Absolutely. I'm listening to it right now and that section always stood out to me as a specific rhythm thing they did. It's a GREAT example of Metallica shoving the beat around anyway they wanted, with Lars driving it (doesn't matter what the guitars want to do, if Lars doesn't reinforce it they won't be able to do that)
I can tell you an interesting counterexample: there's another song where if you don't get the microtiming you're not even close to the riff. "Mmm-bop" by Hanson.
In that one, the main drive of the song is eighths and sixteenths, but accents in the MAIN chorus hook are actually sixteenth triplets. If you overlay an insanely fast rhythm onto the song that's doing a frantic 'onetwothreeonetwothree!' it lines up perfectly with bits of the 'bop-doowop' vocal. This same trick also exists in the biggest Ace of Base hits, but instead of the vocal riff, it's the kick drum happening on triplets.
Hanson mentioned in interviews how people couldn't cover 'Mmmbop' properly, because they'd simplify the timing. If you covered Master of Puppets, you'd have to get the timing right as well :) this implies that Hanson, if they wanted, could do Master Of Puppets properly because they can hear timing that fast and would recognize what it was…
Ambiguity between straight-eights and triplet-eights is the core of a huge swath of jazz and blues derived music. It's called swing and it's basically the rhythmic equivalent of the blue third, where the ambiguity is the point.
It's beyond common, not something Hanson would be singled out for.
Several of you missed the point. It's Metallica that's doing swing. Hanson isn't doing swing or ambiguity in Mmmbop. They're overlaying TIGHT triplets over other stuff that implies straight sixteenths. Not ambiguous at all, they nail it.
Hanson might indeed be doing triplets; it's too hard for me to tell without doing the Audacity legwork. (Although it sounds like straight 16ths to me.) But in any case, Metallica is definitely not doing swing here.
Another very good band that got famous from a song that is obviously way more poppy than their other excellent music: Jimmy Eat World. Check out their two albums before Bleed American : Clarity and Static Prevails , or even just tracks off Bleed American that are not The Middle . You can really hear the influence from bands like Sunny Day Real Estate, Boys Life, and all the others that they released splits with:
- Christie Front Drive (Wooden Blue Records, 1995)
- Jejune (Big Wheel Recreation, 1997)
- Blueprint (Abridged Records, 1996)
- Sense Field
- Mineral
Pretty wild for a band that got a lot of airtime on Total Request Live
Since I make electronic music, I am very dialed in to swing, triplets, and schaffel rhythms. I just listened to MMMBop and I'm not hearing anything interesting going on. The drums are fairly unswung and the vocals are a little jazzy and swung. But I don't hear any explicit triplets on top of 4/4 action or anything. What am I missing?
I love how the drum grooves match the content of the verses. The first verse is a introduction to the state of the protagonist and there's mainly a kick drum in the 3rd beat, keeping it simple and personal. Second verse: lyrics goes deep into the protagonist and their lack of hope/anxiety while from the drum side the kick drum appears in all 4 beats, toms reensemble the human heart beat and there's no snare. Third-verse concludes the story bringing a sense of expansion to the world of the protagonist: From the drums perspective, still kick drum in the 4 beats but the snare is back and there's way more hi-hat/ride, matching the same sense of expansion of the protagonist world and the "return of hope". It feels like the drums weren't just played to sound cool but crafted to tell a story.
There are many The Police and Sting songs with interesting timing changes. Sometimes it will maintain a steady 4/4 but the phrases will contain differing numbers of measures.
Stewart Copeland's drumming is also very syncopated and he won't stay on a backbeat very long, if at all. Plus, in addition to actual time changes, he can play over/under the bar, implying a time change while actually staying in original time.
Copeland and Carter Beauford are two of my favorite drummers to dissect their groves for their ability to quickly wander and then return to the beat.
I think its more that the drum riff bounces all over the place. its not a straight 4/4 beat. There are displacements and all sorts of fun things in there
Take Me Out is just a simple ritardando that stays at 4/4. The drums switch up to a disco beat. The song is unusual because a slowdown that early in the song usually kills energy but it somehow adds energy to this one.
I can tell you an interesting counterexample: there's another song where if you don't get the microtiming you're not even close to the riff. "Mmm-bop" by Hanson.
In that one, the main drive of the song is eighths and sixteenths, but accents in the MAIN chorus hook are actually sixteenth triplets. If you overlay an insanely fast rhythm onto the song that's doing a frantic 'onetwothreeonetwothree!' it lines up perfectly with bits of the 'bop-doowop' vocal. This same trick also exists in the biggest Ace of Base hits, but instead of the vocal riff, it's the kick drum happening on triplets.
Hanson mentioned in interviews how people couldn't cover 'Mmmbop' properly, because they'd simplify the timing. If you covered Master of Puppets, you'd have to get the timing right as well :) this implies that Hanson, if they wanted, could do Master Of Puppets properly because they can hear timing that fast and would recognize what it was…