The fifth in a feature on the Vine where we listen to the latest #1 single and analyse it to death so you don’t have to.

Taio Cruz
'Dynamite'
(Island/Universal)


Taio Cruz - 'Dynamite'

In June, New York Magazine ran a profile of Dr Luke (article link), the producer behind hits like “PARTY in the USA” by Miley Cyrus, “Tik Tok” by Ke$ha, and “California Gurls” by Katy Perry (feat. Snoop Dogg). Curious about Dr Luke’s ability to make a song burrow into your ears, the reporter watched Dr Luke at work as he put together a song intended to be a big hit. Dr Luke’s role as a producer resembles that of a movie producer – rather than making all the music himself, he subcontracts different aspects of it to others; the skill he gets paid for is knowing what components will come together to make a #1 single. Thus, Dr Luke first put together a basic bed track with Benny Blanco, a producer signed to his production company. The bed track was originally meant for rapper Flo Rida, but Dr Luke instead sent the track to Swedish producer Max Martin (most well known for Britney's 'Baby One More Time'), who came up with a chorus hook. A lyricist named Bonnie McKee gave it some lyrics. Finally, Dr Luke got Taio Cruz to sing on the song, telling him that he would only earn the rights to the song if he did a good job.

Cruz must have given it a red hot go, because that song was 'Dynamite', and here I am writing about it. This is British singer Taio Cruz’s first Australian #1, and Dr Luke’s third #1 of the year (and it’s still only August). Taio Cruz had a #2 single earlier this year with 'Break Your Heart', his first single to enter the Australian charts, and his collaboration with Ke$ha, 'Dirty Picture', is sitting at #19 this week. And Eminem's 'Love The Way You Lie', a #1 for a marathon 6 weeks, has been displaced to #2.

In a way, it's funny that Dr Luke can get paid just for knowing what will get to #1, because it doesn't take a genius to know what it takes: hooks, hooks, hooks, and did I mention hooks? Sure, a cynic might suggest that another way to get to #1 is to give money to radio stations, but that only means people will hear the song, not that they will buy it. They'll only get it stuck in their heads if it has the hooks.

Now, to my mind, there are two kinds of hooks: musical hooks and "meaning" hooks. Some songs - 'California Girls' or 'Love The Way You Lie', for example - owe some of their success to what they're *about*. One might empathize with Eminem or Rihanna in their depiction of a stormy relationship or believe in Katy Perry's California myth. For these songs, the meaning itself is a sort of hook, something that gets the song into people's thoughts, and gets them to buy the single. But 'Dynamite' isn’t one of these; like at least a dozen other songs on the charts right now, it’s basically about feeling good while dancing at a club. Its lyrics aren't even holding a shovel, let alone breaking new ground. Another thing that can provide a hook is pure star power or a brilliant vocal performance, but Cruz's performance doesn't quite have that either. He doesn't put his personality into the performance quite as forcefully as, for example, Ke$ha does on 'Tik Tok'. So it’s almost purely because of the musical hooks if the song succeeds or fails.

And as a pop song, it's fulfilled the very definition of success: it's reached #1, and it’s gotten there because the song is filled to the brim with musical hooks. Let me count the hooks. One: the piano riff punctuated with drum hits that begins the song. Two: the way the first line of the verse ends with a hooky vocal “ay-o” before repeating the melody hook on “let’s go”. That’s two big hooks introduced within the first 20 seconds of the song. Three: thirty seconds in, Cruz raps a repetitive, catchy rhythm, rhyming “dance dance dance dance” with “plans plans plans plans”. Also, notice how, after having heard the repetition of “dance” and “plans”, the line “I’m wearing all my favourite brands brands brands brands" changes the rhythm around a little, and gives the previously monotone rap a (noticeably autotuned) melody. This change might well be a hook in itself. Four: the line “and it goes on and on and on" is catchy in itself, but also very effective in the way it builds up to a climax, melody rising and tension building. Five: the song seemingly takes an age to get to the actual chorus - where you finally hear the word “dynamite” in the lyric for the first time - but when you hear it, yup: another hook. Phew. That’s at least five separate hooks – each repeated a few times - in slightly over a minute.

