Tag: Matt Neal

Bookmarked In the Air Tonight’s influence, intrigue, and THAT drum break that endures 40 years on by Matt Neal (ABC News)

In the Air Tonight shaped the sound of the 1980s, but beneath its explosive percussion lies a sinister urban legend.

Matt Neal reflects on the forty years since Phil Collins’ released In the Air Tonight and its ongoing legacy.

Neal talks about the famous drum solo and its use of ‘gated reverb’ and the happy accident that brought it about:

Somewhere among all this, Collins found time to play drums on ex-bandmate Gabriel’s third solo album, where a happy accident in the recording studio would shape the future of music.

A microphone used to communicate between the drummer in the studio and the producer in the control room was accidentally left turned on while Collins drummed on Gabriel’s track Intruder.

Producer Hugh Padgham was impressed by the sound coming through the talkback mic capturing the echo — or reverb — of the drums in the room loudly before suddenly cutting off before the echo could fade away naturally.

Padgham and his engineers worked through the night to rewire the desk so the sound could be replicated to record Collins’ drums the next day, and a technique known as “gated reverb” was born.

In a Vox Earworm video, Estelle Caswell dives into the world of gated reverb. In it, Susan Rogers describes the sound as follows:

It makes a drum sound like a whip. Picture it like a tidal wave, a huge wave suddenly stopping and hitting a brick wall. That’s the sound of gated reverb.


This reminds me of Steven Johnson’s discussion of music and malfunctioning machines:

For our new episode of the Wonderland podcast, I dove into the fascinating history of tape recorders and malfunctioning machines, beginning with a story about the composer Steve Reich that I first encountered in Alex Ross’s brilliant book, The Rest Is Noise. The episode kept expanding as we explored a whole web of connections to Reich’s early tape loop experiments: to the music of Brian Eno, Public Enemy, Kanye West — and to the broader question of how new sounds make their way into the mainstream of popular taste. The episode has an incredible cast of special guests: Eno, Alex Ross, the Pulitzer-prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw, experimental artists and technologists Carla Scaletti and Antenes.

Neal also talks about the various myths around the meaning of the song. This includes anger at the breakdown of his marriage or the drowning death of a friend. Maybe such truths cannot be known and are a part of the joys of art. For example, I have heard The Churches’ Under the Milky Way described as a song about living in the Southern Hemisphere, as well as a song about a Berlin nightclub called The Milk Way. I wonder if it really matters, maybe it is just about how the song makes you feel.

When I look at the long list of songs that use gated reverb, I am left thinking that, maybe more than synths or sickly sweet melodies, it is the thing that draws together so many of the songs I love.

Maybe Kevin Parker is right, drums might possibly be the most important ingredient?

Bookmarked 1991 saw the music industry turned upside down, and 30 years later, its echoes remain by Matt Neal (ABC News)

In the music industry in the ’80s, there were two worlds of music — the mainstream and the alternative. Then a new decade dawned, the worlds collided and music changed forever.

Matt Neal reflects on the impact of 1991 in music and how it brought the two worlds of together. Beginning with bands like REM, Jane’s Addiction, Metallica and Faith No More, alternative artists were starting to show up on the charts. It was Nirvana and the grunge movement which totally changed things:

If the likes of Metallica, Faith No More, and Pixies had prised the door open, Nirvana kicked it off its hinges.

Neal explained how this paved the way in Australia for acts like SIlverchair and You Am I.

Another approach is suggested by Matthew Ball and the development of SoundScan, a computerized sales database:

Until 1991, Billboard charts weren’t based on actual unit sales or radio play. Instead, it was assembled using (white) retail clerk estimates of what was selling best and what (white) DJs considered to be “hottest” each week. According to The Atlantic, both groups had reasons to lie. For example, labels would pressure radio stations to favour “hand-picked hits” if they wanted to keep receiving the newest single on time (stations sometimes received bribes to play specific tracks, too). Meanwhile, labels would force inventory on their retailers, who would then overreport sales to convince music fans to buy excess inventory.

Naturally, those who ran the music industry saw little need to overhaul how it worked. And thus while the book and film industries had shifted to computerized sales databases in the 1980s, not one of the top six record distributors signed onto SoundScan before its release in June 1991. But this resistance didn’t stop N.W.A.’s N***az4life from debuting #2 on the Billboard Top 100 the very next month under SoundScan. This was the highest charting performance in rap history – and happened without any radio airplay, music video airings on MTV, or a concert tour. The failings of the old honour system were further demonstrated by the fact that N.W.A. debuted at only #21 on Billboard’s R&B chart, which wasn’t yet on SoundScan. Somehow it was possible that N***az4life was the second biggest album in the country by units purchased, but 21st in its own genre when it came to what was “selling” and “hottest.” One week after it’s release, the album hit #1 on the Billboard chart (displacing R.E.M) as hundreds of thousands flocked to the record store in search of the “surprise” hit.

In the following years, the R&B/hip hop genre achieved three other industry “firsts.” It saw the fastest rise from a non-top ten genre to Billboard’s most popular one, has been the most dominant #1 by share, and holds the longest run as #1 (note the chart below ends in 2010, but this reign persists through to date).