You Can Dance - Composition

Composition

According to Rikky Rooksby, author of The Complete Guide to the Music of Madonna, "Improvements in studio technology meant that possibilities for shaping the sound after it has been recorded are almost limitless." Such possibility were applied in the song composition and the remixes present in You Can Dance. Previously to change the sound of an instrument, or to jump from one sound to another, recordings used to stop playing the instrument and the drums at that point. But for the remixes on You Can Dance, the fade engineering technology was applied to the songs, wherein the fader was simply pulled down, and was pushed up again when the sound of the instruments were made to come up to the surface. The first song on the album is "Spotlight" which begins with the sound of drums, bass synths and handclaps, followed by Madonna uttering the words "Spotlight, shine bright". After the first verse, the sound of keyboard is heard during the chorus. It continues like this through the second verse, which is followed by an interlude featuring vocal echoes, a piano segment and violin phrases. Madonna follows the music played by the piano and utters the words "Pa-da-pa-da-pappa pappa pa pa" in the same melody. The lyrics deal with Madonna making the listener remember that "everybody is a star" and that if one wants to be famous and be under the "spotlight", the person should sing about it and reality may catch up with him or her. According to the sheet music published at SheetMusicPlus.com, the song is set in the time signature of common time, with a tempo of 100 beats per minute. It is set in the key of F major with Madonna's voice spanning from the notes of C5 to B♭5. "Spotlight" has a basic sequence of Am–C–Am–C–G–F as its chord progression.

The second track is "Holiday", which Benitez said that he always wanted to remix, commenting "There are new sounds on the 1987 remix, but it had a groove that needed no improvement." The sound of the guitar is brought to the front in the remix, with a piano break and a middle section consisting of drum beats. The mix for "Everybody" starts with four repetitions of the vocal hook and then moves into a rhythm centered arrangement. Like "Holiday", the middle section of "Everybody" features a drum break, with a synth tune backing it up. The word "dance" is echoed and slowed-down continuously through the break, gradually changing into the intermedia verse. At the very end, the drums are pulled out, leaving Madonna repeating the "get up and do your thing" phrase, which hovers over to the intro of the next song "Physical Attraction". It begins with the arrangement of the original song, until the middle eight, where the composition is varied. A disconcerting sound is present at the end of the track, which, after sometime increases in volume until then next track "Over and Over" begins. In the "Into the Groove" remix, overdubs are present with the continuous repetition of the phrase "c'mon". The first verse does not start until about ninety seconds into the remix. After the first "Now I know you're mine" line is sung, there is a percussion break, and repetition of the phrases "step to the beat" and "c'mon". The last verse incorporates echoing on the vocals, causing overlap of the phrases. The remix ends with instrumentation from congas, whistles and timbales, giving it a Mexican ending.

Read more about this topic:  You Can Dance

Famous quotes containing the word composition:

    Pushkin’s composition is first of all and above all a phenomenon of style, and it is from this flowered rim that I have surveyed its seep of Arcadian country, the serpentine gleam of its imported brooks, the miniature blizzards imprisoned in round crystal, and the many-hued levels of literary parody blending in the melting distance.
    Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)

    The proposed Constitution ... is, in strictness, neither a national nor a federal constitution; but a composition of both.
    James Madison (1751–1836)

    There is singularly nothing that makes a difference a difference in beginning and in the middle and in ending except that each generation has something different at which they are all looking. By this I mean so simply that anybody knows it that composition is the difference which makes each and all of them then different from other generations and this is what makes everything different otherwise they are all alike and everybody knows it because everybody says it.
    Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)