Contemporary Country comparison

[dscoyne]

Wondering if anyone familiar with Contemporary Country has a feel for the main differences, referenced by the screener, in melodic style, phrasing, and vibe between my song and the example given by the screener, who said:
"The visuals here are really great. Melodically would love to hear that "contemporary" vibe in the phrasing and the melodic delivery. Check out "Small town Boy" by Dustin Lynch as reference."

This is my song, "Down," which was recorded as a demo in Nashville, intended to be Contemporary Country.....the reviewer obviously did not feel it was appropriately Contemporary:

http://www.broadjam.com/songs/DonCoyne/down

The reference song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pz9yRC-LWhU

Thanks for any feedback, Don

[lesmac]

On first listen Down sounded stiff phrasing wise and lyrically I couldn't really imagine a contemporary artist singing this. I got a dated feel.

On the second listen I did enjoy on one level and could hear some good things in there.

As one who has spent good money on Nashville demos I have learned the hard way that the song has to be exceptional to justify this practice.

You just have to soak yourself in contemporary music. The best thing you could do is analyse everything in that song the screener mentioned.

A Nashville publisher told me to pick 3 top male artists and learn their songs, what they sing about, what keys they sing in, how they sing and their phrasing. You have to work out how these guys talk etc...

I agree with the screener but stick with it and do some critical analysis and you will get better at your craft. You haven't written your best song yet.

[VanderBoegh]

Hey Don, I like the concept of this song, and the production is pretty dang good. But I also hear a dated vocal delivery style. Lines are beginning and ending in predictable places, with stressed words on nearly all of the downbeats. The modern guys are much more crafty for the way the wrap words around phrases and keep the rhythms exciting and unpredictable. Also, the modern guys are doing longer vocal lines that extend the phrasing through the next musical line, whereas your track has small vocal passages that all end when we expect them to.

Hard to describe.... I suppose the best thing to do is link a modern Luke Bryan track that I think really epitomizes what I'm trying to type. Have a listen to the first verse and first chorus and hopefully you'll see what I mean:

https://youtu.be/6uibAqkGc4M?t=12s

One of the most expensive mistakes I made in my first years as a Taxi member was to record a bunch of country songs without getting any feedback on them first. Spent nearly $5K on a whole album, and found out later that everything was dated, and essentially "un-pitchable". But it was too late to change anything at that point.

Best thing you can do as you move forward is get a TAXI custom critique ($20) on a rough home demo, and run that rough demo through Peer-to-Peer here on the forums (free). Use all that advice to make the track stronger before you pony up the cash for a Nashville demo.

Best of luck to you!

~~Matt

[dscoyne]

Some good ideas. Thanks for the help.............Don

[andygabrys]

+1 What those guys said above especially Matt's take on the vocal rhythm in Luke's tune (and many like it).

Luke's tune is a lot of mixed 4 to the beat and 2 to the beat rhythms. If it were just mostly 2 - it would feel slow against the tempo (which is similarly slow to Small Town Boy).

Small Town... is mostly 4 syllables against the beat, and even a couple bursts double that like at 0:49 "She could have".

"Down" is mostly two notes to the beat, and sometimes one like at 0:34.

Hip Hop influencing pop in turn influencing country. Listen to a hi hat pattern in a trap song. Or the vocal in a lot of hip hop or pop productions these days. Migos and similar newer artists excepted - they are doing another thing using fast triplets - although who knows, some development of that could be the next big country vocal sound too.