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Pif Magazine
Pif Magazine |
Pure 100% Rock And Roll - From Concentrate : Page 1, 2, 3, 4 5. Daddy's Gonna Pay for Your Crashed Car (sample break)
Zooropa lacks Achtung Baby's overblown layered ambience. It's just U2 and weirdo Brian Eno crafting impacting pop from simple, minimalistic elements. From this album, centered around single riffs and clever licks, arises the monumental sample loop part from "Daddy's Gonna Pay for Your Crashed Car." The song starts off with a sample of radio static, followed by a rousing trumpet sample from one of Lenin's favorite marching songs, followed by a distorted loop of an MC 900 Ft. Jesus sample, replete with the coolest ringing snare overdub in the world. Imagine a drum beat arranged around a short, clipping, messed-up backwards guitar sample. It's positively hypnotic. Larry Mullen's drums noodle around busily between downbeats, but it is the downbeats that kick. All credits go to the studio engineer who rigged up the microphone and the effects on that snare drum because the distortedly ringing tone of that one drum puts this entire song part on the list. The snare's tone is so processed it almost sounds like one of those alarms that goes off in a submarine to signal an incoming missile. Ginggg, Ginggg, Ginggg. (I can't do it, but you get the idea.) Thankfully, the rest of the band stays out of the way and just lets this loop ride. The ringing snare and the messed-up sample drop out until the second verse, where they are dropped mercilessly on us again, to loop alarmingly throughout the rest of the song. I can hear former producer Daniel Lanois asking The Edge, "Are you sure it's a good idea to base an entire song around a clipping atonal backwards guitar riff?" Lucky for us, nobody was there to tell them no. 4. The Ocean - (instrumental hook throughout)
15/16 time signatures are usually reserved for jazz or experimental pieces. So leave it to John Bonham and Jimmy Page to construct one of the most memorable hard rock riffs in 15/16. A waltz is 3/4. One-two-three, one-two-three. So go figure 15/16. It sounds like a mistake. Just long enough to establish a normal 4/4 groove, but with a little tiny bit left off. The results are simultaneously propelling and disorienting. The beat repeats itself before you're prepared, catching you off guard, like a tasty wave suddenly turned evil, upending you, hurling your puny board into the ether, lifting your body sickeningly high, and pummeling you beneath its crashing fury. It's poetry. The bass follows the exact melody of the guitar riff, and the guitar riff follows the exact rhythm of the drums. It's as if the entire band exists to give voice and color and depth to the profundity of this mind-shredding beat. John Bonham is a machine, monster-rock-steady heavy, even amidst his somber funk. The drums are recorded in your classic '70s style: dry, unprocessed, rebounding and resounding. I imagine a legion of long-haired, terrycloth-headband-wearing drum disciples; each following along in their green-lit practice room; each fumbling, rewinding the tape, cursing, sweating, and marveling at the genius that is Bonham. I sometimes wonder how I ever grew out of this stuff. Yea, verily dude, the break beat of "The Ocean" still doth astound. |
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