Hitting the Right Notes

Music is hard to get right. There's so much crap out there today. When it is done right, however, you can feel it in more than just your ear holes. I've recently come across something i feel makes for a good example of this. There are two songs which have some striking similarities but end up completely different.

The two songs are "Down with the Sickness" by Disturbed, and "Master Passion Greed" by Nightwish. With the help of some embeddable magic from Grooveshark I want to walk you through some of the bits that either work well or work against the song as a whole. Let's start with "Down with the Sickness", play just the first 30 seconds and pause it.



There's a nice drum bit with increasing guitars, slowly building up.

Now "Master Passion Greed", also just play the first 30 seconds and pause it.



You should be able to make some similarities here. So far I'm not going to really say which one wins out. Both of these songs do their first 30 seconds right. The interesting thing comes after the build-up. You need a climax, something bigger than the intro.

Start up "Down with the Sickness" again. From the beginning. Play it until about a minute in. The climax is the "OOO AH AH AH AH" and that's it. You're left with something mediocre after that. To understand what I mean when you need something bigger and fuller, start up "Master Passion Greed" again from the beginning and play about 1 minute 20 seconds. The sound gets only better and builds more energy.

I'm not trying to talk down Disturbed, really. It's more about praises for Nightwish. For hitting the right notes. Now go ahead and enjoy the rest of the songs. If you're like me, you'll find yourself hitting repeat a few more times after "Master Passion Greed".