I recently discovered two YouTube channels that led to bingeing.
The first Rick is Beato, a music producer based in Stone Mountain Ga. He’s very much old school rock, but studies classical music and theory as well. He’s able break to down chords and time signatures, and provides the separate instrument and vocal tracks for the songs he analyzes. He’s not a fan of today’s music production techniques such as auto-tune, thinking it takes the flaws and soul out of music. He point out things that goes on in the songs that I had never noticed before, and it makes me appreciate music even more. Here, he breaks down Boston’s “Long Time.”
Next is Elizabeth Zharoff, hostess of The Charismatic Voice. She’s an opera singer and vocal coach who missed out on rock because she was solely focused on opera. In her series, she listens to grunge rock and Pink Floyd for the first time, as well as several of Tool’s songs, recommended by her husband. She analyzes the vocal technique of the lead singer, and opines how the lyrics influence their performance. She watched the video of Tool performing “Sober” in 1993 and pointed out how Maynard Keenan’s posture during the song was difficult for sustaining his long screams, because vocalists prefer to stand ramrod straight to get unrestricted passage to project the strongest voice possible. It’s fun to see her facial reactions when the song get into its aggressive rage moments. She’s super sweet and makes even listening to Death Metal a rewarding experience.
In this video, Zharoff analyses Alice In Chains’ “Man In The Box.”
ETA: I didn’t realize the link preview would show her making a sour face. Whoops!
I’ve learned so much from Rick Beato videos. Even the ones where he’s analyzing songs I didn’t care about before he dissected them.
I’ll sometimes click on his “What Makes This Song Great?” series when it’s a band or genre I don’t care for. Fifteen minutes later I’m going “Damn, there’s a lot going on beneath the surface of Thrash Metal…”
His episode on Sting ended up being a music theory class: “Listen to this bridge here, he’s going down using a mixylodian mode and then on the way back up he switches to ionian.”
And he’s so damn appreciative of every piece of music. It’s a great way to fall in love with rock ‘n’ roll.
I would be remiss if I did not post my latest and greatest YouTube find to this thread: What Makes This Song Stink
where musician Pat Finnerty hilariously “analyzes” what makes a rock/pop song really bad. (Beato fans may take offense. Or not. Who knows?).
It’s a certain kind of humor that I suspect is a love/hate kind of thing. But I love his videos. I think he really hits his stride in the second episode.
Beato’s not as negative or snarky as he could be. There was a pop song (don’t remember the title) he took for granted until he performed it live, and found that it was much more complex than he realized. He’s professional enough to avoid dragging an artist through the mud, even if he doesn’t like the song. He identifies the parts that resonate with audiences and how they could have been produced.
I have been a fan of Rick Beato’s YouTube work for years now. His videos are always fascinating.
I recently discovered English guitarist/vocalist Fil Henley’s Wings Of Pegasus channel. He pumps out several videos a week, including 2 weekly live streams. He is an engaging presenter and it it is all good fun. His demonstrations of autotune in action are great, although I wish he used software with a better display.
I’ve watched a lot of Beato’s videos and I find them frustrating. He gushes over stuff he likes. And then he seemingly picks random details from a song that stick out to him. But he never ever puts together a coherent case regarding what makes this song great.
It always comes down to “These are some things that I like” and then a whole lot of disorganized rambling. Much of what he says goes nowhere and he fails to complete most of his thoughts, meaning that his diatribes usually lead nowhere.
When I see someone claiming to demonstrate “what makes this great” I expect an A, B, C and how A, B, and C work to make this great (or at least better than others) and demonstrations on how A, B, and C were done worse or badly in other compositions. I expect a case and ordered argument that leads to a coherent conclusion.
But instead I’m left with “Well, I like that song too but I don’t feel like I got anything new out of this.”
Wings of Pegasus is much better because I feel like I learn something from him.
Man, you articulated the exact response I had to the Boston video linked in the OP. I kept waiting for him say… something. Sorry if this is threadshitting - maybe other videos are better.
This- describing the scale/mode/chord/harmony in use in a given section of a song is a far cry from a discussion about what makes a song good/better than most others.
Agreed. He’s too atomistic. What is striking to me (the BOC Reaper one being an illustrative example) is that say a guitar line which is removed and isolated from the mix loses a LOT of its impact. He needs to try some cuts where the interplay is key and whow how the two lines interact to be greater than the sum of the parts. I’d recommend some Church but he sticks solely with the biggest sellers.
LOL. Her videos are hilarious! Particularly the one where she reviews Iron Maiden. She’s all like “oh my…oh!..He has really good enunciation…Also…I’m wondering what those pants are made of!”
I’m watching her videos of Electric Callboy, a German electronicore band that embodies 80’s mullet culture, and she’s so delightfully innocent as the thrash metal parts shock her. And yet, in their video for “We Got the Moves,” she marvels that they’re using spray mist because it’s good for the vocal chords.
It’s “What Makes This Song Great?” A question. It’s not math. There is no simple cut-and-dried answer. Beato’s just able to do a deeper dive with his equipment and experience as a recording artist and producer.
He never even comes close to offering any kind of answer to that question. If the title of your video essay is a question, you need to offer an answer of some kind, even if it’s one I disagree with. But he never comes even close.
