Billie Eilish

this part of the SOS was interesting...in a "what will the follow up be like?"

"I moved to my own house early this year, and now work from a room there, but my setup is still pretty much the same as when we did 'Ocean Eyes'. I still use Logic, and at the time I had the Roland Quad Capture interface, a set of Yamaha HS5 monitors with a Yamaha HS8S subwoofer, and an Audio-Technica AT2020 microphone, which cost $80. Today I have the [UA] Apollo 8 interface and a Neumann TLM103, and Akai MPK249 and Nord Stage 3 controllers. I record everyone with the one microphone. Billie's vocals for 'Ocean Eyes' were recorded with the 2020, which sounds great. It's not quite as good as the Neumann, but I have never found a microphone that I like more than the 2020 that's less expensive than the Neumann. The 2020 is a really good starter microphone."
Finneas' original studio setup, which also features a tiny Akai MPK Mini controller keyboard, is probably as basic and cheap as it gets, and demonstrates that there's no need to fork out on expensive equipment to make it big. "I always encourage people not to think that they have to spend a lot of money on gear. The less stuff you have, the easier it is to make music. I also think it's really cool that people realise that Billie and I did the music, just the two of us, and that I am recording and producing all her stuff, because it may make them feel powerful enough to create their own music. I mean, to have that many writers and producers work on each song as is common these days, isn't it crazy? I just don't understand that, it just doesn't make any sense."

album # 2 coming up..... now using the Neumann TLM103 and the full sized MPK249! lol....and the Apollo 8.

if Album 2 doesn't work out, does a person go back to their "setup" of the smash hit album?
 

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... and demonstrates that there's no need to fork out on expensive equipment to make it big. "I always encourage people not to think that they have to spend a lot of money on gear. The less stuff you have, the easier it is to make music. I also think it's really cool that people realise that Billie and I did the music, just the two of us, and that I am recording and producing all her stuff, because it may make them feel powerful enough to create their own music. I mean, to have that many writers and producers work on each song as is common these days, isn't it crazy? I just don't understand that, it just doesn't make any sense."

If you're going to make the type of music they made...mostly samples and lots of ITB sound design driven Pop...then no, you probably don't need a serious studio, but there's a lot of other music that certainly needs more/better tools than that...though it's not music that is in the general public's "Pop" mindset, but certainly much better for production, performance and songwriting.
Nothing "bad" about what Eilish and her brother achieved...it's just not that compelling musically. Maybe if I was still 15-16 years old I would feel different.

Oh...and it's not just an old VS young thing. There are younger artists making different, and IMO better quality music...it's just not in that Pop genre.

I also love how he takes a swipe at the likes of Swift and others, who generally have a songwriting team... but yet, he and his sister also have a management, marketing, publicist, record company team, which is what got them on that Grammy stage way more than their recording or songwriting skills.

Yes...what they achieved certainly is like "winning the lottery"...lots of pure luck in getting all that corporate support.
 
of course, the MAchine makes the Grammys happen....like the BEatles and anyone else.

Epstein connections , EMI connections and Publishing connections, and all the rest of the people making money off the Industry.

Interesting though is new players (at least to my old school books), like SPOTIFY breaking them, and streaming is so huge supposedly.
I dont think Ive ever streamed a song other than HR stuff on forums.
CD players are disappearng and new computers wont even have them I suppose as we all turn into Streaming-Cloud music owners?
Alan Freed and Payolla for Radio, Clive Davis Industry- mogul, .... Live Tours for McCartney bring money to a lot of people and jobs I will assume.

Even a great studio and vintage Neumanns wont get a person a Grammy without the machine, but its the Machine that often makes the "nobodys" famous somehow. Watched Clive Davis last night, he was one who supposedly picked people, got hit songs for them, and then sent them through the machine-fame .

Alot of people know Dick James as the one who ripped off the Beatles all their publishing rights , but he also was the one who got them on TV and much more (and probably padded a lot of peoples pockets with cash along the way).

Liek The Rutles....ALL YOU NEED IS CASH...lol
 
The only issue I have with your comment regarding the Beatles is that there is more than just the corporate machine that made them successful. There were DOZENS of similar groups that got a shot at the big time, but couldn't maintain it. The fact that Lennon/McCartney were excellent and PROLIFIC songwriters helped to keep them steps above similar groups.

It took them years to get their recording contract, and at first, they were just like all the other bands of the time. EMI wasn't really pushing the "young" music, until the Beatles became a phenomenon with the screaming girls and the Beatlemania, which was actually pushed more by radio stations than by the record company. DJs knew back then that when something was popular, you push the crap out of it. The Beatles built their fan base with live shows, and radio airplay just added to it.

The Beatles and Stones were different from the typical early 60s stars which were often manufactured by the Clive Davis, Phil Spector, Berry Gordy type producers, and the songwriting teams in the Brill Building, Motown, etc.

