correct downbeat.
― hey trader joe's! i've got the new steely dan. (Jordan), Thursday, 19 November 2009 15:03 (fourteen years ago) link
the first note of the tuba bassline is on the & of 1 (or on the 2 if you're counting double time), used to be hard for me to feel it right away:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1LlnrL1Jis
― hey trader joe's! i've got the new steely dan. (Jordan), Thursday, 19 November 2009 15:05 (fourteen years ago) link
still lolling at the double-time confusion, I usually don't do that
― lift this towel, its just a nipple (HI DERE), Thursday, 19 November 2009 15:06 (fourteen years ago) link
switch back and forth in my headThis is very easy to do when listening to reggae.
― Meade Lex Louis (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 19 November 2009 15:12 (fourteen years ago) link
Metallica - Fight Fire with FireMetallica - BatteryMetallica - Blackened
― Chuffed Wiff Morrisound (Thijs), Thursday, 19 November 2009 15:17 (fourteen years ago) link
Also: Immortal - Hordes to War, but that's just because it's such a perfect 'Fight Fire with Fire' rip-off.
― Chuffed Wiff Morrisound (Thijs), Thursday, 19 November 2009 15:21 (fourteen years ago) link
i think it comes up a lot with dancehall/clave-ish beats. i know different people in my own band count it differently, which can make for the same kind of fun when you try and talk about it.
― hey trader joe's! i've got the new steely dan. (Jordan), Thursday, 19 November 2009 15:23 (fourteen years ago) link
super important musician skillYou will often hear people say about various cats "he plays all the syncopated stuff, but he knows where the one is at all times."
Also, in Latin music, everybody talks about the clave, but underneath even that is the downbeats, the 1 & 3, which some people call the pulse. In a typical performance, nobody is playing the pulse, maybe nobody is even playing the clave, but everybody knows where it is.
― Meade Lex Louis (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 19 November 2009 15:28 (fourteen years ago) link
i think it comes up a lot with dancehall/clave-ish beats. i know different people in my own band count it differently, which can make for the same kind of fun when you try and talk about it.Haha. I've heard this. That some people insist you count it one way and some the other and I figured some of them would be in the same band.
I imagine somebody like an Earl Palmer could just mentally keep clicking a little button and shift from hearing an 8th to a 16th to a 32nd to a 64th note.
― Meade Lex Louis (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 19 November 2009 15:32 (fourteen years ago) link
the & of 1
This guy says you should think of an "and" as belonging to the beat that comes after instead of the beat that comes before. He says "you have to pick your foot up before you can put it down" or something like that.
― Meade Lex Louis (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 19 November 2009 15:38 (fourteen years ago) link
I guess it's hard to see the link coloration for "This guy," who is http://www.michaelspiro.com/
― Meade Lex Louis (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 19 November 2009 15:40 (fourteen years ago) link
Not sure if this counts but the chorus in Pet Shop Boys "King's Cross" comes one beat ahead every time it appears.
― one boob is free with one (daavid), Thursday, 19 November 2009 16:46 (fourteen years ago) link
...actually I listened again and no, it's not every time, it's "right" the first time. And I think it's two beats, not one.
― one boob is free with one (daavid), Thursday, 19 November 2009 16:52 (fourteen years ago) link
Beatles - "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey". Great beat that manages to fool me every time until the "take it easy" part
― Dominique, Thursday, 19 November 2009 16:59 (fourteen years ago) link
that's a good one. i managed to listen to the whole first track on Lindström - Where You Go I Go Too once with the beat all syncopated, it was cool
― sonderangerbot, Thursday, 19 November 2009 17:43 (fourteen years ago) link
Syncopation rules the nation. You can't get away from it.
― Meade Lex Louis (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 19 November 2009 17:46 (fourteen years ago) link
'"The Impression That I Get" intro'
Hey how many of you hear"Never had to, knock on wood"versus"Never had to knock on wood"
also:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XR9d4ESlpHY&feature=player_embedded
― Philip Nunez, Thursday, 19 November 2009 18:14 (fourteen years ago) link
Blur - BeetlebumVan Halen - Panama
― Gavin in Leeds, Thursday, 19 November 2009 18:35 (fourteen years ago) link
Van Halen - Panama
on the ma, right?
