Hit Song Analysis: Black Eyed Peas “I Gotta Feeling”

This is the first post of an ongoing weekly series called “Hit Song Analysis”. I once took a seminar with a well-regarded producer who said “The radio is my teacher”. So in the spirit of that, this series will focus on the songwriting and production techniques used in current hit songs that propelled those songs to the top of the charts. By understanding and knowingly incorporating some of these elements into our songs, it is my belief we will be able to reach new heights in our songwriting. I will generally analyze two songs per week, usually the No. 1 charting song of the week (which may not necessarily be one that I personally enjoyed) and another high charting song during that week (one that I actually enjoyed). So here we go, here is your first Hit Song Analysis. I sincerely hope and believe you will gain some useful insights into hit songwriting from this series (and do share if you find any insights that I missed):

Chart Position: No. 1 (Week of October 3rd, 2009)

Songwriters: Pineda, Allan/Riesterer, Frederick/Adams, William/Ferguson, Stacy/Guetta, David/Gomez, Jaime

Producer: DJ David Guetta

Time/Key Signature/BPM: 4/4, G major, 128 bpm

Song Structure: This song utilizes an unorthodox song structure that I’ve never seen before and unusual section lengths. I actually had a difficult time figuring out where the sections began and ended as it doesn’t really follow a typical Verse-Chorus-Verse-Chorus-Bridge-Chorus structure nor does it utilize well-defined verses or pre-choruses – to me its not clear where these sections begin or end as you cannot tell them apart based on chord progression or energy level (the song is pretty much high energy the whole way). Instead, I will use the following terminology X, Y, Z to denote certain repetitive sections within the song that are like verses. Anyhow, I THINK the song structure goes something like this: Intro (16 bars)-Chorus (40 bars)-X (8 bars)-Y (16 bars)-Chorus (24 bars)-Y (16 bars)-Z(16 bars)-Chorus (24 bars) The intro of the song is 16 bars which is surprisingly long these days, but at least the song jumps right into the chorus which is definitely the hot part of the song. Given that the song will probably get a lot of club play, I guess the 16 bar intro is okay but generally speaking, I think that 16 bars is too long these days. The song structure is difficult to figure out because the song does not utilize familiar bar lengths (like 8 bars or 16 bars) for sections of the song. At some points, some of the sections are 24+ bars! However, the song sounds continuously fresh and interesting because of the use of different singers at different song sections or different phrases, call and response techniques, and the stop’s and go’s and variations in the production are unpredictable. For example, where you expect the beat to kick off in the chorus, there is no beat and it doesn’t get going until the back-end of the chorus, but somehow it still works. Unorthodox but interesting! I also need to point out that the song uses the same chord progression all the way through ( I-IV-VIm-IV). So why isn’t the song mind-numbingly boring? You will hear this a lot on this site, but the Black Eyed Peas avoid that by manipulating your ear on all levels, from the lyrics, to the melody, to the production, and the dynamics of the song. At any point during the song, we do not know exactly what is going to happen – the only thing we know is that the chord progression is the same, but there are few points in the song where any particular section is the same as a previous one, except maybe parts of the chorus.

Theme: According to will.i.am, this song is dedicated to everyone “getting ready to go out”, a very straightforward and universal concept. As I mentioned, during the Week of October 3rd, 2009, five of the top six charting songs were based off of this theme or a variant of this theme. Note to self: Write a “feel-good song” pronto!

Melody: One thing always to note about a melody is how much contrast in the melody of the song there is between sections. I should start off this section by saying that some sections are sung and some are yelled and they are all done by various bandmembers are different points of hte song, just like all Black Eyed Peas songs. Because of this reason, there is always a lot of contrast in their songs between sections (and in sections) so that is one reason why I believe their songs are always so popular. You’ll also notice that they use a LOT of syncopation (i.e. the placement of rhythmic stresses in places they don’t normally occur – not on the beats of the measure) in the X, Y and Z sections. Syncopation always makes melodies interesting, but in and of itself, its not useful unless there is contrast throughout the song in where melodies land. Another thing to always pay attention to is where phrases start – in other words, do the melodic phrases start before the first beat of a measure, on the first beat or after the first beat. However, in and of itself (as above) this doesn’t make a song or a phrase – it is the contrast between phrases and sections that matters. At different parts of this song, the phrases all either start before (such as X and Z) or all start after (Y). This also introduces variety and contrast in the song. The final thing I want to point out here is that in the Y section where the BEP talk about “doing it”, I like the use of symmetrical ascending and descending “let’s do it” phrases.

Lyrics: There’s nothing particularly profound here but that’s okay…its a feel good song. The rhyme schemes are quite loose (“out” is rhymed with itself how many times?!). However, I do really like the use of action words (“go out and smash it” and “let’s live it up”, “do it…do it!”). The use of call and response in the back end of the chorus and in the X, Y and Z sections is very effective, catchy and memorable. The number of syllables used in each call and response is generally the same (4 syllables for the call and 4 syllables for the response), which IMO should be an almost immutable rule. Another thing to note in the call and response sections and the background vocals in general is that the words, singers and sounds (sometimes they don’t use words, they just make odd sounds with their mouths) used are very unpredictable throughout the song and that keeps your ear engaged. The song is sung in first person, probably the most common way to narrate a song.

Production: The song utilizes guitar and harpsichord (neither of which is not very common for club/dance tracks), but the use of these sounds is effective because the song has a need to “drive forward”. The guitar and/or harpsichord actually plays the central role in this production in that the guitar is used for power chords during parts of the chorus but then used for clean arpeggiated phrases in the verses (X, Y and Z), and in beginning of the chorus, the guitar is absent and replaced with the harpsichord sound. I like the use of contrast in instrumentation used here to delineate different sections. I also hear a slight swing in the groove, its not extremely strong but mild. I also noticed the use of production techniques to coincide with certain lyrics. One of the places where this happens is where Fergie sings “spaced out” in the X section, DJ David Guetta actually makes the reverb much wetter on that phrase which makes the track temporarily sound “spacey”. Its not something a casual listener will notice, but a production geek like myself will definitely take notice. Another place is in the Y section, where the BEP shout “We’ll shut it down”. Guetta temporarily mutes all of the tracks in the production to “shut it down”. Its probably happening in a bunch of places where I didn’t even realize. However, the most interesting thing about Guetta’s production is that the “chorus” is atypical in that the beginning is not the most energetic part of the chorus (the drums actually drop out); it actually builds for sixteen bars or twenty four bars where the drums come in and the song becomes really “banging”. This breaks general songwriting/production rules, but somehow it works. I’m still trying to figure out why, but I suspect it just has to do with unpredictability (in a good way).

Summary: This is a not a deep song by anymeans, but I can understand why this song ended up at No.1. It has an unbelieveable level of variety, it feels good and the performances by the BEP are excellent and filled with boundless energy.  I believe a lot of the elements were actually deliberate even though the song sounds very organic. At almost every point in this song, there is something new coming at you. The BEP and DJ David Guetta are truly masters of ear candy.