Jacob Collier Deconstructs A Stevie Wonder Classic

The secret rhythm behind Radiohead's "Videotape"

I speak with Warren Lain. He's a Radiohead fan who also happens to be an incredibly talented musician and music teacher. In December 2016 he uploaded a 38 minute video to YouTube about a Radiohead song that I deeply love, "Videotape." He had been thinking about the music theory behind this seemingly simple song for the better part of a decade. The reason? “Videotape”, a slow rhythmically monotonous song, is actually syncopated. I’m joined also by Erin Barra, a professor at Berklee College of Music, who helped Warren and I explain this musical illusion.

Why disco made pop songs longer

In the early 1970s, a musical sensation took over New York City. It was called Disco. Before Disco became synonymous with Saturday Night Fever, Rod Stewart, and celebrity-fueled parties, it was an underground movement powered by the innovations of young DJs challenging themselves and each other to throw the city’s most adventurous dance parties. By 1973, their influence as musical taste makers became apparent, and a handful of unconventional dance tracks became pop crossover hits. With barely any radio airplay, songs like "Love Theme" and "Girl You Need a Change of Mind" became defining tracks of the disco era. These songs were repetitive, hypnotic, and funky, and they were also pretty long compared to other pop hits. That presented a problem for DJs using 7-inch 45rpm singles, which fit only 3:30 minutes of quality audio on them, during their night-long sets. They needed a vinyl record that could make their most popular tracks sound powerful on a dance floor and last the whole night.

The Most Feared Song In Jazz, Explained

John Coltrane, one of jazz history’s most revered saxophonists, released “Giant Steps” in 1959. It’s known across the jazz world as one of the most challenging compositions to improvise over for two reasons - it’s fast and it’s in three keys. Braxton Cook and Adam Neely give me a crash course in music theory to help me understand this notoriously difficult song, and I’m bringing you along for the ride. Even if you don’t understand a lick of music theory, you’ll likely walk away with an appreciation for this musical puzzle.

N.E.R.D.'s hit song "Lemon" owes a lot to New Orleans bounce

For the final episode of Earworm I'm digging into N.E.R.D.'s hit song "Lemon" featuring Rihanna. Its sound is quintessential Pharrell: happy, energetic, and bouncy. The more I listened to it though, the more I realized that its bouncy energy was inspired by a genre of hip-hop that has rarely trickled into the mainstream - New Orleans Bounce. To learn more about the genre and to get the definitive answer on whether "Lemon" is a bounce song, I spoke with Big Freedia, a Native of New Orleans and an artist widely credited with bringing bounce music to the masses.

Why this awful sounding album is a masterpiece

Trout Mask Replica, by Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band was inducted into the Library of Congress' national recording registry in 2010 - nearly 40 years after it's release. The album has been widely cited by artists of all kinds as a shining point of creativity and original thought - it also is very very hard to listen to. It's the musical equivalent of a Jackson Pollock painting. Its discordant rhythms and motifs sound made up on the spot by a child, but every sound and riff you hear on the album was arduously rehearsed over the course of a year by a group of young musicians who were remarkable in their own right