― andrew m., Thursday, 19 November 2009 18:54 (fourteen years ago) link
The Shaggs, that's taking it to a whole other level.
― It Ain't The Meme (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 19 November 2009 18:54 (fourteen years ago) link
lots and lotsa dance tunes which fade in
― andrew m., Thursday, 19 November 2009 18:55 (fourteen years ago) link
Well it's really just the guitar/kick drum intro that fools me but yeah.
― Gavin in Leeds, Thursday, 19 November 2009 18:57 (fourteen years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeMHetUOdYQ
― rent, Friday, 20 November 2009 01:28 (fourteen years ago) link
I'm never able to make sense of the beat on Mary Margaret O'Hara's "Not Be Alright". For its duration all I can think about is why I can't make sense of it, and about whether I should be able to identify it as being in 17 / 9 time or whatever, and confusion curdles into disorientation and resentment, and I can't tell whether the nausea is an effect of my experience of the music, or of my awareness of my experience of the music, or of both, and then I conclude (not before time) that it really isn't worth it.
― Neil Willett, Friday, 20 November 2009 07:59 (fourteen years ago) link
I believe the beginning of Styx's "Too Much Time On My Hands" qualifies for this thread.
― Sean Carruthers, Sunday, 22 November 2009 00:42 (fourteen years ago) link
Clipse "I'm Good"
― billstevejim, Saturday, 28 November 2009 16:39 (fourteen years ago) link
a touch of this to Bruce Springsteen "Glory Days"
― sonderangerbot, Saturday, 28 November 2009 20:59 (fourteen years ago) link
Alan Parsons likes to do this especially with his instrumentals
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=td56XAHxLpw
Skip to like 1:30 unless you dig intros
― chocolatepiekid, Sunday, 29 November 2009 01:46 (fourteen years ago) link
A lot of Aphex Twin songs are like this, off the top of my head "Heliosphan" from SAW 85-92, and the untitled 7th track from his Polygon Window album "Surfing on Sine Waves" does this super hardcore.
― Stevie D, Sunday, 29 November 2009 02:16 (fourteen years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLJgCHPO0ig
At about 4:22 the snare hits go away and you sort of choose to hear the song as having the downbeat on the snare or the kick.
― Stevie D, Sunday, 29 November 2009 02:22 (fourteen years ago) link
Phil Collins - In the Air Tonight
― sonderangerbot, Tuesday, 5 January 2010 06:10 (fourteen years ago) link
up til where the drums kick in that is, after that he isn't fooling anyone
― sonderangerbot, Tuesday, 5 January 2010 06:14 (fourteen years ago) link
"Cannonball" by the Breeders.
― Maltodextrin, Tuesday, 5 January 2010 07:35 (fourteen years ago) link
^^^ in the intro, I mean.
― Maltodextrin, Tuesday, 5 January 2010 07:38 (fourteen years ago) link
other Breeders songs that fool me:"Invisible Man""Glorious""No Way"
― cwkiii, Tuesday, 5 January 2010 13:32 (fourteen years ago) link
Metallica-Escape
― Bill Magill, Tuesday, 5 January 2010 14:43 (fourteen years ago) link
Part of me thinks techno must be full of these tracks and part of me thinks that they could be hard to find (at least on 12" cuts) what with the tradition of starting with drum intro for easier mixing.
Here's one though: Hardfloor - Strawberry Maze. Another "lone rhythmic bass noise in intro is actually off-beat" entry, but I'm not quite tired of them yet.
― ⍨ (a passing spacecadet), Tuesday, 5 January 2010 16:50 (fourteen years ago) link
The first few times I heard "Elevation" by GTO, I couldn't hear the synth riff on the correct beat so the entrance of the drums 4 bars later was always a surprise:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0Fh4M-Its4&feature=related
― i accidentally touched the nub and it was squishy (HI DERE), Tuesday, 5 January 2010 16:53 (fourteen years ago) link
Small Faces "Afterglow" - no matter how many times I listen to this song (which is fantastic although terribly marred by shitty pseudo-stereo mixing. I would kill for a proper mono mix of this song...) I just cannot figure out what beat it starts on. by the time the drums come in everything is pretty simple, but the intro bars with just the acoustic guitars/singing/percussion is so very WTF
― larry craig memorial gloryhole (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 5 January 2010 16:57 (fourteen years ago) link