Weekly Billboard Theory — Black Beatles
Welp. I was hoping this wouldn’t happen. I figured that the Mannequin Challenge started in November and that that was the only chance for Rae Sremmurd’s “Black Beatles” to be the number one song in the country. But here I am and here we are.
Rae Sremmur ft. Gucci Mane
Tempo: 146 BPM
Key: E minor
I’ll be forward; I don’t think this is a great song. I also need to stress that I don’t care about lyrics in most songs and especially won’t be addressing them for these write-ups. If you’re interested in the lyrical content of this song, check out Genius or bother Luke about it. Also, this is probably going to be quite a bitter shorter than last week’s writeup because I’m kinda reaching to find stuff I find interesting in this song. Most of this will be about why I think aspects of this song are kinda boring and how there are much better Rae Sremmurd songs that deserve your attention.
The first time I actively listened to “Black Beatles” I noticed something interesting about the form. Most songs would have a few chords that move around every four bars and then will begin new patterns as the song progresses to choruses, bridges, etc. These eight bars kind of create a binary form. Basically, the song repeats two sections over and over: an A section in the red, and a B section in the blue. If you remember the drone idea from last week, then the B section will look familiar. The contrast of the rhythmic A section and the very stable B section is certainly unique for top 40 music. However, whatever interest this form creates is lost because it repeats endlessly until the song is over.
“But hey, don’t most songs on the Billboard charts repeat over and over?” I mean, I guess, but not like this. These 8 measures repeat over and over with the exception of the very beginning and very end of the song. To add to that, there is very little texture changing throughout “Black Beatles”. Most great songs will keep the listener interested by adding to and subtracting from the instrumentation. A great example of a song that does this is “Teenage Dream” by Katy Perry.
Originally I was going to use “Maneater” by Hall and Oates for my example on good use of texture but the whole point of these posts is to discuss modern pop music instead of shunning it like our elitist parents do (but you should still listen to that song because it’s great). “Teenage Dream” begins with guitar and then builds on this by adding a drum beat and Katy’s vocals. As the verse repeats, a bassline and simple synths are added on top to fill out the initially sparse song. We reach the prechorus as harmonies are added behind Katy’s melody and holy cow I’m remembering how incredible this song is. For real, listen to this song with headphones on because this chorus is so full and laptop speakers won’t do this justice. This song has what is called a double chorus, where the second time through begins after “Don’t ever look back.” The second half of the double chorus is noticeably different because texture is so full and beautiful that I have chills as I’m typing this because I’m a dweeb and this album is a masterpiece.
Okay, back to a song I’m not crazy about. There are plenty of opportunities for “Black Beatles” to play around with texture and I guess it kind of does. Very subtly, background melodic lines sound. But realistically, this needs to be much more deliberate to keep my interest. The chords repeating over and over are not the problem but the lack of texture change gives the listener very little to listen for.
My fascination with “Teenage Dream” should make it apparent that I love catchy music and I have to admit that “Black Beatles” is certainly that. However, I think that the real reason the chorus of Rae Sremmurd’s song is so catchy is the same cause for it to be so boring to me. This chorus is incredibly repetitive. Like literally the same thing over and over. Great choruses might break up the monotony by having a form of A-A-B-A where there is a change during the third repeat but “Black Beatles” foregoes this and hits us over the head with A-A-A-A.
Each verse tends to stick with one consistent rhyme scheme, becoming quite monotonous rather quickly. The rhythms of the rapping are so strict that lyrics get jammed into place. This idea is most evident in the last line of the final verse. Slim Jxmmi is rapping with such intensity and confidence throughout the verse, and then that feeling is lost as he spits “Black Beatle, bitch, me and Paul McCartney related.” I suppose that it’s the last verse of the song that was utilized in a viral video so maybe you would have already stopped listening by this point (I know I wish I had) but this feels incredibly phoned in.
Alright, this ended up being way longer and much more painful than I initially thought it would be. Hopefully this has been somewhat informative, especially if you are a song writer yourself and looking for simple tricks to make your music more interesting. There was a lot that Rae Sremmurd could have done (and has done before!) but “Black Beatles” seems like a missed opportunity to me. Next week, I’ll probably be writing about that new Ed Sheeran song or “Bad and Boujee” (thanks, Donald Glover) but those will definitely be an improvement after this week.
