This Week’s Tracks
Unfortunately this week has been a slow one musically. I’ve picked up a few new things here and there, but nothing to get too excited about. So for this week I’m pulling out some classics.
- Erick Sermon Featuring Marvin Gaye - Music: A few weeks ago I was at OHANAs in Belltown with some friends. They had some music playing and this song instantly caught my attention when it came on. It was an older track that I had heard before (it was released in 2001), but for some reason this time it stuck with me. There are a lot of great elements to this track that I would like to point out. First of all, the beat is steady as a rock; it’s a simple 4/4 beat that keeps the track sounding simple and clean. Second, the bass line is nice and funky. I love anything funky; funky beats make people want to get up and move. The real icing on the cake is the vocal samples from Marvin Gaye. They seem to blend perfectly with the rest of the song and really compliment Sermon’s lyrics.
- Beam vs. Cyrus - Take This Sound (Midnight Journey): This is another track released in 2001. I would classify this as German hard-trance or German trance, it is sort of borderline between the two. Beam vs. Cyrus are known for their distinct synth sound and this track is no exception. The sound is difficult to describe, but if you heard it you would know what I was talking about. It is sort of a raspy, high-pitched tone. If you listen to the track you will hear it after the build-up.
What I really love about this track, and so many other German tracks, is the heavy, rolling bass line and the structure of the track. It starts off with a simple thick bass line and builds up from there. The synth is simple and hard, and is something you would expect to hear in a hard-trance track (this goes for the filtered vocal as well). The buildup uses the same synths as the beginning half of the track and in itself is nothing extravagant. The real beauty of this track is the melody directly after the build-up. There is just something very pleasing about the sound that I can’t put my finger on. I especially like the first 16 bars where it is just the melody and the bass line, after this the highhats are added and the pitch is raised. I encourage everyone to check this classic out.