In the end, of course EMI and Capitol got behind the Beatles in a big way, but that was after they had really proven themselves as something special.
 
Billie didn't know who VanHalen was :eek:

If you like to keep a pulse on the "industry" Bob Lefetz's news letter is a really good one to subscribe to .and it's free.....Don't always agree with his perspective but the dude has been in the game for a while and for an old fart of 66 definitely tries to stay on top of his game...and that game has been changin damn fast these last few years...
 
I don't dislike Eilish just because she's young...it's not that....there are some good young/new musicians and songwriters.
It's just that I find modern Pop songwriting is generally lacking in deeper creative skill. It's more about being clever in a dumbed down sort of way...very sophomoric and appealing to a lower common denominator.

Now I know when you look back at the early Beatles, for example...you could say stuff like "She loves you , yeah, yeah, yeah" was pretty simplistic, and it was...but that was very much driven by Epstein and the corporate desire to cash in on that "mop top" teen image crap. Otherwise, once let loose, the Beatles wrote quite a LOT of really, really good songs that still fell in that Pop/Rock genre...but were no longer sophomoric.
It's like the early Elton John/Bernie Taupin collaborations....what I would call "Intelligent Pop".
Today, it seems that most Pop goes for that simplistic, juvenile stuff, and that's it...there's no breaking away from it once and artist falls into that category...and that's where Eilish is.
 
Today's youth will be the ruin of our world...Paraphrasing what the Greeks said @ 1000 years ago...

Part of a letter Jimi Hendrix wrote about live..almost at death with ourselves, yet on the staircase of birth.

And so it goes.... Since the first caveman banged two rocks together, tapped sticks on a stretched piece of deer skin and grunted along in some weird off beat rhythm music evolves .....one chapter closes a new one open and what is "good" and what the "best" is ridiculously myopic and subjective.

The simple lyric line "Where do we go when we're asleep" hooked me...It wasn't the music alone or the lyrics it was that this girl was asking a question that went deeper sunbeams and lolipops so I was intrigued...When I realized what she was about and her story I was pretty sure she was going to be a standout for her little window in space and time..turned out she is. I've been wrong before and I'll be again...

Same with Shawn Mendes...Who the hell is this damn 19 year old playing guitar and writing songs like that? Just a very talented kid who had the whole package for being a star.

From his early 12 year old digital world reveal on Vines....

YouTube

To This 7 years later...WTF?

YouTube


There is so much freekin talent out there and there always has been. And yes it is a totally different "business" than it was before the "internets"...but it is still not a matter of who's better...It's the frickin luck of the draw.. some lucky ones get a golden ticket and some get a very long one way ticket to nowhere. As one musical brother who has more musical talent in his little finger than most anyone I have ever known, met or seen once told me "music is not a competition". What the world famous, those totally never seen beyond their bedroom prodigies, the worst and all of us that fall in between musicians all have in common is the love of making vibrations in this cosmic illusion we call life. And that is a gift that some of us embrace and some don't for a million reasons.

I try and keep an open mind to what is coming and yes it is sad to see the sunset of our day in the sun going away...Rap, EDM,all this techno cut and paste "in the box" crap.... That ain't music ..said the Greek as he took his last breath
 
FWIW It is oddly nice revisiting this kind of banter that we used to enjoy on a much deeper and varied level of conversations ( with a much larger group of wise asses) once upon a time in a far off magical land called the Dragon Cave :guitar:
 
In the end, of course EMI and Capitol got behind the Beatles in a big way, but that was after they had really proven themselves as something special.

Thats not totally different than what Finneas and Billie did. They both had proven themselves in some ways. Per Wiki , there was some talent enough for the Spotify to put some muscle of the machine behind them. The BEatles were another time, radio and TV, and Epstein and Dick James...cleaned up in suits.
A Baby Boomer band?

Beatles have a super long track record, for some reason. I dont even know what a person would put the Beatles in which genre going from Helter Skelter and White album to When Im 64 and Yesterday? Octupus Garden and Tomorrow Never Knows.....they are kind of all over the map genre wise. I recall a drummer , heavy metal preference, and I was too then and yet I liked the Beatles too..and when a tape was playing Penny Lane he about puked on it wondering wtf? lol... Paperback writer and Tomorrow Never Knows Helter Skelter and ....Penny Lane? When Im 64,? Mull of Kintrye?
McCartney is to me a true songwriter, he can write anything it seems of all genres.

Billie sang Yesterday at the Oscars tv show.....I doubt Paul will be singing Bad Guy.
 
Today's youth will be the ruin of our world...Paraphrasing what the Greeks said @ 1000 years ago...

There is so much freekin talent out there and there always has been. And yes it is a totally different "business" than it was before the "internets"...but it is still not a matter of who's better...It's the frickin luck of the draw.. some lucky ones get a golden ticket and some get a very long one way ticket to nowhere.

