Another entry in the music countdown gives us another pair of songs that share a connection. Instead of a thematic connection or a shared country of origin, the similarity in these songs is that they're not laid out like your typical radio hit. There will be plenty of uniquely structured long songs on this countdown, but these entries are unique to the list in that they're both able to be creative while staying brief (in fact, they are the two shortest songs on the countdown).
#16: Feiticeira - Deftones
#15: White Rabbit - Jefferson Airplane
The vast majority of songs you hear on the radio follow roughly the same pattern: verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, done. It's a well-established formula for success that even some of the songs on this countdown follow ("Sprawl 2" for example). I fully understand the merits of such songwriting, and am more than willing to celebrate it when it is done right (being creative within such confines can often be the most impressive work of all). The problem is that some modern musicians seem to fall into a bit of a trap when trying to compose new music. It's a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy in that the majority of hit songs follow the same pattern, so if one wants to write a hit song, you need to follow that pattern. In that light, the argument put forth by these two songs is one of dyamicism. If a band is able to break free from the structure of popular music, then you can acheive so many things that you couldn't before.
The Deftones have always managed to ride the line between conventional and experimental to their advantage. They've been able to balance their big hits ("My Own Summer" and "Change (In the House of Flies)" being the two biggest) with their less radio-friendly fare quite well. What makes them truly great is how many similarities you can find between those groups of songs. While songs such as "Pink Maggit" and "Fireal/Swords" forgo the chorus/verse structure entirely, their appearances and the end of albums doesn't come from nowhere. Songs like "My Own Summer" do fall into the standard pattern mentioned at the top of the post, but they differ in an important way. Instead of playing the same chorus three times, the chorus builds on itself each time through. By my extremely hasty count, about a dozen Deftones songs fall into this modified standard template, which adds a fantastic wrinkle to radio-friendly songs.
"Feiticeira" doesn't quite fall into this pattern, but it is a great song with a unique structure all it's own. The frantic pace and vocals reflect the fact that the song is sung from the voice of someone being thrown in a car and kidnapped. The song works on its own merits, but is even stronger when you consider it as a bit of meta-commentary on how the experience of the album as a whole will make the listener feel. When we return to the car motif later in the song "Passenger," we find that the captor hasn't let go yet, and the narrator has actually grown fond of the situation ("still I want some more" sings frontman Chino Moreno). White Pony is a great album for many reasons, but what is most impressive is how well everything flows together. "Feiticeira" then is much more than just a great song; it is the crucial beginning to a larger masterpiece.
To prove that I do occasionally listen to music that's older than me, Jefferson Airplane makes an appearance on the list.* Anytime I hear "White Rabbit" in a movie or television show, it makes me enjoy the song that much more. The song is clearly about the effects of drug use, but not every appearance is concerned with that. One of my favorite uses is in David Fincher's underrated The Game. In the movie, Michael Douglas' character is unsure of whether or not what is happening is part of an alternate reality his brother bought for him. The song appears near the middle of the film, when it seems that he's starting to lose grip on what is reality and what isn't. In this way, the song is about more than simply drug use; it is about dealing with the loss of control that comes with any extraordinary event. The song's gradual crescendo only adds to the intensity of that feeling, and thus makes it a great song which is served well, both thematically and sonically, by its non-standard structure.
*If you go to the Backer around 8 PM, DJ Drew will totally play "White Rabbit" for you if you ask nicely. The song fits the Backer well.
Runners-up:
I could probably write a whole post about my favorite Deftones songs and albums, but I don't know if even I would read that. White Pony is generally though to be their seminal work, and as you could probably already tell, I agree wholeheartedly with that sentiment. I could have chosen many other songs off of that album to be on this list ("Digital Bath" or "Knife Prty," for example), as well as a few off of other albums ("Hexagram" off of their self-titled album is fantastic). In the end, I went with "Feiticeira" because it sets the tone so well for one of my favorite albums of all time.
I'm not quite as familiar with the complete works of Jefferson Airplane, but I do thoroughly enjoy the Coen brothers' film A Serious Man, which is centered around what is probably their most famous song, "Somebody to Love."
No comments:
Post a Comment