If that’s all it is, then he should call it “Things I noticed about this song.” Not “What makes this song great.”
I agree, and I would be happy to get some insider knowledge regarding cool things about songs I didn’t notice before or can’t articulate because I’m not a musician. It’s a bummer that Beato provides almost none of that - at least in the Boston video linked. He keeps setting himself up to say something interesting and then…doesn’t. Some examples from the video:
After 7.5 minutes talking about some history and bopping his head along to another Boston song, he finally begins breaking down Long Time. Plays the intro and says: “Now…listen to those guitars.” That’s it. Listen for what? What am I supposed to be paying attention to here? Bops his head a bit. “Listen to this Klav here…Those guitar swells, go check this out, this is amazing.” I mean, yeah, it is amazing. The song is virtuoso. But he’s not saying anything! Then he isolates the bass: “And then…great bass sound, really good bass sound.” Again, that’s it. What does that even mean? What makes the bass sound great? Then he isolates the organ: "Let’s talk about Tom Schultz’s organ playing… [waggles head for 20 seconds] … “then…wow…beautiful…it’s like Prague (??).” And then he identifies the type of keyboard. Etc.
It’s even more infuriating the second time watching it. If you’re going to say, “Let’s talk about Tom Schultz’s organ playing,” then maybe you should talk about Tom Schultz’s organ playing. I can play a song, bop my head along, and say “wow” all by myself.
On the blog side (not video) Sterogum’s “The Number Ones” series. The author is going through every number one hit starting in 1958 (he’s made it to the mid-90s). It is more about the song and artists, but it’s interesting.
The “song breakdown” series I really love is the podcast Song Exploder, which was also made into a Netflix TV series. The host talks with artists and band members in depth about the writing and recording of one song. They usually go into detail about various choices they made, and they isolate tracks, etc. It’s awesome and a total time suck once you get listening.
Like I said, there’s no cut-and-dry answer to what makes a song great. If there were, would it be a template for making another great song? No, because it loses its appeal when copied and distributed. There’s too many genres, individual tastes, and trends to factor, and what works one moment is unlikely to repeat success for too long.
With a QUESTION MARK, not a period.
Would you have been drawn in to watch “Things I noticed about this song”? That’s not as intriguing a title.
Try another video. That was just one I selected at random.
Then don’t call your channel “What makes this song great” if you aren’t going to even try to tell me what makes this song great.
In any case, that’s not true. Critics and scholars of all kinds spend entire careers of all kinds talking about what makes things great, be it music or drama or literature or whatever, and they’ve been doing it for millennia. They actually are able to talk about it.
And, sure, it’s not “definitive,” whatever that means, but no one ever asked a critic to be definitive. We just ask them, if they’re going to lead us down a path, that there actually be a destination.
So it turns out that Beato is worse than failing to be “definitive” (which no one is asking for); it’s worse than that. As ShadowFacts clearly points out, Beato ends up saying nothing at all regarding the topics he brings up.
This doesn’t actually make as much difference as you seem to think it does. Unless you think Beato is actually asking his viewers to tell HIM what makes this song great.
I’ve never gotten the impression when watching a Beato video that he is begging for me to explain to HIM what great about this song. Clearly he intends me to believe that he is going to tell ME what is great about this song.
As it turns out, I have learned to love a lot of things that don’t have particularly great titles.
Anyway, you are acting as if I am demanding he literally use my exact suggestion, when all I’m asking is that his title be truthful and not misdescriptive.
Having watched several Beato videos, I’ll say that this accurately represents his modus operandi. Beato. Unless I somehow had the bad luck of only seeing his bad ones. Beato.
I hear you. Man, it’s hard to believe all Beato hate. I like his videos. He makes it clear he is just walking you through what he, as a producer, thinks makes music good. And he is appreciative and positive. He doesn’t claim to be any more than he is.
I also like Wings of Pegasus. He doesn’t tear down folks that he easily could - like Elvis’ playing. Also positive.
And yes I also like What Makes This Song Stink. They are hilarious.
That’s not the name of his channel, just a series within his channel. I used to follow him before he did all the What Makes This Song Great? stuff (and he still does plenty of other stuff), but I found he wore me thin after after awhile. There’s just something about his cocksure personality that grates on me, and he’s a little bit too grumpy on modern music for my tastes. The musical theory analysis of his I actually do like, but I’m a semi-musician, and I follow that stuff pretty easily. I prefer the likes of Adam Neely much more for that kind of stuff: he has a much more open attitude, in my opinion, to music and comes across as a good educator and a just a pleasant person to listen to. 12-Tone Music is also very good for that, but you’re definitely getting into lots of theory with musical deconstructions of pop songs with him.
I don’t hate the guy but, during one of the “All modern music is bad” type threads, people kept treating his opinion as gospel. Grammy Award Winning Producer Rick Beato says modern music sucks, case closed!
So I went and listened to tracks off the albums he produced – these should be amazing, right? – and found nothing extraordinary. For me, anyway. I’m sure his awards were warranted and all that but nothing he was involved in was anything I wanted to listen to twice. So the whole “But Rick Beato says…” versus what I thought of the music he’s involved in creating now has a whole “Emperor has no clothes” vibe.
I should think it more credible to listen to an analysis involving cerebral music theory. At least it forces the educator to commit to concrete statements that can be scrutinized.
I certainly don’t mind it – it makes for talking about music and what’s going on with it a bit easier, IMHO. I personally wish he would go in even deeper. My other favorite channels that I mentioned are also heavy on the theory, if not mostly theory-centered (as one aspect of talking about the music – the are also about feel, texture, production, emotion, etc.)
OK, fine. That’s what I get for ignoring semantics and enjoying music.
Anyone can enjoy music without Rick Beato taking time out of their lives.
OK, I did, because I figured there’s got to be something to all of his millions of views. I chose his breakdown of Comfortably Numb, a song I know extremely well. And… it’s a much more interesting video than the Boston one. There’s still too much “play something and just say it’s good without explaining why” for my taste, but he definitely had some analysis that I appreciated this time. That one was worth watching.
I’ve watched a lot of Rick Beato videos and I’m actually surprised by how he finds a lot of things to like in modern music. When he does a top 10 spotify video he’ll have positive things to say about roughly half of the songs he reviews. Most of his complaints are about the record companies (are they still called that?) and the fact that they don’t nurture young talent.
Also, his interviews are fantastic.
If you’re familiar with a musical form then no one can tell you what makes a song good or ‘great’. All someone can do is say: listen to that fill, check out the bass pattern, notice that harmony.
No art is objectively great. Beato et al can isolate parts and say, “To me that’s neat” and maybe add, “You’re expecting the tonic there, but she goes for the sixth.” But a analyst/critic can’t really tell you Why A Song Is Great. There isn’t a formula for creating a great song, and a song is only great if it’s great to you.
Beato has his good and bad videos. He puts out a lot of content. I quit on the Boston video halfway thru, but I recently watch his take on Everybody Wants to Rule the World and it deepened my appreciation for a song I already loved. (I’d always thought the arrangement was pleasantly streamlined and minimalist, and had missed a lot of stuff in the mix.)