Hey N&G Fam! Welcome to another week of Mixtape Madness! Excited to share this mix with you:
Mixtape Madness · Playlist · 15 songs · 3 likes
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The following is a lengthy description about the mix and the concept behind it. You need not read to enjoy, but may want to for discussion purposes.
So for my Mixtape Madness, I thought I’d do something a bit different than previous curators. Instead of a well-thought out amalgamation of genre-specific or mood-specific music that has a carefully selected ebb and flow, I made an attempt to be a bit more educational in my Mixtape. Therefore, it’s ordered more chronologically as we examine influences and stylistic innovators that end in a particular album. So let’s dive right in.
22, A Million by Bon Iver is not only Vernon’s best work, but an album carefully created on the backs and influences of so many predecessors. It is an album that could not exist in its current form without the impressive innovations of so many pioneers in so many different genres that come before it.
We start with a brief 4-song look into the development of the key saxophone player, Colin Stetson. The tape begins with tracks by Earl Bostic and John Coltrane, two accomplished 70’s sax players. As you listen to these two, note the altissimo— the uppermost register of the instrument—and how they reach it despite very different styles. From there we go to two tracks of Stetson himself. Note his similar ability to reach this upper register as well as his ability to incorporate multi-phonics (several notes at once).
After this quick and dirty intro to jazz, there’s a nice lull as the folk song Jubilee from 1952 plays. There is notable influences in this Appalachia type music in both style and themes in all of Bon Iver’s works.
Following this track, there begins our journey through the technological influences of
22, A Million. “Believe” by Cher is one of the first songs to use the technology known as auto-tune, as the technology was launched just 1 year before the song debuted.
We break from auto-tune overload to look into dissonance with “Idioteque” and “Melancholia I”. Note the grating electronic tones at the beginning and at approximately 3:12 of “Idioteque” as well as the way Radiohead utilizes technology and electronica influences in this song—and all of
Kid A for that matter. There is similar overt dissonance at the beginning of Basinski’s “Melancholia I,” but a different type of dissonance is also present. Throughout the whole piece, we get the feeling something is…off. Many of the tones seem just a slight step out of tune, even of a minor key, best heard in some of the basal tones around 1:28. (Note: I’m almost positive there's a term for this, but I cannot remember it for the life of me). Sorry for bumming y’all out with that one, let’s have some FUN!
T-Pain is up next with “I’m Sprung” and “Buy U a Drank.” There is no way we can have a discussion about the use of Auto-Tune in the musical industry without talking about Pain. The man is an absolute legend for taking a technology and using it to truly pioneer a musical style. Instead of being another R&B/Hip-Hop guy who uses his natural voice (see his
Tiny Desk if you don’t believe me or you’ve been living under a rock), T-Pain developed a signature style that made him a platinum-certified recording artist by the age of 25. His signature is all over auto-tune’s usage and sometimes I personally wonder how long it would’ve taken artists to utilize AT to its full potential without T-Pain’s commitment to it.
Finally we start to bring it all together over the back third of the playlist. “Woods” is Justin Vernon’s first recorded usage of incorporating technology like Auto-Tune into his folk style. Note how his Appalachia folk influences still manage to come through even with the tech. Then we move onto Sufjan.
Age of Adz is essentially Sufjan’s version of
22, A Million, only it came out about 6 years earlier. In “I Want To Be Well” and “Age of Adz” note Sufjan’s use of auto-tune, electronica influences, and dissonant tones—undoubtedly influenced by some of the previous artists and styles.
At last, we come to the crowing work of Justin Vernon,
22, A Million. The two songs I selected both feature auto-tune and electronic influences, similar to
Age of Adz. Both have themes and tones of folk that people have come to love from Bon Iver. “21 Moon Water” is more dissonant—take careful listen around 2:25—while “____45_____” starts with the auto-tune being applied to a sax, played by, you guessed it, Colin Stetson. Again note the multiphonics at the beginning and altissimo around 1:12. All in all,
22, A Million is one of the best albums of the decade for the way it is careful to incorporate so many different styles of music—jazz techniques made famous in the 70’s, technology invented in the 90’s, and even dissonance pioneered by years of electronica.
