Switched on Pop - Hidden Sounds in FourFiveSeconds

Episode Date: May 6, 2015

FourFiveSeconds is one of the more surprising collaborations in recent pop history. Rhianna, Kanye, Sir Paul McCartney. The motley lineup doesn’t dissapoint, serving up one of the most unexpected songs of the year—though not for the reason you’d think. Tune in and wile out while we wax on this whale of a power ballad. FEATURING Rihanna, Kanye West & Paul McCartney – FourFiveSeconds Kanye West – Gone Rihanna – We Found Love Rihanna – Don’t Stop the Music The Beatles – Revolution 9 & I’m So Tired (in reverse)  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Download the Eaterer. app at eater app.com. It's free for iOS users. So what are the biggest songs on the charts right now is by three of the absolute masters of popular music. I think I've had enough.

I might get a little what's all of my is taking for weakness. I want four five seconds from Friday on by Monday. Rihanna. Kanye.

Paul. Sir Paul. The three mononymous masters of pop. And yet, many think that this song doesn't hold up. What do they say? What do they say about it? Well, I think we should explore it on today's episode to Switched on Pop. Welcome to Switch on Pop, the show where we explore the making and the meaning of pop music.

I'm Nate Sloan. And I'm Charlie Harding. And on today's episode, we're going to dig into this giant collaboration of pop, the four or five seconds. And obviously with these three legendary songwriters, expectations are just soaring for this song. Yes. When you saw their name, what were you thinking was going on here, Nate? Oh, man, I was thinking of just the most epic mashup of umbrella and Gold Digger. And maybe I'm amazed.

It's kind of like when you're in fifth grade and you try to put every soda from the soda button into your cup. That's what this song is going to be. Yeah, totally. I was thinking, I was expecting a sonic explosion in my eardrums. And we were kind of surprised because what we actually found was a song which is incredibly minimal. Yes. It's sparse. It's stripped down.

It sounds like a quickly recorded demo. Not at all the epic mashup that we expected. And you're saying that people, some people took issue with this. What are the critics saying about this song? So we did a little research, went over to Pop Justice, one of the biggest pop music blogs. And they were so kind to call it a nice little tune. Hmm. Harsh.

And the user response was even worse. They said something along the lines of when the song comes on the radio, you know it's time to change the dial, followed by another response. I deafs agree. This song is so boring. How many O's were in that so? At least seven. Gotcha. So the people have spoken, the critics have spoken.

This is a nice little boring tune. Charlie, do we agree? Absolutely not. What their critics are responding to is that this song is, on the surface just so simple and plain. Right. And I don't disagree with that, but it's the details. It's what's going on underneath the surface of the song, which make it so potent.

Right on. Let's dig. Dig away. Okay, first, the surface. What is the surface? We talked about it's that it's minimal, sparse, stripped down. Right. What gives it that feeling?

Well, there's a couple of really obvious things. And this is what most critics are responding to is you start off with a very, very simple chord progression. It's just acoustic guitar. And it's kind of derivative. This is a chord progression that any other pop songwriter could use. It doesn't feel uniquely Paul McCartney. It's not a yesterday.

It's not a blackbird. Right. And then probably also the lyrics are not the kind of elaborate wordplay that you would expect from someone like Kanye West. Head on my time. Sometimes years out. or the B won't let me get my ideas out and that make me want to get my advance out

and move to Oklahoma and just live in my aunts out or the button pushing maybe sexually provocative controversial lyrics that Rihanna usually traffics in I feel like it's a story which is very common that we've all heard before one could hear the song as a tension between lovers or more literally about their own tensions with fame

and the paparazzi, but it doesn't feel like lyrical content, which is new and, as you said, anyway, provocative. So we've got this simple sounding surface, a generic, repetitive, harmonic progression, a placid, nice little tune. Right. What are the subtle details that make the song transcend its surface? What makes this song great are all of these things that bubble up. They aren't necessarily the core, the core progression or the lyric.

It's those hidden little moments that create tension with that placid surface, as you put it. Totally. Okay, I'm with you because right off the bat, this guitar part that we've been describing as a pretty standard acoustic guitar strum pattern. Upon closer inspection is not that predictable and regular at all. Yeah, so Paul McCartney, if you were to play it really straight, would play something. that might sound like, you know, like a... But how does he play it on this recording? He puts these weird, these emphasis on off beats and places you don't expect them. It's kind of something like this.

Like, that's such a small difference, but has a huge effect because the first way you played it sounded really confident and brash. And the second way sounded a little more vulnerable and tentative. And the first method, you would... expect immediately after that epic drums and bass to come in and fill the whole song, right? But the palette of this song is very simple. Other than this acoustic guitar, you have the next element that comes in, which I think is the second big clue that, hey, there's more going on here. You have this baseline and doubled with this distorted electric guitar, which just randomly punches in at these moments that you don't

expect it to. Yeah. It's defying the expectations set by the simple chord progression. There's all the sudden, as you put it, uneasiness, there's some sort of discord going on. Yeah, these little bursts of distortion that trouble the placid surface of the song set by the acoustic guitar. Creating ripples throughout the entire song, and there we will kill the metaphor. Ooh, one more.

Just pushing the meniscus to the point of break. but not popping it. But you know who has had enough? Is Rihanna? Great segue. Thank you. So she jumps in and she says right off the bat. Which is a less than subtle clue that there is something else going on under this really seemingly simple, maybe boring song.

