This weeks inspirational musical snippets

I’ve tried this week to keep in my mind, moments from snippets of music I’ve listened to that’s had an impact or inspired me. Most of them have come from music that I’d call my regular listeners but I’ve just paid attention to things that have stood out more, there have also been a few random songs that have through out a few snippets.

1. Lisa Loeb, Album: “Tails”, Track: ‘”It’s Over” This is a great album anyway, but listening to this song, the moment where the song moves from a melodic acoustic number to the full rock/pop tune with a simple pause and crash on the drums is great. A big part of it is how it just fits with the song, while augmented by a good drum/snare sound. Which brings me to #2
2. Lisa Loeb, Album: “Tails”, Track: all of them. The recorded drum sound on this album is great, as a sound it’s a good drum sound, especially the snare, a real snappy snare, but the drum sound suits the music perfectly. This will keep in my head to make sure in future the drum sound fits the individual song and the whole recording in general.
3. John Msyer, Album: “Continuum” , Track: “Gravity” Once of my favourite songs of all time, but the thing that gets me on this is the guitar solo, it’s got such a perfect sound, played on the bridge end pickups of a strat, harsh and tinny, in total contrast to the main guitars sound. The solo is short, and ever so simple, yet if you listen you can hear how skilful it is, each note isn’t struck but an arrangement of slides, hammers and pull offs. A fantastic bit of playing. I’ll try to keep in mind that less can often be more, especially in solos.
4. Perl Jam, Album: “Backspacer”, Track: “The Fixer” Two things hit me in this track, first of all how an almost non-existant guitar riff can lead a track, listen to the main guitar sound, it’s a wimpy fuzz sound that’s not even a stand out riff, more an improvisation in the background, yet it’s the thing that stands out most in the song and appears to be leading it. Genius. The second is the stereo guitar parts, great recording split left and right, two totally complimentary guitar parts, that work so well together you don’t really notice there are two parts rather than just one sound. The fuzz guitar panned hard to one sound with a funk style riff complimenting the bass, and the more classic rock sound blasting out controlled bursts on a wah pedal panned hard to the other side, writing, playing and recording quality.
5. Philip Sayce, Album: “Innerevolution”, Track: “Gimme Some More” it’s hard not to be influenced by Philip’s playing, but on this listen the playing and recording on “Gimme Some More” really captured  that modern take on Hendrix. The recording suggests a casual carefree jam, with ad-lib comments and guitar licks thrown in, it’s only when you actually focus and listen you realise how tight the band and song are and how good the recording is, it’s a testament to the players and recording engineers how natural and casually live this track sounds. This track has made me keep in mind how good natural music sounds, it doesn’t have to be over produced or multi-tracked, a natural live feel can really be a good thing.
6. John Mayer, Album: “Battle Studies”, Track: “Heartbreak Warfare”. Still impressed by this, the main guitar sound on this track, clean, but cleverly delayed simple guitar riff that’s bounced of the guitars trem in time with the delay. Way to pull a new sound out of nowhere and make it a key part of a song. I’ll try to work more on guitar sounds and the use of simple phrases rather than busy riffs.
7. Lisa Loeb, Album: “The Purple Tape” Track: all of them. In point #1 I reference the Lisa Loeb album “Tails” which is a professionally produced band album, the album “The Purple Tape” is the first recording of a lot of the songs that ended up on “Tails” (and Firecracker and Cake and Pie) in their original format of an acoustic guitar and singer. For me it’s really interesting listening to how some tracks translate to a full band track sound so different, yet retain the sound overall feel, while others just don’t translate at all and end up as acoustic songs. It really shows that working on a song and getting the structure and lyrics right allow you to then arrange that song into something much more than when it first started. (This is also true of point #6 with “Heartbreak Warfare”). If you can, Lisa Loeb put out a 2CD version of the purple tape ( here ) that has an interview that talks about the writing and recording of the songs. It’s worth while, and the whole process of viewing the two albums side by side is a good food for thought for song writers and producers.

These are all things that have hit me out of the music I’ve listened to this week. There has been much more that I’ve listened to and enjoyed, but these things stood out to me this week. I’ve love to hear what’s inspired other people this week and feedback on my comments.