I “discovered” Jay Sean back in 2004 when I was in London for a business trip. His songs were playing in almost every restaurant I went to in Central London and they immediately caught my ear. I enjoyed his music so much I bought his CD (probably one of the last CDs I ever purchased!). Anyhow, I forgot about him after enjoying his CD for a few months because in the US he had zero exposure. People probably don’t know this but he already had quite a following in the UK and was a multi-platinum artist in India back then. Lo and behold, Jay Sean is now Stateside and burning up the charts with his first US single “Down”. His music was certainly a little different back then (but still great) but still R&B/Pop. IMO, this song is HOT and it immediately caught my ear when I heard it. Its not one of those songs that you have to hear a few times to get into and even then, you’re not quite sure whether you like it or hate it.
Chart Position: No. 3 (Week of October 3rd, 2009), as of today No. 2 (Week of October 10th, 2009)
Songwriters: Carter, Dwayne; Cotter, J; Larow, R; Perkins, J; Sean, J; Skaller, J
Producers: Birdman & Ronald “Slim” Williams
Time/BPM: 4/4, 132 bpm
Song Structure: Intro (12 bars)-Verse (Jay Sean)-Chorus-Verse (Nay Sean)-Chorus-Verse (Lil Wayne)-Chorus
This song utilizes a very typical song structure, with the only “change up” being the third verse “sung” by Lil Wayne instead of Jay Sean, and the melody in the third version being slightly different from the first two verses. I think some people might call the third verse a bridge, but I’m not sure if its something you would normally call a bridge so that’s why I called it a third verse. Doesn’t matter, call it whatever you want – its just there to provide a departure from the status quo and the provide variety/contrast with the rest of the song.
This song is based off of two four-chord chord progressions. The chord progression in the verses are: IV-IVm-V-III and the choruses are: IV-I-V-VIm. Nothing particularly fancy or groundbreaking here – the only thing to note is that the change in the chord progression between verse and chorus is subtle so the song has to use other techniques to provide variety/contrast as we’ll see below.
Theme: Just like the other song I analyzed this week (link), this song is about having a good time tonight with the only (slight variation) variation is that this one is more specific (i.e. having a good time with a girl). I guess this is a good topic to talk about because that song was No. 1 and this is No. 3! And I’d be willing to bet money that there will be many other No. 1s in the future based on this theme.
Melody: The melody builds gradually up the scale and then gets to a climax in the beginning of the chorus and then the hook is where the melody descends quickly (down…down…down…down…down). This is good use of prosody!
Lyrics: The lyrics aren’t very profound in this song but they’re workable. I don’t have much to say about the lyrics here, but will point out that the lyric density in the Jay Sean verses is very sparse and in the chorus, the lyric density gets thicker. This provides a really nice contrast between sections (as I noted previously, the chord progressions provide little contrast, so other techniques are used, such as changing the lyric density). I also like the use of numerous five syllable phrases in the beginning of the chorus – it makes the chorus easy to remember and sing. The “hook” (down…down…down…down…down) is also easy to remember and sing even after one listen and is the part that you will certainly remember.
Production: In my opinion, the production in this song is responsible for most of the contrast and not song structure, lyrics or melody, and is truly the star of the show. Jay Sean and Lil Wayne sound great as usual – the vocal production is really nice. In the verse, the lyric density is low but the producers utilized a delay on Jay Sean’s voice to fill out the spaces between phrases. When the chorus hits, the use of extremely fast high hats (probably 32nd notes, I can’t count that fast) provides contrast with the verse where the high hat rhythm is barely noticeable.
Now, this is a commonly used sound these days, but the rising synth swell on the word “escape” right before the chorus propels the song right into the chorus; it also suggests that you are in an airplane “taking off” so the synth sound serves two purposes here and not just providing a transition between the verse and chorus like you would here in other songs. Not sure if it was intentional, but I will assume that it was.
Summary: Compared to “I Gotta Feeling” which I just analyzed, this is a much simpler and straightforward song from a production and songwriting perspective. It doesn’t try to overwhelm you with too many things or ear candy/trickery and puts the focus on Jay Sean and Lil Wayne’s performances, where it rightly belongs. It just has enough things in there to keep your ear interested while staying out of the way of the performers.
Hit Theory: The Art and Science of Hit Songs 