There's a tension there right off the bat. Yeah. And this is sort of the third detail of what's bubbling underneath. When she sings, there's this subtle delay, and it really causes a chill to run down my spine every time I hear this. Her words are echoed ever so quietly. Every time she says something, it's, I think I've had enough. Right. Yeah, it's not something that you would necessarily pick up if you were listening to this on your car stereo.

When you throw on headphones and really listen closely, details like this begin to emerge. there's another aspect to Rihanna's voice that suggests an uneasiness and something bubbling under the surface. Now, what is that? The minute she starts singing, I mean, this is Rihanna, as we've never heard her before. Absolutely. Unfiltered, unprocessed, raw, closely miced, totally exposed. I feel like usually when we get Rihanna, we get. a mega EDM dance track with voices covered in synth strings.

But in four or five seconds, yeah. She is, her voice is naked and alone here. And there's a moment that is maybe the emotional crux of the song when all these details that we've been talking about suddenly surge through the surface in the bridge. Right. All could I be. But you call back. I bear the junk

And how could I be so reckless But I just hope you cannot We've got new harmonic material for the first time We've got a new sonic texture for the first time This massive full gospel organ supporting her Let's just call it what it is though We have a total break from everything that we've heard so far The song takes a 180.

Yeah, you're right. This is a moment of confession. Right. And backing up that confessional is this church-like organ. And Rihanna jumps out and she says, I can't apologize, right? There's all these feelings that I'm feeling and I'm going to throw them out there. I'm all while in. And, you know, the reason why I'm not going to apologize is because I think you've got these feelings too.

And at that moment is maybe the apotheosis of Rihanna's musical. career so far where her voice literally cracks. The cracks in the cracks in the song can no longer be contained by her vocal delivery and this incredibly private moment is something we get to experience with her. Where earlier we're getting all these subtle clues that there's more going on, her voice cracks and we know that, oh yeah, there really is a human being behind this whole song. Attention Spotify. Has yet a new Good Girl Jasmine Absolute of Carolina Herrera.

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website and the social your period of a period of for a euro a month in shopify.com.combe, bar records. There's one more aspect of this song that I found so perplexing when I first heard it. And repeated listenings could not solve for me what is happening. Okay, so play it for me. What do we got going on here?

Okay, this is Kanye's first verse. Right. And there's a sound behind him. There's another voice. mapping everything he's saying When I'm shining I'm positive Then I heard you was talking trash When I first heard it I thought Oh that's like

That sounds like a child Right And then I immediately was like Oh it's It's you know It's a reference to his Him having a kid for the first time And

And that's what we're hearing In the background But then I was listening closer I was like, no, that's not a kid. Right. It sounds kind of process. Something's weird about the vocal. Yeah.

Okay. Very, very good, Charlie. Okay. All right. Yeah, I mean, it wouldn't be a Paul McCartney jam if there wasn't some conspiracy theory to be pulled out. Paul is dead. So if you go deep into the interweb, and by that, I mean, you Google Kanye-fourfew. five seconds weird voice, you'll find perhaps on YouTube this section of the song

pitched way, way down. Wow. It's Paul McCartney. It's Sir Paul. He really is the creative inspiration to this whole thing. Yeah. Yeah, because the whole time I'm hearing that Paul McCartney is on this track, Like, where is he? Where is he hiding? Yeah. If this song is about buried hidden details, those things that we are just struggling to contain, I feel like this moment is the perfect example.

Yeah. Paul is not dead. I love that, Charlie, because this song is totally about the struggle to put on a smile and go through your day on those days when what you're feeling inside is rage. Or joy or sorrow. Or just your true emotions that can't be expressed in polite society. What I think is really artful about this song is that you have taken three megastars. Right.

You think that you're going to get the biggest song ever. And we're talking like one of those songs before James Bond, where they get the biggest. star and I know that Paul McCartney's done one. It's not too long before Rihanna and Kanye both do one. I'm expecting something that big, right? Fireworks. Yeah. And instead, we get something totally stripped down and what are they doing? They're showing that even as legends, they too have that personal inner struggle of just wanting to be able to speak their own voice. Totally. So, Nate, can you tie this in a bow for us? Even though the simple surface of this song may suggest

that it's nothing more than a nice little tune maybe tossed off in the studio one day by three musical titans who have better things to do than spend their time

carefully crafting every musical morsel that emerges from their instruments but when you go deeper and uncover the odd and emotional and explosive musical details that riddle this song, it becomes something else. I think this is a great, the song is a great success.

It has to have that simple surface to be able to poke at in order to be successful. And so it's one of those songs that just bears repeated listening. And it's got a catchy hook. And I think we're going to keep hearing remixes of. this thing. It's here to stay. Thanks for listening to Switched-on-Pop. We'll bring you another episode in two weeks, and we hope you'll listen. But first, we need a little bit of help because we don't know what we're going to talk about yet. And we would love to hear from you. This is where you come in. Send us ideas for songs that we can put under the microscope and see what makes them tick.

Tweet at us at Switched-on-pop on Twitter. And you can listen to back episodes on the iTunes store, the Apple podcast app, Stitcher Radio, SoundCloud, and of course, at our website, www. www.Switchdownpop.com. I'm your host Charlie Harding. And I'm your host, Nate Sloan. Thanks for listening. See you go, digger.