Hit me with some cross-rhythm!

December 21, 2014 4:18 PM

I'm looking for simple examples of songs that use cross-rhythms or polyrhythms.

I ran into this AskMe question about cross-rhythm and would like to hear some. In real songs. I can hear them just fine on the wikipedia pages with those helpful little graphics, but not anywhere else.

Can you recommend me some songs that use cross-rhythm? Rock, pop or showtunes, preferably. The more obvious, the better, and if you can tell me specifically what to listen for, that would be best of all.

Thanks!

posted by still_wears_a_hat to Media & Arts (11 answers total)

The National's Fake Empire has a four-over-three pattern in the piano throughout.
posted by btfreek at 4:29 PM on December 21, 2014 [2 favorites]

Since most pop/rock songs are in 4/4, the 3 side often gets truncated or stretched out to accommodate the 8 or 16 pulses. So I guess it depends how "pure" you'd like them. I hear them in the first part of 3+3+2 patterns coexisting with a straight 2/4 pattern, like most reggaetón, like Gasolina by Daddy Yankee.

Also, the B section of Maple Leaf Rag has a strong 3+3+3+3+4 pattern coexisting with the stride piano in the bass.

A huge amount of Latin American music from Mexico to Colombia uses coexisting/clashing two sets of three with three sets of two.
posted by umbú at 4:51 PM on December 21, 2014

Brian Blade
posted by zagyzebra at 5:49 PM on December 21, 2014

Frenzy by The Ex
posted by unknowncommand at 7:10 PM on December 21, 2014

Also, maybe this thread will help.
posted by unknowncommand at 7:21 PM on December 21, 2014

Tool uses polyrhythm frequently, but the first song that came to mind was Lateralus, specifically the middle and end sections. (Danny Carey is a beast.)
posted by zebra at 8:23 PM on December 21, 2014

I have always enjoyed the interplay of polyrythyms in The Knife's A Tooth For An Eye.
posted by erlking at 9:06 PM on December 21, 2014

In terms of taking poly-rhythms into popular music, I'd like to point you in the direction of Serge Gainsbourg's 1964 album "Percussions". For example tracks like Pauvre Lola and Joanna. Gainsbourg lifted a lot of the African poly-rhythms (without attribution) from Nigerian percussionist Babatunde Olatunji's 1959 album "Drums of Passion". Drums of Passion sold 5 million copies when it came out (it remains the best selling percussion album of all time) - listen to that one. Bear in mind that both Olatunji and Gainsbourg were doing this many years before Paul Simon, David Byrne, etc.
posted by rongorongo at 12:24 AM on December 22, 2014 [2 favorites]

Zappa just crawls with them.
posted by flabdablet at 1:57 AM on December 22, 2014

The Mars Volta uses polyrhythm a lot; two examples are in The Whip Hand and Inertiatic ESP.

Dethklok (the band from the animated TV series Metalocalypse) uses polyrhythm occasionally, such as in Laser Cannon Deth Sentence.

Meshuggah is known for using polyrhythm; one example is in Bleed.
posted by neushoorn at 4:24 AM on December 22, 2014 [1 favorite]

Polyrhythm can also occur in a hidden form. The guitar riff in the verses of Kashmir is built on a 6-beat rhythmic figure repeated four times, overlaid on an 8-beat drum pattern repeated three times; the interplay between the two is essentially a slow three-over-four polyrhythm.
posted by flabdablet at 8:42 AM on December 22, 2014