August 28, 2005

Easy to dance to, easy to blog to.

How Madonna picked the songs for her new album:
The tunes, with her distinctive vocals removed, were played in clubs from Liverpool to Ibiza throughout June....

"Whenever I was DJ-ing I'd take dub or instrumental versions out with me and test them at the club that night," [said Stuart Price, 28, the DJ and producer who is collaborating with Madonna on the record,] "I had my camera with me and the next day I'd tell Madonna, 'This is what a thousand people in Liverpool look like dancing to our song' ."

He added: "You can work on a song for 12 hours but I guarantee you'll know within just 10 seconds of putting it on at a club whether it works or not. So these songs were tested on unwitting subjects throughout Europe."
Some people are tweaking her, saying it's like an advertiser using a focus group or ooh, looks like the most famous female pop star of all time is having a crisis of confidence. But I think:

1. It's clever to do research specifically into what's danceable. Remember when they used to rate new singles on "Bandstand" and the main thing anyone talked about was how easy it was to dance to? It's a good thing to test separately and get right.

2. The revelation gets publicity. Why you could even get people to blog about it. Everybody, come on, blog.

1 comment:

Ron said...

Is blogging the new vogueing? Is podcasting the new macarena? Oh, dear, they're both doomed!