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Intersections of music and millennialism. Deep dives, asides, and exasperations by Alex (+ his friends): a lifelong musician, audiophile, and editorializer turned fitness instructor, DJ, producer, and sound curator.
Hi, guys.
Did anybody grow up in Boston?
And if so, do y'all know, um, Magic 106.
7?
They, I don't know if they still do this,
they have Bedtime Magic, which is their
evening radio show, um, And I think it's
a lead anchor or lead host was Delilah
and she would be like this, but like up an
octave and a half and it'd be very quiet
and it would be evening time stories.
I don't know.
I'm feeling a little quiet tonight,
maybe because it's like dark and quiet.
Anyway, how y'all doing?
Welcome back to Galt's radio and welcome
to another episode here of The Vocal.
Tonight, I wanted to walk
through something that.
It's kind of fun to talk about, which
is songwriters, um, and use a big
diva that we all know, Miss Beyonce
Giselle Knowles Carter, uh, as an
example of someone that obviously works
with many, many songwriters, um, and
gives them, of course, credit, but
we'll talk a little bit about that.
Um, but a lot of those, uh, songs that be
either purchases or she hears a demo and
then she, Um, edits it a little bit and
then she kind of retools it for herself.
A lot of those demos are actually
out there and they're still up on the
internet and it's very cool to kind of
hear their initial form and then all
the way through to the version that we
all know on one of the Beyonce albums.
Now listen y'all, obviously
two things are true here.
Number one being that Beyonce
works with legions of writers.
If y'all have like read the blogs and the,
like just the press that comes out around
each, um, each of her last, like maybe
four albums, she's kind of become infamous
for these writing camps where she has.
writers, um, some of whom we like
know as household ish names and
some of whom we don't, um, come
to like some big rented mansion.
I think the one big one that got kind
of known was like, I think it was like
a mansion in the Hamptons for the self
titled album, uh, which came out in 2013.
And they just write,
write, write, write, write.
And they each take a room.
She gets something with
like 20 rooms or something.
And she has like a few production rooms
and then the writers go all over the house
and they're writing, writing, writing.
And then Beyonce just
like dips in and out.
Um, so she's obviously
someone that has like.
created a business forum around these
writing camps, which I think she actually
plucked the idea of writing camps from
something that like labels used to do.
And then Beyonce is
like, I'm my own label.
Because at this point she
actually does own her own label.
Um, so she does it just for herself.
Um, so that's number one, obviously
this is a woman that works with.
Lots and lots and lots of writers and
you know, not to discredit that part
of Beyonce's artistry But the truth
is I don't think there's a single song
out there that has a single name just
Beyonce Knowles Carter As its writer.
I think she is always co writing She's
maybe starting the the work herself But
then bringing someone else in at least one
other person to finesse it to work with
her and to finish it Sometimes it's the
inverse where she hears something that
already exists or is half done and then
she takes it and edits it These days,
um, it's much more of like a sample game.
And so if you look at the credits of
like the Renaissance album, there's like.
You know, 10, 20 writers
on some of these songs.
And then some of the writers that
you see listed, um, are the original
writers of the original song that
Beyonce has decided to sample.
So she purchased the rights to many,
many, many samples on Renaissance.
It's almost like a sample circus in
a way of like compiling things from
the past and making them new, which I
think is in the spirit of Renaissance.
Uh, but then.
The original writers of those tracks are
listed as the writers of the new song that
then she is like writing on top of and
so if she's got the new writers and the
old writers it can be dozens of writers.
A lot of artists that are like
Beyonce get kind of criticized for
this because it's seen as sometimes
as like Is this original or is this
just like collage art of songwriting?
And I think you could make
the argument for either.
I see Beyonce as a performer, obviously
a singer, a dancer, someone that
puts massive live shows together.
Um, you know, a modern day
Michael Jackson, self proclaimed.
Not necessarily do I
see her as a songwriter.
But, um, you know, she's definitely put
the pen to the paper and she's definitely
tried to get the story up there in some
of her documentaries that she's very
much a part of the writing process.
Uh, a story that I think has been made,
uh, that has made its way around maybe
even just pop culture at this point, but
initially, uh, maybe just the industry
before it kind of like leaked out,
especially these days as songwriters are
talking about what they're making or not
making on these songs, is that someone
like Beyonce gets to a certain level
of preeminence, basically pays for a
song or like pulls writers into a room.
