The Experts team have recently been sharing with each other what each considers to be a perfect pop track production. Of course the number of opinions equals the number of people in the room.
The track is considered using three metrics; the song, arrangement, and production/mix.
Russ Hughes is first to put his head above the parapet and tell us what he considers to be his perfect pop track production choice.
He suggests Human by the Killers, here’s his reasoning.
The Song
A good pop song has to have a hook. In other words an ear worm that gets in your head and can’t be shaken. The Killers have released a lot of great songs but Human is a track that cuts the mustard when it comes to the hook.
The hook “Are we human, or are we dancer” is an instant hook both in terms of melody and rhythm, first rising and then descending melodically. As any pop hook should be, it’s also simple melodically and rhythmically, that’s not a prerequisite for a catchy song, but it helps
What this song proves is that the lyrics of a song do not have to be understood to be catchy. The song has received a lot of criticism over the years because the line “are we human, or are we dancer” is considered grammatically incorrect. To be fair, pop history is littered with grammatically incorrect lyrics, with lorry loads of double-negatives used in countless hits.
However, the band explain the confusion about the lyric, according the Wikipedia;
On the band's official website, the biography section states that Flowers is singing "Are we human, or are we dancer?" and also says that the lyric was inspired by a disparaging comment made by Hunter S. Thompson, who stated that America was "raising a generation of dancers, afraid to take one step out of line".[14][15] From an interview:
Whatever the feelings, it’s a catchy lyric. Furthermore it does help me to explain my second reason for thinking the song is perfect… it doesn’t give the game away and leaves one wondering.
Some songs have said everything by the end of the first few lines. There is nothing to discover either lyrically or musically. There are no surprises and that’s boring. I love songs that keep me guessing and the simple melody of Human coupled with a lyric that keeps you guessing fits the bill in my book. For me the contentious line is the stuff of late night conversations. A quick Google of the subject seems to suggest it did that!
In some ways I don’t really care what the lyric is about, one could argue they have a metaphysical quality to them. That in of itself is rewarding to me as a listener.
The Arrangement
Now this is where I think the Killers are masters of music production. For me a good arrangement is the key that unlocks a song and makes the whole process of mixing much easier.
The song starts with a low synth drone coupled with a snappy guitar riff bringing the sense of travelling on a train as it rolls along the track. It’s joined by a simple hi-hat riff. As the verse continues a second synth pad joins. All of these give space to the lyric and give it space to breathe. Furthermore the entire arrangement gives a sense of expectation wondering what’s coming next musically.
As the first verse comes to a close a four on the floor kick drum is introduced.
The first chorus remains relatively sparse with few additional musical embellishments, there’s a very simple guitar part blocking the chords on the first beat of each bar. The pumping synth helps to add the sense of movement in the arrangement.
As the first chorus ends, the drums come in with full power and are joined by a poly synth playing a catchy riff, along with other synths bolstering the arrangement. Although the kick remains as a four on the floor there’s some wonderful syncopated rhythms running across it. All of these rhythms help to add to the urgency throughout the entire song. It could have been so easy to cover the track in huge distorted guitars chugging away, thankfully that is resisted. The bass is a relatively simple arrangement chugging along, allowing the rhythmic elements to do the work of creating the rhythmic interest.
As the second verse starts many of the melodic chordal elements which drop out give the voice plenty of space to breathe again. There is however a really cool bit-crushed synth motif that helps to bring some new interest without distracting from the melody. In the second half of the second verse a huge pad returns to give weight and girth… it works. Even though the elements of the arrangement are economic, the entire arrangement feels full without ever fighting with the vocal line.
The second chorus contains more instrumentation, maintaining the same syncopated beat with four on the floor and using synth and guitar elements to add more interest. As we come to the end of the second chorus and begin to enter the middle eight there are some high synth strings that have an almost orchestral feel to them, perfect for introducing the middle eight.
The middle eight contains the same synth strings, drums, bass and vocals leading to a third chorus.
The third chorus is a breakdown, leaving many of the elements found in the opening of the song; as it nears the end it has a Pet Shop Boys quality, creating tension using a synth string part as it holds before delivering the last line of the chorus. The line never appears, another nice surprise… instead the line “you’ve got to let me know” is sung.
The song then moves to the final chorus which instead of repeating as one might expect it moves to an ending that invokes the image of someone walking off into the distance. There’s no last hurrah as is often the case in anthemic songs, instead the arrangement fades bringing the listener almost full circle to the opening.
Many of the arrangement ideas used in this song are similar to those employed by Coldplay. Large musical moments of power that recede when the vocals are sung to give them space to be heard. This makes the job of mixing the track far easier.
The Production/Mix
The first thing one notices about the track is that although this song is essentially an anthem, the vocals are modest. There’s not much double tracking and huge backing vocal stack, it’s intimate.
There are a few nice vocal production moments used in the song, notably the beating vocal that follows after Flowers sings the words “Clear your heart” and also the small use of backing vocals as he sings “Cut the cord.” The vocal has a nice saturated sound and a very tight intimate feel even though there’s a reverb used. There’s also some nice slap back used on the vocal in the second verse, possibly created using a tight short space with a long pre-delay.
In the chorus, the pumping synths are quite loud in the mix, however the clever arrangement allows this to happen without the vocals being lost. It gives the sense of weight without it feeling cluttered.
What is apparent is that the drums inhabit quite a narrow frequency range. There’s no fizzy hi-hats or splashy cymbals, this helps to give the mix a nice tight feel and allows the synths more space to inhabit the lows and highs and also the width of the mix. The synths wrap themselves around the sonic footprint of the mix.
The entire mix has a slightly distorted and grungy quality, which really helps to give the song a 12 bit eighties sound to it and gives nods to the aforementioned Pet Shop Boys as well as acts like New Order.
The Perfect Pop Song Production?
The combination of lyrics, arrangement, production and mix make human a magical song for me.
You may not be a fan of The Killers or this song, but for me it’s a masterclass in how getting the song, arrangement and production of a track to work together can produce great results.
Sometimes a great song is badly arranged, overproduced or badly mixed, meaning the song never really becomes all it could be.
In the case of Human I find all the elements work together to make it a perfect pop track production.
Discuss…