Sudden phrase-initial beat-long cutoffs
2025-01-02I have literally no idea how to describe this in words, but here's a short list of a bunch of songs that do a cool musical thing.
-
A Cruel Angel's Thesis (theme song of Neon Genesis Evangelion)
First listen to this pre-chorus bit (this is not the cool musical thing), and in particular listen for the electronic brassy thing at about the midpoint, on the first syllable of "moshimo":
Now keep that little sound effect in mind, and listen for it at the beginning of the chorus (around 0:04):
That's the cool thing! The electronic brassy thing doesn't happen on beat 1, like expected; it stops abruptly and comes in on beat 2 instead. The surprise effect is further amplified by the three notes on the same instrument strongly leading up to beat 1, which makes you really anticipate hearing:
Compare this to the second time that musical phrase happens in the chorus, at around 0:10-0:11. There, the same instrument has a similar run that actually lands on beat 1 this time. This makes sense, since it'd feel overdone / cheesy / lose its impact if it happened every time. (There is still a small remnant of the beat 2 landing, in the form of a cymbal crash.)
This is the song that originally inspired me to make this list, which is interesting, because it sort of leaves out the "cutoff" part of the title of this post. So the next example is the most dramatic one in that regard.
-
Flowers (unreasonably catchy song by Miley Cyrus)
This song does the thing into each chorus, and it sounds a little different each time:
Hopefully this one is striking enough that I don't need to say anything more! I like how each time gets progressively more dramatic -- the first has an audible breath on beat 1, but the second and third are completely silent, and the third changes up the rhythm of the drums leading into it.
-
The Middle (the only song by Jimmy Eat World that anyone's ever heard)
This song has a cool variation where instead of everything cutting out, all the instrumentals cut out, leaving just the solo vocals on beat 1. It's a really neat effect:
Kind of like the Evangelion song, this one accentuates the same beat 2 in every other measure with a cymbal crash (and the same sixteenths on the drums leading up to the preceding 1).
-
Believer (by Imagine Dragons, of Murder on the Orient Express-movie-trailer fame)
This one is quite in-your-face about it.
Like the last one, it's not "complete silence on 1" but rather "all parts except one drop out on 1"; in this case, it's the low bass rumble. It's also maybe two beats, I dunno, you could count this song in 4 or 2 or 12, but it's the same idea.
Can you think of any other songs that do this? I would be interested to know!
comments
Xavier P 2025-04-28 23:24
There's an analysis of the Evangelion song made by a Spanish youtuber https://youtu.be/Qn1Ikv6emyw in which he talks about it starting from minute 10, and he gives some other examples (the same Imagine Dragons one too).
tckmn 2025-04-30 20:39
woah! that's so cool that we independently came up with two of the same examples :D
for reference for future readers, the video doesn't even talk about the exact same thing -- it more generally talks about songs that do something "unexpected" into the chorus. one of the two other songs cited is Despacito:
this one lands neatly on beat 1, but the tempo slows way down for the two beats right before the chorus. (i'm sure many people reading already know this, but "despacito" is the diminutive of the Spanish word for "slowly", making this an example of word painting)
the other song the video cites the opening to Sword Art Online, called Crossing Field by LiSA. here's the first chorus (the normal, expected one):
and the last chorus (the unexpected one):
here there's an entire extra bar of 2 before the chorus, and in that space they stick in not one, but two fake entrances:
(sidenote: it's very funny to me that the video makes the joke of "shounen" in Japanese being cognate with "joven" in Spanish, as someone not exposed to much cross-linguistic Japanese-Spanish humor in my daily life)