And no matter how much she contributes,
she's basically getting top billing.
So she's the lead.
She's like getting the top line.
She's the first writer in the sequence.
Like if you were to go to Wikipedia
right now and look up all the songwriters
B's number one, even if she only
did tiny little bit of the work.
And there's this like turn of phrase
that's change a word, get a third,
um, which used to mean something like
a big star will hear a demo basically
fully baked or hear a song that
hasn't, doesn't even have a demo yet.
Change one word.
It could be like the gender of a
pronoun or something and then get.
a third of the mechanical
rights or the publishing rights
to that song as the writer.
I think Beyonce is even beyond that.
I think she's getting more than a third
for changing as little as a third.
Um, but anyway, this is
in the spirit of fun.
I obviously am a huge fan of Beyonce.
I'm not here to like try to tear her
down or like make anything out of it, but
But, um, I wanted to go through some of
her like middle albums where songwriting
was kind of more of a focus as she was
becoming like the massive star that
she is and pull some of the the song
references that do exist as demos out
there from the artists that wrote them
and maybe even performed them or put
them up as demos and show you how much
or in some cases how little changed um
when Beyonce took them on as her own.
All right we're gonna start with Beyonce's
third solo album I am slash Sasha Fierce
and this song is on the I am side which
was basically like the ballad side I
saw this album as having like kind of
fit be into the mold of like the Barbra
Streisand it was a lot of like big ballads
kind of like hooks that were like meant
to fill arenas a lot of like flowy gowns
with wind being pushed through them
and she had like long hair and she was
just kind of like singing like it was
really like a diva moment she obviously
did a lot of like dance tracks with the
like two girls and the single ladies
of it all um but i remember this as
her like i'm trying to be like to step
into my Like, Stand and Deliver, D.
Va chapter.
Um, this song is kind of a fun little,
like, party trivia, because I don't
know if There's very, very few people
that know this original artist.
He's very much from the, like,
mid 2000s, kind of like, sad boy
with a guitar songwriter phase.
So, kind of like You know, maybe the
Jason Mraz, the Gavin DeGraw, not that
they're particularly sad, into the like,
the fray, like, that kind of era was
his thing, his name was John McLaughlin,
or McLaughlin, I'm actually not 100
percent sure how to pronounce that.
I loved him, he's a really beautiful
songwriter and he has really lovely like,
you know, maybe the, the right way to
categorize his chapter of like when he was
out was like the Ingrid Michelson chapter.
It was when Starbucks had
the albums at the counter.
Do you know what I'm talking about?
And it was like, sometimes they had the
Christmas albums or sometimes it was just
like the Starbucks 20 and it was like
full coffee shop music, Portlandia phase.
Like that's kind of his moment.
But so the song smash into you, which
I, I swear to God, as soon as I say
the title of this song, Beyonce's
Smash Into You, I'm like trying on
clothes in like a Marshalls, like which
I haven't done in like 10, 15 years.
But also like, it's kind of
like the analog to the songs
that you only hear in CVS.
Now like, I'm here defending it.
I think this is a great song, but that's
kind of like the place that you're going.
Like you're gonna maybe
hear this one in TJ Maxx.
Um, the original song.
is called Smack Into You.
So in the spirit of change a word, get
a third, Beyoncé becomes songwriter
on this song for having changed.
I could count, I could rewind and count,
but it is maybe the same number of
words as I have fingers on my left hand.
So, you know, in the spirit of
songwriters do not always get the
glory, this one is very much true.
Now, y'all, if I play more than eight
recognizable seconds of a Beyonce song
on and then post it to social media.
It will be taken down.
They know how to like protect her catalog.
So I'm going to play like a wink and a nod
of her song and then I will play a little
bit more of the songwriter song each time.
So before I play, uh, smack
and smack slash smash into you.
I think it's hilarious that B
did not like the word smack.
The line is.
I want to run smack into you smack is an
adverb in that line like I want to run
full throttle into you it doesn't mean
physically smack you with my body into
your body and I think she just thought
the word smash was more gentle but the
word smash does in its place is it changes
the line to I want to run smash into you.