I wonder with so much talent, (population in numbers? more of every person type) and the internet might offer more to make money or some "success" but will it be shorter lived?

I know I get overload sometimes when theres so many choices and videos and pop-up ads to play music at me.... age maybe plays into the drowning vibe of too many too much.

The crowds seem to keep getting larger too, the stadiums larger....the sound systems have improved a lot.
 
McCartney is to me a true songwriter, he can write anything it seems of all genres.

He was always my favorite Beatle. :D

Seriously though...Paul kinda got slagged for the "silly love songs"...but I think he wrote much more than that, and IMO was the most diverse of the four Beatles.
His first solo album...the one with the bowl of cherries pic...and the subsequent "Ram"...are the two key albums that got me into the solo recording thing.

I always new people could record music, but when he put out his first, the light bulb went on in my head...that it was quite possible with the multitrack technology to put together an entire mix all by yourself. Up to then, I always figured you needed the band and a studio to do it...and here was Paul, doing a home recording thing. Plus, some of the songs on those two "solo" (he had some help) albums are really great.

Oh I like John's solo stuff too...not so much the crap with Yoko (she's just annoying to listen to when she sings)...but he was in a different place, though when he kinda had his "comeback" with the "Double Fantasy" album...I was extremely pleased to see decided to stop baking bread at home, and get back to making some music. I love that album.

Also George...there was a quiet depth to his playing and also his originals. I thought "Dark Horse" was a terrific album.
I always liked the sound of his guitar work...very identifiable...which IMO is more important than being a technical shredder.

Ringo...not much of a songwriter...but how can you not love Ringo! :p
 
Same with Shawn Mendes...

Good looking kid (which is why the house is packed with young girls)...good voice, decent songs...but I really can't stand his vocal style.
It's a very common vocal style with the Pop crowd. You can find a bunch of younger guys singing exactly that same way.

There's a female version of that vocal style that I hate even more...you can hear it from dozens of the younger Pop divas.
It's something in the phrasing, and how they extend certain vowels...I can't quite put my finger on it...I just don't care for it.
Like...after 1-2 songs...I have to turn it off.
I also think that vocal style forces them to write songs in a certain style so it fits...and then every song sounds the same, with the same vocal delivery.

I guess these kids all hear some Pop star singing like that, and then they all try to mimic...and we end up with that singular Pop vocal style, rather then them developing their own. I really like when I hear a younger singer that is NOT following that trend.

That said...I'm sure he'll float on top for awhile, as long as he stays cute and there are enough young girls swooning over him. ;)
 
Since it was brought up about McCartney....As a young aspiring songwriter I studied Dylan, McCartney, and the Taupin / Elton styles of song writing closely and surely there were a ton of other influences like Burt Bacharach, Herb Alpert, King Crimson, Pink Floyd, Zappa, Motown..the list is long and wide....But surely McCartney was one of my earliest studies and influences. For the longest time I felt McCartney was the meat and potato's of the Beatles catalog ...30 years later getting hold of a ton of live studio out takes of the fab four...I came to find I had underestimated Mr. Lennon's gifts greatly ...the boy was a lyrical , spherical, diabolical denizen of the deep genius of sorts fo sho!
 
I think that was their strength. Lennon and McCartney were like Yin and Yang. Paul is definitely a leveling force, and is an very accomplished "musician", and John was quite the eccentric, with a gift for language, the turn of a phrase, a sense of humor and musical puns. Paul's songs were generally melodic, John's were often concentrated on a single note or two for much of the verse.

Put together, it made the songs more interesting.
 
Hey I just stumbled on this video and thought I'd resurrect this old thread ..

I still think she and her brutha and the bomb diddy bomb

 
I had no idea who this person was.

Last week Logic offered for me to download the stems from one of their tracks and so I did just out of curiosity. It was pretty cool to play around with the final mix - which sounds way the hell better than anything I've ever done - and using stock Logic plug-ins. I was able to learn some things and observe some settings that I had never used before. Pretty cool.
 
Eilish is good. She's a hero, because she extends into new creative space, and that's why girls her age adore her - they feel she gives them permission and elbow room to be whatever there is inside them. The Beatles sort of did that for me (and the Dead and Velvet Underground and Dylan) - they sort of gave me the inspiration and permission to go for it, but Eilish is so psychological, she keeps orienting inward. Just awesome. She's not very afraid of her own mind. (When the party's over - bittersweet tune mated to a disturbing rip your heart out video. They're one thing.) I don't adore her, but I'm very impressed, and I really like her music. Her stuff's memorable - she's like T Rex that way - you hear one of her tunes three times and it's etched itself into your memory forever.

Another good new one is Aldous Harding. There are these young women who are willing to be the weird they find in themselves. And if you don't think that's something, YOU try it.
 
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