Peer Comment

Peer Comment: To Ryan Kelly's “What’s Going On” Entry

I totally agree with Ryan’s blog Marvin Gaye was one of the biggest acts in R&B music and it is very apparent today with the vast amount of young listeners. I thoroughly enjoyed the background information and amount of knowledge the Ryan had on the topic. I felt security in the correctness on his facts because he had so much knowledge prior to taking this Music History class. Ryan’s blog kept me interested through the entire time I was reading. I thoroughly enjoyed Ryan’s blogg and I hope to read many more.

Week Two Blog- What's Going On? - Marvin Gaye

Prior to recording “What’s Going On?” Marvin Gaye’s music were mostly about the love and lust between a man and a woman who where interested in each other. Most of his love songs are considered romantic songs. The song’s inspiration came from one of it’s three writers who went to California. While in California he witnessed several war protestors receiving acts of brutality from California’s police officers. From then on the song was written about several civil war protests. During the time that he recorded “What’s going on?” Marvin had lost his friend Tammi Terrell to a brain tumor. This tragedy eventually caused Marvin Gaye to stop performing. After that he seriously thought about getting out of the music business and going to the movie business. One of the differences between “What’s Going on?” and other songs are the instrumentation, scats, crowd chatter, and free styled background vocals. Recordings of the 1960’s and 70’s were mostly bass driven but in this record the main focus is the lead vocals. Also Marvin Gaye hav free styled the first lead vocal, then he recorded a better lead vocal but when his engineers mixed the song they accidently mixed the two lead vocals giving the song a layering feel. Marvin Gaye heard this layering effect and liked it , he also used this in his later songs. Most of Motown’s records did not involve scatting, Berry Gordy also said “ It’s to bluesy” when he first heard the song. As a listener and a industry professional I feel that the writers, singers, and musician created a great song, a song that will stand the test of time. The music was very heart felt, the audience received the message and it had a cultural impact on society. It had all of the elements of a great song. 

Week Two Blog- The Velvet Underground & Nico

The image of The Velvet Underground & Nico is a yellow Banana with a peel tab that if peeled would show a pink banana. Andy Warhol created the album cover design. Lou Reed served as one of the writers for Velvet Underground. The book states that “ Lou acquired a fascination with the power of words and phrases, he studied their economic yet bold use of language, a technique he used in his lyrics, the result would be songs just as evocative as the books of written by Nelson Algren and Raymond Chandler.”  Lou successfully brought literary sensitivity to rock and roll lyrics. John Cale was a driving force on the bands visual image and sound. He was responsible for all of the bands sound and instrumentation. The velvet Underground & Nico were promoted and produced by Andy Warhol. Andy Warhol also played a major part in the bands originality, he encouraged The Velvet Underground not to change based on the suggestions by others. A characteristic that I noticed almost instantly when listening to this album is the likeability of the lead singer’s voice. Other bands like The Beach Boys and The Beatles had a lead singer who’s singing voice was very likable to the listener. However, The Velvet Underground’s lead singer sounds very emotionless and unpleasant. The singer’s imperfections actually showed the true power or Lou Reed’s lyrics because even with a very bad lead singer the listener still received the messages that he was trying to get across. Also another characteristic that I noticed was the heavy reverb on the vocals and also the lack of background vocals and harmonies. A majority of the albums songs sounded very empty because of their lack of background vocals and vocal layers, kind of the total opposite of The Beatles and The Beach Boys. I believe that this album represents the power of Rock and Roll in its simplest form.

Podcast Project One- The Beatles Revolver- Dionta Lyle

Welcome Entry

My name is Dionta Lyle better known as "DLYLE The Producer"; I am an aspiring Music Producer and Mix Engineer. I have a strong Drive and Passion for music like no other. Although, I have been making my own music since 15 years old, I was heavily moved by music as a young child. I am currently a student at Full Sail University, pursuing my Bachelor's Degree in Recording Arts. I am eager to work with anyone and every one who shares a passion for music like I do. I love all genres of music. That includes everything from Country, Classical, Reggae, House, R&B, Rap, Caribbean, Soul, Rock, Alternative, and Gospel. My skills include Producing, Recording, and Mixing. If you’re interested in working together or networking feel free to contact me.


Dionta Lyle

The Beatles Revolver

The Beatles’ material before the Revolver album was very much more traditional and built on the musicality of the songs. It seems that Revolver was created with a much more abstract idea in mind. What made this album such a success was the way that the Beatles used ground breaking effects to innovate new ways to record an album. I think the thing that influenced the content of Revolver is the heavy drug use of the band members during this period of their career. During the making of this album the Beatles were heavily into the use of drugs like acid, like many other artists during this time. However, it worked out in their favor because this allowed the band to think outside of the box and create new ideas. The Beatles used the studio as an instrument by recording instruments in new ways and reassembling studio equipment to fit their needs. A good example of this is when they recorded vocals through a rotating speaker cabinet to get a special effect. Two innovations found in the Revolver album that I felt were very important is backwards tape loops and the instrumentation. These are the two instruments that were the most influential to me because they were unheard of during this time in music history. No engineer in their right mind would dare to record a guitar track to tape then reverse it and in correct time with the song. Also, foreign instruments used in American music were not very common at all. As a listener and industry professional revolver is a great album to listen for new recording ideas. Although, the Revolver has a lot of great songs I would not listen to it for its musicality because that is not what it was created for. However, I do think it is one of the most influential album of all time. 

Dionta Lyle

Pet Sounds

The Beach Boys earlier work seemed very youthful and chipper. Pet Sounds seems very more song driven and a bit more mature. The change from the Beach Boys party songs to the songs of pet sounds shows the growth in maturity and musicianship from album to album. Brian Wilson is somewhat consider the driving force of the Beach Boys. He was the writer, producer, and sometimes the lead singer. He was influenced to write and record Pet Sounds because he heard the Beatles Rubber Sole. He Said that he never heard an album that all of the songs fit so well together. Brian spent countless hours in the studio formulating his ideas for pet sounds. I believe the reason why Pet Sounds is such a great album is because most of it was co-written by Tony Asher, a very successful Jingle writer. I believed this helped the album become what it is today because the songs are very catchy hence, they were written by a jingle writer. I feel that prior to Pet Sounds the Beach Boys records were just recorded. It seems to me that they did not take as much time to fully think and plan out their tracks. Also, prior to Pet Sounds most of their material is very up-tempo. Pet Sounds is very calming to me, the listener. When I hear it, it reminds me of easy listening music. It is very different from other music during the 1960’s era because of its wide variety of instruments. Most songs during that time were just guitars, bass, a drum kit, and maybe a brass instrument but Pet Sounds used very uncommon things like bells and whistles. It is especially different from the music that Motown Records was creating because no other group of singers mastered the art of harmonizing like the Beach Boys did. 

Dionta Lyle