That's not a that's not a phrase.
I don't think that's a great edit
And I think it doesn't make as much
sense like that's not an adage.
It's not a turn of phrase So like
her version is really I want to run
comma Parentheses but not sung and and
parentheses smash into you so I find
hers Like more violent because she's
saying I want to run and smash into you.
You know what I'm saying?
So anyway, here's a little bit
of Beyonce's in case you've never
heard this in case you've never,
you know Shopped in a store where
this is playing in the changing room
That's probably more than I'm gonna
get away with playing but also
something that I will always hear
when I hear it when I listen to this
song is that you can clearly hear an
edit between I want to run Smash Cut.
Into you.
Meaning, they've comped the vocals.
It's not a perfect blend.
I won't replay it just for risk of
like getting this video pulled down,
but like, it's just kind of hilarious
that she was like, I like, I want
to run, but then I like that smash,
you know, anything for the hit.
Okay.
So that's Beyonce's version,
which doesn't make as much.
grammatical or syntactical sense and
here's John McLaughlin's version.
It's literally the same key, it's the same
track, virtually nothing has been changed.
Alright, so even if the word smack isn't
as like melodious, it makes literal sense.
So B, I don't know, I don't know
about that edit, but maybe she just
needed to edit something so that she
could become a writer because this is
when she was like figuring that out.
The one thing that she does add that I'm
like very into is of course a vocal run.
That's Smack Slash Smashing to you.
Y'all, your guess is as good as
mine as to why this camera just
like blurs and then doesn't unblur.
I'm trying to catch it as it's happening.
I'm not doing the best job.
I'm working on it.
I'm gonna get a new camera at some point.
Okay, now kind of like the magnum opus
of like, or like the thesis statement
of this content would be the album.
So Beyonce's fourth solo album.
If you remember this album,
it was her return to R and B.
It was a lot of like eighties
mixed in with like 2000s synth.
And then lots of like really
like lots of melismas and runs
and just big vocal moments.
This was like her singer's album
with some eighties influences.
It was like a little
Whitney Houston by Beyonce.
Four is funny.
So the reason it's funny is that
Four was very much Beyonce going out
and like just buying stuff and then
like scooping it up, putting her
vocal on it, and then there it goes.
Or it's at least the one where we
can like really track her doing this.
One of the producers, I don't know
if he was an executive producer or
producer, um, but one of the folks that
she worked with was named Jeff Basker.
And I looked up Jeff's
credits right before this.
He worked with Kanye West.
He worked with Bruno Mars.
He worked with Harry Styles
and he did some work with.
Fun.
Remember the group Fun?
That's Jeff Basker.
He's a white dude in LA.
He's a songwriter producer.
He like produces songs that then he,
if he's releasing a demo or selling
a demo, he sometimes sings them.
So I have Y'all, I have
no idea how I found this.
I found this probably 10 years ago.
It defies research because, like,
there's nothing trackable about it.
But, when, uh, Jeff had written a lot
of the songs, many of which Beyonce
bought and put on 4, he released them
under a pseudonym as if he were his own
artist, and maybe he does perform, um,
which That pseudonym was Billy Craven.
He put them on a SoundCloud that you
can literally look up right now called
Craven Works But please do not get it
taken down because this is like a fun
thing that's on the internet that I don't
I like literally don't want people to
know about and he put the demos of many
of the songs More than just the ones
that landed on four up with his voice.
Now, they're not like the most beautiful
listens This is a producer who does
not necessarily identify as a singer.
He's Probably just cutting the corner of
paying a session singer like, you know A
thousand bucks or however much they get
paid to come in and sing these vocals.
Um, so he's just like doing
it himself It's just like me.
It's like there's
someone in his own house.
Just like singing on top of the thing
So it's a stretch if he's writing
for women or for higher tenors.
His voice doesn't sound great on it.
So like You know this isn't to
judge him for him not sounding like
an amazing singer It's more just
that like I really thought that
by this point in Beyonce's career.
It was like More than just
purchasing a track singing on it
like karaoke and releasing it.
I thought it was like And maybe some of it
was, but it was like, in my mind, like a
mind meld, like she's in the studio, she's
birthing these songs with these people.
