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David said:
Culchies will be shocked- Garth Brooks is like the Messiah to them.
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Culchies doing line dancing: fucking hell.

David said:
They'll probably still drive all the way up to Croke Park in their cowboy boots and stetson hats to see him perform again irregardless.
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He certainly does know how to put on a show. My ex-bassist Paul Bushnell has been playing with Tim McGraw over the last few years. McGraw's apparently a big deal over the pond and he shifts lots of copy. His stages are monster, massive screens, fuck-off PA, lights, projections, stage gymnastics, the works. In fact, the tour bus he had designed for the core of the band and crew has a gym on board. Either that or one of the buses is the gym, not sure which, but he's a fitness fanatic and Papa Bush has to stay trim to keep his spot. He'd boot me for saying that, and he'd be right. He's fucking unbelievably talented, and he paid his dues right from the start.

Heading out on tour with McGraw no alcohol on the road or behind the stage, drinks can be had with dinner, etc - but no drunkenness is tolerated. Gigs on that scale need the players to be able to hold the entire show together: the lights are programmed, you have to know where on the stage you're supposed to be, no different to the dancers/backing vocalists. If you're not in the right place, you might fuck someone else's moment up. Either or/and both, you're fired. No boozers. No dopers. No two left feet either.

Here's Papa Bush:



A shot of the staging:



When there's this much riding on every show every night, one fuck-up can see you out of work for a very long time. Try acting the bollocks with even McGraw's production and there are literally dozens and dozens of people ready to kick your fucking arse you, you just got them fired too. The investment on one night of a tour of this scale has to be multiple times the investment of making it happen at all, all expenses considered.

It's one thing to be a rick and roll star like Oasis. You can pretty much do what you like so long as you don't attract any negative attention or too many bum notes. Get drunk, stay sober enough to play. Get high, but not high enough that you forget where you fucking are and why. Have a punch-up? The Gallagher brothers milked it already. Every player they take on is disposable, can be replaced in one hour with one phone call.

McGraw's playing to a Christian audience - not that he's some mental case religious freak. Like many Americans, he's in it for the lifestyle. Maybe he goes to church, I don't know. Bush doesn't, I know that much. But every line-up's going to feature new guys and first timers at some point, it's next to impossible to keep one hired band of players going outside the legal obligations and booked dates. One guitarist can't do any dates after June - now they have to drill the new guy so he knows what's going on and when.

Get drunk and blow a song on a tour like that and you're toast.

You're done - stick a fork in your ass and roll over.

David said:

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I cannot for the life of me stomach that fat bastard's voice.

I hope his spleen attacks his esophagus and chokes him to death.

Here's some Tim McGraw: 'One Bad Habit' (live 2024)



Papa Bush is over on stage right, under his ear goggles, which is a mystery to me.
 
Here's one for the Cap'n: I'm in a James Brown kinda Sunday afternoon mood and have his back catalogue blaring while I'm preparing tonight's traditional Irish Sunday roast dinner. Nam nam. But the big question is: listen to the horns and the snare drum? Notice anything strange happening? If you can measure the loop of the snare/horns in the verses and listen to how it crosses over the chorus section, what did James have his players do?

This is the simple brilliance of Brown's genius, he hears things that aren't there, so he wants the arrangements to nod to them even if they're actually in the wrong place, then right place, then the wrong place again. And all the while, he moves the song along like a speeding train. His mathematical skills are clearly evident in this track more so than too many others - bar The Payback, which is another day's work. But of Brown's entire back catalogue, these two are the grooves I like to jam along with and smile at James's seemingly crackpot ideas that technically shouldn't work yet they really do.

Snare and horns, Cap'n:

 
I was going to reply with a tongue-in-cheek A Flock Of Seagulls video, but decided against it.

I studied music and radio production with a small Irish company called Sound Track Services who back then provided Ireland's professional recording studio needs with both Ampex tape for analog multi-track recordings as well as designing and setting up massive custom-built mixing desks and outboards into their designated space with best quality international standard results. Their business model was excellent: they operated as a national endorser for Ampex but also for a number of mixing desk designers working with the (then) all-new SSL (Solid State Logic) digital recall functions which allowed engineers to build mixes channel by channel without losing any information down to the nano-second and to peak performance.

