BT on working with *NSYNC on 'Pop'
Jul. 12th, 2003 03:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rosebeeWith this whole JC & BT & Force of Gravity thing, I decided I wanted to go looking for more information about this BT person.
I found a few articles, and in a couple of them, I found some new stuff I hadn't heard before (about making 'Pop', & how exactly BT ended up working with *NSYNC).
The following stuff comes from two different interviews/articles. I found both through message board links or archived news articles at the bt fansite here. One article is here, and the other article is here.
BT: Yeah, definitely. When I did the track “Pop” for N’SYNC, I actually did a lot of the vocal edits on a plane. I probably did about 25 different vocal treatments. I took that along with an isolated a capella. I cut and pieced the vocal together. There's something like 2000 or 3000 edits in that three-minute song. And I did that sitting on a plane.
REMIX: That song is one reason I think it's interesting to hear you talk about pop music and how it has evolved. I used to have bad associations with pop music. But one thing that you've brought to pop music is a forward-thinking kind of production. I want to know how you balance that forward-thinking production with still reaching out to that huge audience.
BT: What is commercially viable? It's a good question. The answer is I actually don't ever think about it. That gets me into trouble sometimes. Sting had written this really beautiful song and I just treated it as irreverently as possibly, while still respecting Sting as an artist. I'm a Sting fan—I love what he does. But I tried to approach it with the most punk rock sensibility that I could. I wanted to do something that would be interesting, so who cares what the audience is for it?
Sometimes it gets me into trouble, and sometimes it's a cool thing. After doing “Pop,” I couldn't believe that they accepted it, much less picked it for a single. I was in Thailand when they picked the song for the first single. I thought that was just retarded. No one's ever going to play that song. Ever. I tried to make Justin sound like a cross between Michael Jackson and Max Headroom. I just wanted it to sound like you had Michael Jackson in like a headlock and were just shaking him. I couldn't believe that they played that on the radio, much less that it was a single and a hit.
Equally awesome, in its own weird way, is the image of BT working with N'Sync. It's hard to imagine that taking place, but take place it did when he produced 'Pop', the first single off the group's new album, at 4 Box Studios, his home facility in the LA suburb of Studio City.
Before I did this project I had the same preconceived notions that I think a lot of other people have about boy bands, he says. Then JC [Chasez] came to one of my live shows in Orlando, Florida, and my tour manager said, 'Hey man, a member of a boy band is here to see you.' I was like, 'What the fuck are you talking about?' There I was, playing this insane rave with a six-piece band, with everybody instrument-hopping, and now somebody from a boy band was here to see us? However, I met JC that night and I really liked him a lot. He was very clued-up. He knew about a lot of really cool music, whereas the only N'Sync song that I knew was what I considered to be middle-of-the-road radio fodder.
Anyway, those guys were really persistent with me, and I'm glad that they were, because we all ended up becoming friends. That first time I met JC he asked me to produce one of their tracks, and I said, 'But you're a boy band and I make these underground electronic records. I'm gonna piss off all three of my fans and you're gonna piss off your 20 million. We can't do that, man!' For the longest time we all just hung out, but I started to hear them sing and I was really knocked out by their voices. Still, nothing happened until one night Justin [Timberlake] called me and said, 'We'd like to do something like Hip-Hop Phenomenon,' which is this crazy sort of crackle-edited breaking track. I said, 'Well, if you guys want to do something experimental, I'll think about it,' but then later on I spoke to Sasha on the phone and he was like, 'Dude, are you out of your mind? What could be more punk rock than making a boy band sound cool?' I said, 'Yeah, you're right! Fuck it, I'll do it!'
So, I did it and it was a real challenge for me, because I had to work within the confines of pop music while at the same time trying to do something cool. Listening to Justin sing, I think he sounds so much like Michael Jackson did when he was a kid, but no one had really played up on that. So, I started out by saying, 'Dude, you know, sing this like Michael. I want to hear every pop, sibilance, and everything really rhythmic in terms of your breathing.' But then it finally got the point where I was sick of telling him, and so I'd just press the talkback button and say, 'Michael!' He'd say, 'All right, sorry dude.' I really wanted him to play up that aspect, because given how rhythmic we eventually got the vocal, it was a lot of fun to edit.
I did some crazy things on that track. I programmed 17 or 18 pages of code in Kyma and did 40 different vocal treatments, and there's a couple of thousand vocal edits in that song. If you listened to it a capella it would completely freak you out. There's tons of real-time spectral morphing, phase vocoding, granular synthesis, traditional vocoding — anything you can think of I did to the vocals. I just tried to make something mental and I had a lot of fun doing it.
Favorite points/quotes
BT was surprised that 'Pop' was accepted, and even more surprised when it was picked as the first single.
His goal for the sound of 'Pop' was for it to sound like you had Michael Jackson in a headlock and were just shaking him.
Before I did this project I had the same preconceived notions that I think a lot of other people have about boy bands, he says. Then JC [Chasez] came to one of my live shows in Orlando, Florida, and my tour manager said, 'Hey man, a member of a boy band is here to see you.' I was like, 'What the fuck are you talking about?' There I was, playing this insane rave with a six-piece band, with everybody instrument-hopping, and now somebody from a boy band was here to see us?
(bolded emphasis is my own)
That first time I met JC he asked me to produce one of their tracks, and I said, 'But you're a boy band and I make these underground electronic records. I'm gonna piss off all three of my fans and you're gonna piss off your 20 million. We can't do that, man!'