She's putting it all together with them.
She's like in the trenches and
with the songs here, some from Jeff
Basker, AKA Billy Craven, some from
others, like that's not the case.
And it's just kind of like strange.
So, all right, I'm going to play a
few songs from Jeff Basker's, uh,
pseudonym SoundCloud from the album four.
Oh my god, don't tell me
they've been taken down.
I'm gonna be so sad I feel like there
were more and now i'm only seeing
two songs okay, so One of the songs
is probably top five for me favorite
beyonce vocal Moments like the my
favorite thing that she's performed
on stage now the renaissance tour.
She did it so much.
It was every night That I kind of got
sick of seeing the videos of it and I
feel like she's phoning it in now but
Really in a big way this song went from
basically never being performed or being
known as a big hit on her set list In
Homecoming, this song got its flowers
and then I think people really figured
out, Oh my god, this is an amazing song.
So Beyonce's version of
this song is called I Care.
The version of the song that is on Jeff
Basker's SoundCloud is called Who Cares.
So this is Who Cares.
Same track.
Same exact track.
Same key.
So already lyrical changes.
She definitely changed this one.
But the track's the same.
Sounds like Bono there to me.
Chorus.
One of the coolest things that Beyonce,
Beyonce the vocalist does to this song,
um, not just as a songwriter but as
a vocalist is adding some like crazy
riffs in the bridge to the last chorus.
But I'm not gonna play them.
We know what those are.
If you don't, go look it up
because, like, welcome to culture.
Just kidding.
Am I?
Now, the second song, and the last
song, actually, in this SoundCloud
collection that seems to be there
is Rather Die Young, which, y'all,
I have to be honest, my friend Alec
knows, and we talk about 4 probably
as much as we talk about anything.
Um, This is not my fave and this is not my
this is not in the middle for me like this
is in the bottom Of this album for me.
That's just a that's got all day.
Okay, that's just like how I feel But
this is rather die young the original demo
So some like the gender flip, you
know This is like it just doesn't do
anything for me of course is all right
And I hear I'm like dancing
So I just think it's interesting that it's
like, she doesn't even change the key.
It's like, and maybe he wrote them
for women so she didn't, so she or
whoever took them didn't need to.
But like, it's literally just like, she's
like, I'll come do karaoke on this track.
So those are two songs from
Four, um, by Jeff Basker.
Okay, so that brings us to
the self titled of it all.
Um, this was an album that I think
Beyonce actually openly talked about.
The Writer's Camp that
we alluded to earlier.
It's in this, she had
done a lot of, or she was.
Starting to do her documentary
thing at this time.
I think it's on YouTube.
I forget which one this is.
Maybe this is the HBO doc.
She actually films them.
So there are like videos of like all
the writers in this Big Hamptons house.
She's going room to room
pairing writers with producers
seeing what they come up with.
Then she like lays it down
like she sings on it and then
like moves to the next room.
So you can actually go she's she's like
fully owned this Um and is like proud
of it because it's like her conjuring
magic You know in in the like music
cauldron with all of these artists Um,
the one that I want to focus on this
was definitely someone that people
talked about as a known Contributor
to, like, pop song writing for, like,
that whole chapter of, like, the mid
late to, uh, 2010s, which is Sia.
So Sia was in that writer's camp.
I think she was also in, uh, trying to
write for what ended up being Lemonade,
and I don't think any of it got taken.
This was also when she was writing
for Adele and Rihanna, so she
was, like, shipping songs out.
Like, she was writing, putting songs
out, and then famously, like, All
the ones that didn't get taken landed
on her album called This is Acting,
where they were like demos that she
didn't intend to sing, but then ended
up singing, um, which is her whole
story for how she became a pop icon.
She was the demo singer for Um, Titanium,
I think, and if it wasn't Titanium, it was
the one before that that I can't remember
and then the producer left her vocals on
because they sounded better than whoever
was meant to be on it, and I think it
was Katy Perry, and then she was like,
do I sue you or do I thank you for having
like made me into a pop star when I was
trying to be behind the scenes, so anyway.
Sia got involved in the writing process,
um, of Beyoncé's albums and others.
