disc, it was intended to give a behind-the-scenes glimpse of Beyoncé's life, stripped of her make-up and celebrity trappings. The liner notes for 21 list Ryan Tedder and Jerrod Bettis of OneRepublic for the drums on “Rumour Has It.” They may not be the voice, the heart, the face that place the album among the finest offerings in pop music this side of 2000, but their contribution is a big reason the RIAA has certified this single double platinum."Halo" is a song recorded by American singer Beyoncé for her third studio album, I Am. Consider the ebb and flow of the tides, the human heartbeat, even the handclaps in “Rumour Has It.” The track’s percussion, simple as it is, taps into our instinct for a beat. In his book Planet Drum, Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart explores how rhythm is so primal it antecedes anything we would call a drum. Again, however, it’s the percussion, a stomping thing with tambourine accents, that seizes your hand and makes it turn up the volume. There’s something spiritual in the sound of “ Rumour Has It,” and Adele’s voice carries it with soul. Like Aguilera and Beyoncé, it’s an eruption of sound that’s a break in the superficial affording a glimpse of the essential when she opens up. Aside from the Bond theme “ Skyfall,” I never bothered with Adele again until I saw her on Carpool Karaoke with James Corden. “Rumour Has It” was released in 2011, but I rarely listen to the radio, so it wasn’t until a couple of years later that I got my first listen in the car one day. Together, these musicians’ work rivals even the spastic bops in Beyoncé’s earlier hits “Crazy in Love” and “ Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It).”Īdele was a radio find for me. “Don’t Hurt Yourself” is a stop-the-press moment on the album.Ī lot of the credit for that goes to Raconteurs’ drummer Patrick Keeler, but the track also features a sample from Led Zeppelin’s “ When The Levee Breaks,” so also throw in drum legend John Bonham. Lemonade (2016) is the sort of album that could only come from an artist of consummate vision. So adding drums is just gilding the lily, but I won’t complain. Those were years when we were resigning ourselves to Auto-Tune and other subterfuge, but Bey didn’t need anything but her instrument to prove she was one of the vocal talents of our time. She’s backstage, without a mic, just belting out “ 1+1” to a keyboardist, backup singers, and her entourage, and she sounds great. I had always loved the dance break in the video for “Baby Boy,” and “Halo” choked me up, but then I saw a video on YouTube of her warming up for American Idol in 2011. That album mixed new sensibilities, old swing styles, and samples from last-century funk and soul into pizzazztastic tracks like “Ain’t No Other Man” and “Candyman.” With “In the Air Tonight,” Phil Collins showed us that drum machines could work wonders, but this is one area where my money is still on the human element.īeyoncé’s full talent didn’t dawn on me until later. Xtina has always had an ear for rhythm, a trait that shone on Back to Basics (2006). That’s what gets your attention, and when the track is over, that’s what you remember. Thank ABBA session drummer Ola Brunkert for laying down that foundation. Aguilera is in top form, all brass and sass, but the sample does a lot of the heavy lifting with a simple riff to a beat that’s all fills. Those drums come via a sample from ABBA session guitarist Janne Schaffer’s solo track “ No Registration.” On his 1973 self-titled album, that instrumental is a six-minute trip through jazz fusion with enough noodling guitar and syncopated drumming to make me a man with an obsession: finding this on vinyl. Her 2018 album Liberation was scant on standouts, but “Sick of Sittin’” was a track with drums for gettin’ you on your feet. Back in 2002, I was under the impression that she was a Britney knockoff, but that changed when I saw the video for “ Beautiful.” This was singing such as I’d never heard before, and Aguilera’s voice can still send a jolt through me: “Lift Me Up” as performed on Hope for Haiti Now (2010), “We Remain” on the Hunger Games: Catching Fire Soundtrack (2013), even random moments coaching on The Voice. I can still remember the moment I realized Christina Aguilera could sing.
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