For my audio artifact I chose to look at a song from one of my favorite bands, Rex Orange County. The song is titled Television/So Far So Good. I chose this song because it is a song that shifts it’s tempo a lot and has a lot of different musical components going on, in other words it isn’t consistent all the way through and is very complex. In the first minute or so we hear a couple of verses that are separated by deeper, more abrupt in your phase versus that almost sound like chanting. I think this creative choice makes the song act as more than a catchy tune and takes the listener on a vocal tone rollercoaster. There are a lot of instrumentals in this song that really serve as important separate components of the song rather than just as accompanying noise to the vocals. The drums after the singer’s strung out words at the end of certain verses is a good example of these instrumentals being used as creative components of the song’s composition. The drums and guitar have different solos throughout the song that lead in and out of the vocals.
Around 2:30 the song begins to turn away from its upbeat tempo and begins to slow down. The drums and guitar are practically obsolete and the instrumental noises shift to that of piano and other chordophone sounding instruments. The vocals become even more strung out to match up with this change of pace. The amount of variety in this song is what makes this audio piece so fascinating to me everytime I hear it. It really does take you on a roller coaster of sounds and tempos. Even without the lyrics the band is able to use different audio components to tell a story and take the audience with them on an emotional journey. I have a lot of other favorite songs that are similar to this one in the sense that the audio shifts midway through into a completely different creative direction. Rex Orange County does this a lot in their songs and it really is what makes the songs so easy to listen to over and over again because it’s not just listening to the same chorus over and over again. Each time you listen you can pick up on something you missed before or become fixated on a different part of the song.