Um, this one I think people kn I think
people know about both of these, but,
um, one of them that didn't end up on the
album, but then was like, used for an H&
M campaign, and then I think there's a
version of it on Spotify from the Deluxe
album, um, which may have only been
uploaded recently, is Standing on the Sun.
So if you don't know it, here's
a little bit of Beyoncé's.
Alright, and now here's Sia's.
This is just a little bit.
Then, the one that did make it onto the
album, and I loved this because it was
actually just incidentally one of my
favorites, is the first song, Pretty
Hurts, which is, if you remember the
visual album, it was when Beyonce, she
starts the whole album on this song,
and she's like in the room, dressed
as like her young pageant self with
all the trophies, and I think she's
like tearing the trophies off the
wall and saying pretty actually hurts.
Um, so here's Beyonce's version.
And here's Sia's version.
Oh, funny, I didn't even know
she didn't sing the chorus.
Alright, last one, and again, this
is by no means an exhaustive list.
Um, this one's maybe my favorite.
Um, this is the first song on
Beyonce's 2016 album, Lemonade.
Y'all, I swear, as soon as I heard this
song, and I Very randomly, and luckily,
watched the premiere of this live.
Um, we didn't know what it was, and we
certainly didn't even know until like
halfway through that it was an album,
but the first song, as soon as the chords
started playing, she sings one line, I
was like, I bet Kevin Garrett wrote this.
The only reason that that occurred to me
was because I was listening to a lot of
this man Kevin Garrett at the time man,
I mean at the time he was like a kid, but
um He's a songwriter and this kind of like
neo soul very very very ballad heavy Um
kind of minimalist piano with voice and
I had been listening to he I don't even
think he had a full album out At the time
he was just putting out eps and singles
and I was really really into him I have
no idea how I found him Interesting if
I could trace that but it just sounded
just like him and no one else had that
sonic Thumbprint that Kevin had especially
with piano and Beyonce kept the piano in
the track So I was like, I bet those are
literally Kevin's hands playing the piano.
So anyway, shout out Kevin Garrett
You've had a really strong Flavor
since the beginning and like the real
ones know Anyway, so Kevin's demo is
actually just a live version on YouTube.
It's beautiful So I'm gonna play
first a little bit of Beyonce's
and then more of Kevin's.
Here's Beyonce's
The pray,
pray to catch me.
I don't dunno, I, you listen to
enough of this guy and you can
like hear the way his fingers move
and like I can tell that's him.
So anyway, here's Kevin
playing his own song.
Pray You Catch Me.
You can Tell All As I pass it off.
So.
Constantly aware of it all, my lonely,
Press against the walls of your world.
Prayin I catch you whisperin Prayin you
catch me listenin I'm prayin I catch
you whisperin Prayin you catch me.
Prayin you catch me.
Alright, so that's my man, Kevin.
Garrett.
Kevin, I saw you in Boston at a tiny
little show in the Middle East, upstairs,
it must have been like winter 2017.
You killed it.
You killed it.
I think you actually played
that, and I was like On one
in the front or in the back.
All right, y'all.
So those are some songs that I thought
would be fun to share as demos from
before Beyonce did them to once
Beyonce did them, as you can see,
sometimes not a lot changes, but
where would stars like Beyonce be
without these brilliant song writers?
And I think it's such a skill and a craft,
those that can write for their own voice
or kind of invert it and write actually
for someone else's voice or for like.
in omniscient person that they
don't know who will take the song.
In all of these cases, I
think it's so interesting that
Beyonce didn't change the key.
And in many of these cases,
Beyonce was working with or bought
the songs from male songwriters.
So I think it's kind of interesting.
Maybe she kind of takes it as a challenge
to like Stretch her range or to like give
it a shot or hear a different texture
of her voice Or a different register
than she would normally because men have
written it or just folks with different
voices than her but anyway, I'll hope
you enjoyed this I know there's like
tiktokers like crazy out there talking
about like Song samples and blah blah
blah blah blah But like I've never heard
anyone talk about the ones at least from
four before and maybe I introduced you
to Kevin Garrett tonight So if that is
the case, then I take that as a win.
I hope y'all enjoyed are there artists?
Are there songwriters that you would
like me to talk about on Galt's radio?
Please let me know chime in and
I'll see you next time on the vocal