My studio/engineering tutor was a guy called Tony Faulkner, and the radio guy is Denis Murray:



He was a household DJ name in his day, but once he crossed into the studio recording end of things he was lost, hadn't a clue what was going on and in one case I was asked to take over lecturing and demonstrating modern programming methods from his fumbling about with drum machines and sequencers while he was clearly way out of his depth. A rude, gruff, ignorant son of a bitch, I gave him hell and he ultimately tore up my thesis submission at the end of the six months which I sent back to his boss who in turn made him change my grade and mark it down as a part-pupil part-tutor thesis from an experienced engineer, already working in the music business with maximum grades. He was pissed. Though he was even more pissed at the end of term party when I walked in the door with my then living partner and Ireland's top fashion model. His jaw hit the floor, as did everyone else's but in his case I smiled and winked and let him know what he was missing and with whom he was messing with.

I learned a lot from Tony: he was passionate about music and he was a great tutor. His previous work record was working as engineer on couple of albums by Nik Kershaw, and his tall tales of working with the little guy were awesome. Kershaw was extremely persnickety about his guitar tone. So much so that on some songs, he removed some strings from his guitar but still held down the chords (as though they were there) in one take, then removing the remaining strings and adding the ones previously removed to do exactly the same thing in time/sync with the previous take. It was a fucking awesome. Two takes of the same guitar: first with four strings, then another with just two strings. All of his tracks were recorded to click tracks so his drummers had to be tight, on point, and snappy.

Lots of pop songs are built around a few simple chords and by a rather obvious pop arrangement device we all recognize:

Intro
Verse I
Bridge I
Chorus I
Verse II
Bridge II
Chorus II
Middle 8th (usually with a key change)
Chorus
Verse III
Chorus (repeat)
Fade

The last two blocks (Chorus Repeat and/or Fade) are interchangeable and can be used both ways depending on how many mixes/versions are required (radio mix, usually three minutes max) or a club mix (usually a longer version with verses that have no singing and/or long solo breaks on) and then other more specific dance format versions (house/techno/drum&bass/etc) and finally a version with everything in but NO main vocals at all. This one is for television appearances where the vocal is live but the band are miming (see Old Grey Whistle Test/Top Of The Pops/Live At Three/etc).

Tony Faulkner had magic ears, much like Kershaw himself, so between the two of them they could take a three chord block-built song apart and transpose it into something that required an orchestrated arrangement featuring multiple musicians doing multiple takes. Then comes the mixing and mastering stage and that too requires a degree of magic from all of the players as well as engineers/producers.

I wasn't a huge fan of 1980s pop, bands like A Flock Of Seagulls, Howard Jones, The Safety Dance guys and so on weren't on my radar, but I did learn a lot about 80s music and production and it's stood the test of time. Here's one of Tony and Nik's better known tracks which did very well for him at the time:



There are dozens of ways of writing and crafting a song.
There are infinite ways to arrange it.
There are multiple ways to record it.
There are post-recording/final-stage things one can do with compression/ EQ/Mastering/etc.
Artwork and presentation also matters: image is half the content in the music business.

But it starts with a great song, and while there's no one-size-fits-all method, we all know a hit when we hear one. Lennon and McCartney worked well together, if the one wrote a verse/chorus structure, then the other would write a key change/middle eight that the first author didn't consider. Some write alone, think Leonard Cohen and/or John Denver. Some write as groups: think U2 and/or INXS. It's not a case of the songwriter coming in with a finished song ready for tape. It's down to the whole band jamming out the ideas and stretching their limits to maximum perfection.

You can add an orchestra, a street marching band, a funky horn section, a gospel choir, or anything else you might like, but without a song?

Forget it (think Sigue-Sigue Sputnik/Frankie Goes To Hollywood/Bow-Wow-Wow, etc) - you're already history: you missed the bus, Pal.

One hit wonders.

Like Oasis - it's the same formula over and over again, and anyone who knows anything about music can spot it a mile off.

It's not even parody - it's simple theft.

Time doesn't favour crap, not even from Mancunian boneheads.
 
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