JACQUES: Dua Lipa and The Weeknd have been drawing on funky basslines, disco grooves, and synth
heavy pop nostalgia, to land respective spots at the top of the Billboard Charts.
Their latest albums, ‘Future Nostalgia,’ and ‘After Hours’ both feature retro production
reminiscent of a high energy 80’s workout video.
JACQUES: And as Genius’ Joe Ali found, that feeling is a few decades old.
JOE: Honestly guys I don't know what it is, but every time I hear these albums my hips won't stop moving.
What exactly is it about the production, and these nolgastic sounds that makes you wanna dance?
NATE SLOAN: A really key musical concept, which is syncopation.
JACQUES: That’s songwriter Charlie Harding and musicologist Nate Sloan from Switched On Pop - a podcast
about the making and meaning of popular music.
The two sat down with Genius Joe Ali to break down the heavy influence of the late
70’s and 80’s production found in today’s pop music, and why these sounds make you wanna
dance.
SLOAN: If you think of a track like Don't Start Now, there's kind of this underlying really
steady rhythm that undergirds the whole song, that's really common in disco.
It's called like, four on the floor rhythm.
CHARLIE HARDING: One, two, three, four. It's just the simplest rhythm there could be.
SLOAN: You have one layer of rhythm that's just this kind of steady pulse.
And then you have another rhythm that's dancing in and between it, and that's keeping you
on your toes.
SLOAN: Frankly, it messes up your brain.
Your brain explodes.
But it's not unpleasant.
It's actually really pleasurable.
It's what music scientists call a violation of structural expectation.
And when that happens, I mean, let me put it in more plain terms, your body just goes
crazy.
JACQUES: Tracks like “Love Again” produced by Dua Lipa’s frequent collaborator Stephen “Koz”
Kozmeniuk, and Abel’s cut “After Hours” produced by longtime collaborator Illangelo,
lay the blueprint for these levitating syncopated sounds pioneered in 70’s and 80’s queer
clubs of Chicago and Detroit.
JACQUES: But according to Harding, in order to truly capture the essence of a time period you have
to sound like it.
HARDING: If you go into any major studio, they're going to have a wall of different
synthesizers because each one has a very particular voice and brings out a quality that might
be of different eras.
So the Juno was really, in many ways, the sound of the 1980s.
JACQUES: Synthesizers like the Roland Juno 60 were essential in bringing the listener into an
outer space world, and present a sense of escapism that dominated the sound of the late
70s and 80s.
Italian composer Giorgio Moroder, dubbed “The Father of Disco,” famously used sci-fi esk
synths throughout his discography something you can hear in Donner Summer’s 1977 cut,
“I Feel Love”
JACQUES: Or a-ha’s 1984 mega hit “Take On Me.”
JACQUES: Just like a- ha, The Weeknd glides over synth filled beats that drive the production of
his track “Blinding Lights.”
JACQUES: And the drowned out synths of “In Your Eyes”
JACQUES: As for Dua Lipa, well she is no stranger to these sounds and falls right into place on
the eponymously named track “Future Nostalgia.”
JACQUES: As well as on the the breezy sounds of “Cool”
JACQUES: To give those synths a sense of fullness, producers often weaved percussion in between
the sounds to keep the rhythm going.
And one of the more important drum machines of the era was the Linn drum, made famous
by Prince.
HARDING: Prince found ways of tuning this very sort of robotic sound, this thing that's
trying to approximate a drum, and give it its own voice.
You know when you hear the tom roll that's like ...
JACQUES: These types of drum patterns are prevalent throughout The Weeknd’s After Hours album
like on “Scared To Live.”
JACQUES: And producers like Metro Boomin are making the sound current, borrowing from Prince’s
ability to give his drums a unique voice.
On The Weeknd’s cut “Faith,” Metro’s 808 drums are laced behind synths as Abel
croons out falsetto high vocals, while throwing a lyrical nod to Prince.
JACQUES: For Dua Lipa, the drums laid throughout her album add an extra umph.
Like on her galaxy traveling cut, “Levitating”
JACQUES: All in all it was Dua’s mission to capture a groove and the project sounds like it was
mixed by a DJ.
Take a track like “Break My Heart,” which opens up light and fades into a heavier bass.
HARDING: Even though it's a studio album, you get this filtering and EQing that makes
it feel alive.
It makes it feel like you're on the dance floor, even if you're just listening on earbuds
on a safe, physical distancing walk in your neighborhood.
JACQUES: Artists and producers finding success by tapping into the sounds of the late 70’s and 80’s
is nothing new.
Take Daft Punk's Grammy Award Winning 2013 album Random Access Memories.
HARDING: It's not surprising that we see different eras repeat.
During the height of Amy Winehouse, there was a sixties obsession.
We had some great seventies funk happening with Bruno Mars a handful of years back.
And so now we've made it into the '80s and the sounds of the 1980s are ripe for digging
because you have the confluence of so many great musical elements happening.
JACQUES: What’s your favorite song to get loose to on the dance floor?
Let us know in the comments.
I’m Jacques Morel with Genius News, bringing you the meaning and the knowledge behind the music. Peace.