Somewhere around 2004, the band that I play drums in was writing a song that had a sixties girl-group feel to it. Without quite realizing what I was doing, I played a familiar beat that went "boom, boom-boom, BAP!". It wasn't until that beat was only at the beginning of the song that I'd realized what I'd done: given it exactly the same intro as "Be My Baby".
I didn't mind, of course. "Be My Baby" is one of the greatest pop singles of all time, and tons of other bands have introed their songs the same way. After we wrote and recorded that song, I started collecting the songs that I knew that had the same intro and put up
a Muxtape for them all.. If you know of other songs that begin the same way, comment it up. There must be plenty of others.
BE MY BABY MUXTAPE
The Ronettes, "Be My Baby" (1963)
It's the Spector classic, and a masterpiece for all of pop. It's the vacuous lyrics that turn into a true universal feeling with the intense emotion of the vocals. The stuttering drums that blow up into a thrilling drive in the chorus. The strings...oh, the strings.
There's also a small matter of that intro. Here, it's a bass drum, and the snare is backed up with a tambourine, hand claps, and what almost sounds like a finger snapping. I really should research that...
Johnny Boy, "You Are The Generation That Bought More Shoes And You Get What You Deserve" (2004)
One of the first songs that I remember being championed and discovered almost entirely by the music blogs, it could have a place on any mix I'd ever make. There's something almost ambient about the arrangement and vocals in that they never quite hits a clear chorus or tangible lyric, yet it's as direct as any pop song. This song is a revelation.
Intro: Sounds almost identical to "Be My Baby", and may actually even be a sample.
The Explorers Club, "Forever" (2008)
There's bands that have clear influences, and then there's bands that take it a step further and actually try to sound like the band. The Explorers Club are in that category, being a band less influenced by The Beach Boys than a Beach Boys tribute band with original songs. But, just as if someone were to do the same thing with, say, James Brown or Hank Williams, there's some sounds that it's okay to do that with, where it's such a wonderful sound that you don't mind that there's nothing original about their originals.
Intro: bass and snare, with some Beach Boys-level of reverb, unsurprisingly. No flam on the snare.
The Pipettes, "Sex" (2006)
It's not exactly a standout track from the Pipettes first record, but it's still pretty catchy. Definitely one of the worst drum sounds of the bunch, though.
Intro: bass drum and snare, and very harsh-sounding...tambourine?
The Positions, "Back To Me" (2005)
This remains one of my favorite songs of
ours, but that's largely because it was one of those songs that just came together easily and without argument. Everything fit together perfectly, and that beat is a joy to play every time.
Intro: floor tom, bass drum and snare.
Brendan Benson, "The Pledge" (2005)
This one's a little different in that, while it's still clearly the same beat, it's much faster, with a pretty harsh drum sound. But this is one of this mix's happy accidents in that, while it fits the theme, it's also a fantastic song.
Intro: bass drum and and a nice flam on the snare, with a tambourine.
Bat For Lashes, "What's A Girl To Do?" (2007)
This is a coolish song that's just about ruined by it's terrible lyrics, but then fully redeemed (and then some)
by its video.
Intro: bass drum, snare and tambourine. I like how you can hear the snares buzzing at the snare hits.
Camera Obscura, "Eighties Fan" (2002)
From back when Camera Obscura sounded a whole lot like Belle & Sebastian and was being produced by a member of Belle & Sebastian comes a song that...sounds a lot like Belle & Sebastian. But it's a great one.
Intro: bass drum and snare...with brushes! It also lasts twice as long as any of the other intros on this mix.
The Jesus and Mary Chain, "Just Like Honey" (1985)
The only song in the bunch that comes between 1963 and the 2000s. At the same time, the Smiths were mixing girl-group pop with darker stuff, but songs like this show the JAMC took it to extremes, turning the girl-group and the goth up to maximum immediacy. I can only imagine how revolutionary this sounded at the time: the fuzz of the underground meshed with touchstones from 60's pop, an era that was only beginning to be fully appreciated by the young music underground.
Intro: the one song here that uses a drum machine for the beat. Has just a
little bit of reverb on it.
I can't tell if the current influx of dance/downtempo techno/electronica being generated these days will one day be looked back on the way we look at disco...that is to say with much disgust. But like my high school Green Beret turned American Studies teacher told me "History Repeats". Today bands like Gui Boratto, Studio, Cut Copy, Chromatics, Glass Candy, Air France and to a lesser extent, guitar based !!! and LCD Soundsystem (to name few) all have a definite disco feel. The deference between these bands and say, the Bee Gees, is part labtop and part culture...in other words, music recording technology has nurtured a generation of one man bands who spend hours looping drums, guitar riffs, horn and percussion samples...and lets face it, dance tracks are fun as hell to record, but also easy as hell. This is also matched with a major backlash against the legion of Pavement styled indie/garage band lowfi...with all its seriousness and untuned distortion. Granted I am pulling this all out of my ass...I just like this stuff because white suburbanites like myself can 'dance' to it.
