Jason Cleverley RSL Unit 209 - Listening To Music

Task 1 (Headings taken from the assignment brief for Unit 209)

1) Bring to the lesson a piece of music of your choice. It should be one that you enjoy listening to. Prepare the answers to the following questions:

a) What is it about this piece that you like (refer to the musical elements)

Piece of music and artist: ‘The Universal’ by Blur

Background to the song, including my own personal reflection:

‘The Universal’ was released in 1996, and is taken from the album ‘The Great Escape’, which was the follow up to the hugely successful album ‘Parklife’.

The song was released as single in December 1995, but it was overshadowed by Oasis’ ‘Wonderwall’. Personally, I think it is one of Blur’s best songs, and when the band reunited to headline Glastonbury in 2009, it became the anthem it deserved to be.

I remember 1995 as being a particularly amazing year for British bands. Oasis, Suede, Blur, The Stone Roses, Radiohead, Supergrass, Elastica, Pulp all had new albums out, and there was a great new single released seemingly every week.

Personally, I remember lots of arguments about who was the best British band: ‘Oasis’ or ‘Blur’? This came to a head in the chart-battle between ‘Country House’ by Blur and ‘Roll With It’ by Oasis. I remember having an argument with a London taxi driver, about who was the ‘best’ band. This was after I had bought the Blur CD in HMV in Oxford Street.British bands were even talked about on the 10 O’clock news!

However, upon reflection, neither of those songs reflected the bands at their best.

To the right, the CD cover of ‘The Universal’

To the left, the album cover of ‘The Great Escape’

Jason Cleverley RSL Unit 209 - Listening To Music

The next Blur single, released in time for Christmas 1995 was ’The Universal’, a proper return to form; part ballad, part anthem and all Blur; a real mix of rhythms, timbre and styles. It was a huge radio and MTV hit, but only reached number 5 on the UK charts. (It has since been used for the British Gas adverts in the UK, and many adverts in the USA, earning the band a fortune in publishing royalties.)

Tonality:

The song is in the key of A major and is diatonic (meaning all of the notes belong to the scale of A major, the overall key).

Intro: Strings and Guitar: play a riff over the chords A and C#minor

The verse chords are:

A - C# minor, A - C# minor, A - C# minor, A - C# minor, E - B minor, E-B minor

Chorus chords are: A4 - D, A4 - D, C# minor, D, D/C#, B minor, E.

(Below: copied from www.E-Chords.com)

Jason Cleverley RSL Unit 209 - Listening To Music

Tempo:

The tempo is slow, at 70 bpm, and is in 4/4 time signature. The syncopated off-beat riff (below), played by the strings adds an interesting rhythm, which makes the music feel slightly off-centre. The stresses in the beats are on beats 1 and 2+ and 4. In the Chorus, the syncopation stops, and the music is totally on the beat. This is used for the Outro also.

According to information on Wikipedia, ‘The Universal’ was first attempted during the Parklife sessions as a ska/reggae song. During the making of The Great Escape album, the song was resurrected by bass player, Alex James, who notes in his autobiography, Bit of a Blur, that the band had almost given up on getting it to work when Damon Albarn came up with the string section part below:

Instrumentation:

Blur are a 4-piece guitar band, so we have electric guitar, electric bass, drums and vocals. However, the multi-tracked recording features a brass group and a string orchestra. The main riff (above) is played by the strings, and the trumpets has it’s own melody after the 1st chorus. The electric guitar has it’s own counter-melody to the strings in the verses. There is also a harmonised multi-tracked female backing vocal.

Jason Cleverley RSL Unit 209 - Listening To Music

Lyrics: (Chorus’s are in bold)

"The Universal"

This is the next century Where the universal's free You can find it anywhere

Yes, the future has been sold Every night we're gone And to karaoke songs

How we like to sing a long Although the words are wrong

It really, really, really could happen Yes, it really, really, really could happen

When the days they seem to fall through you, well just let them go

No one here is alone, satellites in every home Yes the Universal's here, here for everyone

Every paper that you read Says tomorrow is your lucky day

Well, here's your lucky day

It really, really, really could happen Yes, it really, really, really could happen

When the days they seem to fall through you, well just let them go

Well, it really, really, really could happen Yes, it really, really, really could happen

When the days they seem to fall through you, well just let them go

Just let them go

In the lyrics the singer and narrator is standing on the end of the 20th Century, looking forward to a version of the future, prophesying the future that lies ahead:

“This is the next century, where the Universal’s free”. It’s a somewhat empty and bleak vision of the future, where “the Universal's free” and “everything has been sold”.

Jason Cleverley RSL Unit 209 - Listening To Music

We are never told what the “Universal” is, and what the narrator is referring to. Is it the Internet? Is it our privacy? (“No one here is alone, satellite in every home”). It is an ambivalent metaphor.

The chorus lyrics are more transparent, where the listener is urged to just let the days go, and let time slip through our fingers. Overall, it’s as if the big questions posed by the verses cannot possibly be answered, so we’re encouraged to just wait and see.

Towards the end of the 20th Century, pre-millennial angst was quite typical, with plenty of books, films and music written about what could go wrong with the start of a new century. Bearing in mind the earlier part of the 20th Century has brought 2 World wars, it is unsurprising that people were anxious about the future.

Given what happened in 2001 (911/Twin Towers) and all that came after that, we could argue that writers and artists were right to be worried about the “next Century”.

Production Techniques:

‘The Universal’ was produced by Blur and Stephen Street. (Stephen Street had in the 1980’s produced albums for The Smiths.)

Other than a small bit of delay on the electric guitar, the band actually sound quite natural, as do the strings and brass. There is a small bit of delay and reverb on the main vocals and backing vocals.

The song is not live, so we know that the main band parts were recorded, with strings, brass and backing vocals being added later. There is use of panning, with some parts being sent to either the left or right speaker. The whole recording was multi-tracked.

Below: A still from the video for ‘The Universal’ (© 1995)

b) Does this piece have an emotional significance, i.e. does it remind you of a particular moment in your life, or does it make you think of a significant person in your life? (See above)

2) Listen to the chosen music of 2 of your peers and discuss the following:a) Describe the music in terms of the elementsb) Do you like it? Why/why not?

Jason Cleverley RSL Unit 209 - Listening To Music