JC? At a rave!?
::gets all sorts of mental images::
I found a few articles, and in a couple of them, I found some new stuff I hadn't heard before (about making 'Pop', & how exactly BT ended up working with *NSYNC).
The following stuff comes from two different interviews/articles. I found both through message board links or archived news articles at the bt fansite here. One article is here, and the other article is here.
BT: Yeah, definitely. When I did the track “Pop” for N’SYNC, I actually did a lot of the vocal edits on a plane. I probably did about 25 different vocal treatments. I took that along with an isolated a capella. I cut and pieced the vocal together. There's something like 2000 or 3000 edits in that three-minute song. And I did that sitting on a plane.
REMIX: That song is one reason I think it's interesting to hear you talk about pop music and how it has evolved. I used to have bad associations with pop music. But one thing that you've brought to pop music is a forward-thinking kind of production. I want to know how you balance that forward-thinking production with still reaching out to that huge audience.
BT: What is commercially viable? It's a good question. The answer is I actually don't ever think about it. That gets me into trouble sometimes. Sting had written this really beautiful song and I just treated it as irreverently as possibly, while still respecting Sting as an artist. I'm a Sting fan—I love what he does. But I tried to approach it with the most punk rock sensibility that I could. I wanted to do something that would be interesting, so who cares what the audience is for it?
Sometimes it gets me into trouble, and sometimes it's a cool thing. After doing “Pop,” I couldn't believe that they accepted it, much less picked it for a single. I was in Thailand when they picked the song for the first single. I thought that was just retarded. No one's ever going to play that song. Ever. I tried to make Justin sound like a cross between Michael Jackson and Max Headroom. I just wanted it to sound like you had Michael Jackson in like a headlock and were just shaking him. I couldn't believe that they played that on the radio, much less that it was a single and a hit.
Equally awesome, in its own weird way, is the image of BT working with N'Sync. It's hard to imagine that taking place, but take place it did when he produced 'Pop', the first single off the group's new album, at 4 Box Studios, his home facility in the LA suburb of Studio City.
Before I did this project I had the same preconceived notions that I think a lot of other people have about boy bands, he says. Then JC [Chasez] came to one of my live shows in Orlando, Florida, and my tour manager said, 'Hey man, a member of a boy band is here to see you.' I was like, 'What the fuck are you talking about?' There I was, playing this insane rave with a six-piece band, with everybody instrument-hopping, and now somebody from a boy band was here to see us? However, I met JC that night and I really liked him a lot. He was very clued-up. He knew about a lot of really cool music, whereas the only N'Sync song that I knew was what I considered to be middle-of-the-road radio fodder.
Anyway, those guys were really persistent with me, and I'm glad that they were, because we all ended up becoming friends. That first time I met JC he asked me to produce one of their tracks, and I said, 'But you're a boy band and I make these underground electronic records. I'm gonna piss off all three of my fans and you're gonna piss off your 20 million. We can't do that, man!' For the longest time we all just hung out, but I started to hear them sing and I was really knocked out by their voices. Still, nothing happened until one night Justin [Timberlake] called me and said, 'We'd like to do something like Hip-Hop Phenomenon,' which is this crazy sort of crackle-edited breaking track. I said, 'Well, if you guys want to do something experimental, I'll think about it,' but then later on I spoke to Sasha on the phone and he was like, 'Dude, are you out of your mind? What could be more punk rock than making a boy band sound cool?' I said, 'Yeah, you're right! Fuck it, I'll do it!'
So, I did it and it was a real challenge for me, because I had to work within the confines of pop music while at the same time trying to do something cool. Listening to Justin sing, I think he sounds so much like Michael Jackson did when he was a kid, but no one had really played up on that. So, I started out by saying, 'Dude, you know, sing this like Michael. I want to hear every pop, sibilance, and everything really rhythmic in terms of your breathing.' But then it finally got the point where I was sick of telling him, and so I'd just press the talkback button and say, 'Michael!' He'd say, 'All right, sorry dude.' I really wanted him to play up that aspect, because given how rhythmic we eventually got the vocal, it was a lot of fun to edit.
I did some crazy things on that track. I programmed 17 or 18 pages of code in Kyma and did 40 different vocal treatments, and there's a couple of thousand vocal edits in that song. If you listened to it a capella it would completely freak you out. There's tons of real-time spectral morphing, phase vocoding, granular synthesis, traditional vocoding — anything you can think of I did to the vocals. I just tried to make something mental and I had a lot of fun doing it.
Favorite points/quotes
BT was surprised that 'Pop' was accepted, and even more surprised when it was picked as the first single.
His goal for the sound of 'Pop' was for it to sound like you had Michael Jackson in a headlock and were just shaking him.
Before I did this project I had the same preconceived notions that I think a lot of other people have about boy bands, he says. Then JC [Chasez] came to one of my live shows in Orlando, Florida, and my tour manager said, 'Hey man, a member of a boy band is here to see you.' I was like, 'What the fuck are you talking about?' There I was, playing this insane rave with a six-piece band, with everybody instrument-hopping, and now somebody from a boy band was here to see us?
(bolded emphasis is my own)
That first time I met JC he asked me to produce one of their tracks, and I said, 'But you're a boy band and I make these underground electronic records. I'm gonna piss off all three of my fans and you're gonna piss off your 20 million. We can't do that, man!'
JC? At a rave!?
::gets all sorts of mental images::
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Re:
Date: 2003-07-14 08:17 pm (UTC)