In case some of you are thinking all current pop is synthetic, think again..

[Barking Spiders]

I've recently been caning Dua Lipa's cracking new album Future Nostalgia and unlike so much contemporary pop it actually features lots of musicians playing 'proper instruments'. Furthermore there are some tasty basslines going on. Here's Julia from Thomann demonstrating some of them

 

[paul_5]

Future Nostalgia is the BALLS!!

 

[Crawford13]

It is a great album, but there's not a lot of real instruments on it. When you dig a bit deeper the producer talks about programming most the parts. Even more impressive in some respects. 

[Graham]

If you've not seen this, it's cracking

 

[Dad3353]

5 minutes ago, Graham said:

If you've not seen this, it's cracking ...

... maybe, but not the drums. 

[CookPassBabtridge]

Dua Lipa is great, but the state of pop music in general at the moment is dire. She’s more the exception rather than the rule. In my humble opinion. 

[Barking Spiders]

On 06/02/2021 at 08:29, CookPassBabtridge said:

Dua Lipa is great, but the state of pop music in general at the moment is dire. She’s more the exception rather than the rule. In my humble opinion. 

Yes point taken, though there are a few more out there that buck the trend of serial awfulness. I'm thinking of Olivia Rodrigo who has a song out called 'Driving license' which I think is quite a novel approach to a love song. There's also The Weeknd who's made some decent tunes plus Bruno Mars and Justin Timberlake who are not averse to a good song. TBH when I watch some reruns of TOTP from the 60s to 90s or listen to Absolute radio, 90%+ of the chart stuff  back then was dire. 

Far more dispiriting are many more recently formed rock bands you can hear on Planet Rock, recycling 70s-80s e.g. the Pretty Reckless, Brothers Osborne, Beth Hart, Halestorm, Greta van Fleet .....

Edited February 7, 2021 by Barking Spiders

[Barking Spiders]

On 05/02/2021 at 22:22, Graham said:

If you've not seen this, it's cracking

 

Yes I posted this on another thread. IMO the versions year are actually better than the studio recordings

[CookPassBabtridge]

2 hours ago, Barking Spiders said:

Yes point taken, though there are a few more out there that buck the trend of serial awfulness. I'm thinking of Olivia Rodrigo who has a song out called 'Driving license' which I think is quite a novel approach to a love song. There's also The Weeknd who's made some decent tunes plus Bruno Mars and Justin Timberlake who are not averse to a good song. TBH when I watch some reruns of TOTP from the 60s to 90s or listen to Absolute radio, 90%+ of the chart stuff  back then was dire. 

Far more dispiriting are many more recently formed rock bands you can hear on Planet Rock, recycling 70s-80s e.g. the Pretty Reckless, Brothers Osborne, Beth Hart, Halestorm, Greta van Fleet .....

Certainly agree with you on most points there, particularly the recent rock bands that are completely unoriginal. Bruno, JT and the Weeknd are all great (looking forward to seeing the latter at the Superbowl tonight).

However, I cannot stand Olivia Rodrigo and 'Driving License'. I think the lyrics are awful and I don't know why so many vocalists try to rip off Dolores O'Riordan, because they'll never sound as good as her. Sorry for going into grumpy old man mode 😂  Each to their own though.

[knicknack]

I've had a listen to the stems of the Dua album and honestly the bass parts are just compiled from a ton of sampled/programmed bits. Don't start now for instance has 5/6 bass tracks at least and i wouldn't be surprised if no real basses were touched in the making of it... 

One that flew under the radar a bit last year was Jessie Ware's latest album... in the same sonic space as Dua's, but to me it feels like the songs have a little more substance! 

[Crawford13]

3 minutes ago, knicknack said:

I've had a listen to the stems of the Dua album and honestly the bass parts are just compiled from a ton of sampled/programmed bits. Don't start now for instance has 5/6 bass tracks at least and i wouldn't be surprised if no real basses were touched in the making of it... 

One that flew under the radar a bit last year was Jessie Ware's latest album... in the same sonic space as Dua's, but to me it feels like the songs have a little more substance! 

Its on Wikipedia no real bass on don't start now. However I have nothing but love for it. That takes a whole level of skill to make a vst sound that real. Fair play to the producer. 

[Barking Spiders]

36 minutes ago, knicknack said:

I've had a listen to the stems of the Dua album and honestly the bass parts are just compiled from a ton of sampled/programmed bits. Don't start now for instance has 5/6 bass tracks at least and i wouldn't be surprised if no real basses were touched in the making of it... 

One that flew under the radar a bit last year was Jessie Ware's latest album... in the same sonic space as Dua's, but to me it feels like the songs have a little more substance! 

Go on wiki and there are track by track credits. There are lots of musicians credited on Future Nostalgia and on 6 of the 11 tracks bass players are credited but it's true none are on Don't Start Now .

[knicknack]

Just to be clear I'm not criticising, it's a fun album and if it gets a younger generation interested in playing bass, or anything for that matter, then it's a good thing!