The beauty - or Satanic deviousness, depending on your viewpoint - of all these hooks is that one of them is gonna get you. Most pop songs do their fishing with a hook or two, but this song is like one of those deep sea trawlers with hooked fishing lines that trail for miles. Maybe the piano riff won't do much for you, and the "ay-o" will bore you, but then you hear "brands brands brands brands", and you take the bait. The damn song will be stuck in your head for yonks, you'll be singing the melody in the shower, a lyric or two will pop up when you're thinking about vaguely related subjects, and you'll forever associate the thing with mid-to-late 2010. And you don't even have to like the song for all this to happen!

So why is it that we get a song like 'Dynamite' stuck in our heads? The PhD I finished last year at the University of Western Sydney looked at which bits of melodies are most easily processed by the brain. If this isn't a million miles away from what makes a catchy song, well, that's what I was going for. And if I found anything out, it was that our memory for music is intimately intertwined with our expectations about what we're hearing. We do remember short melodies better than long melodies - note that all the hooks in 'Dynamite' are short - 'a-yo' is two syllables - and we remember melodies better if we’ve heard them a few times, which is why hooks are so often repeated. But what makes a hook a hook is less simple than length or repetition, and more the way the music plays with our expectations.

If you've been alive for 20 years, you've racked up thousands of hours of hearing music, at the very least. So, even if you never had music lessons, you know how music -and especially pop music - usually goes. You know the rules, and you know, instinctively, if the music follows the rules. And the best songs are the ones that tease us, that set us up to think they'll do what we expect, and then surprise us a little. If 'Dynamite' is hooky, it's because Dr Luke is expert at setting us up for a surprise. Listen to the very first piano riff - note how the fifth note seems to come a little bit after you'd expect it? That teasing - allowing your brain to momentarily wonder, will the note come or not? - is the hook. There's a similar story for each of the other hooks in the song. Based on every other bit of music you’ve heard, you don't expect the rap to repeat a word four times in a row mid-verse, for example.

Of course, it might be that you're listening to 'Dynamite', and you're just feeling bored rather than getting lured in. But we not only have expectations about music in general, but about what happens in top 40 pop in particular. It might be that you need to learn some of the rules of current top 40 pop to hear some of the hooks in the song - after all if your expectations are different to the expectations of the average listener, the song is not going to be playing with your expectations quite as effectively. Perhaps this is the genius of Dr Luke – he can not only fill the song with hooks, but do so in a way that doesn’t violate the rules of top 40 pop right now.

The question of why we get music stuck in our heads in the first place, however, is a tougher one. Music, for most cultures throughout history, is a profoundly social thing - iPods and headphones are a very recent invention, and most people throughout history would have made music rather than just listened to it. And they would have made it in social groups they belonged to – whether they were tribes or occupations or countries. A lot of the human psyche seems to be about making us feel like we belong to a social group, and music is definitely written deeply into the human psyche. Perhaps getting tunes stuck in your head is sort of proof you’re part of the group – if you belong, you’ll remember your group's songs, and absent-mindedly, hum your group's songs; it marks you as belonging. So if social belonging is a big part of why we have music, as many theorists believe, it might be for this reason that the songs get stuck in our heads.

Meanwhile, with a good third of the year left, I wonder: how many more songs can Dr Luke point towards the top of the charts this year? And how long til the fabric of top 40 pop changes, and Dr Luke’s producer-ly tricks – the ones that currently guarantee the hits (and the tricks that make people think 'Tik Tok' sounds like 'California Girls') - start to feel obvious and forced? Many a producer has ridden a wave of sales for a few years and then been wiped out, and Dr Luke is not likely to be an exception. Even so, it wouldn’t surprise me if, in a generation’s time, we’ll be seeing compilations of the best of Dr Luke, the same way, nowadays, we see Bacharach best ofs or Phil Spector best ofs.

Tim Byron

P.S. Right now, researchers at the University of London, Goldsmith’s College, are doing a study on 'earworms' – these songs that get stuck in your head - and you can participate here. Also, if you’re curious about the science of music, the second part of a documentary called “The Music Instinct” will screen on ABC1 at 9:30 on Thursday.