Same drum beat
June 6, 2017 1:14 PM   Subscribe

The song "Losing My Edge" by LCD Soundsystem has a similar beat to Killing Joke's "Change" and War's "Me and Baby Brother". Does this beat have a name and what other songs use this beat?
posted by josher71 to Media & Arts (6 answers total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
It's not a Bo Diddley Beat, but there is a certain similarity in that it is a syncopated rhythm. There's a 16th note before the downbeat and another before the 3rd beat. Here's a page of sheet music of Me and Baby Brother.

Finding other songs with the rhythm: you could try tapping out the rhythm in Musipedia, but it's mostly Classical themes.
posted by larrybob at 1:38 PM on June 6, 2017 [2 favorites]


my ruling: it does not have a name
posted by thelonius at 6:19 PM on June 6, 2017 [2 favorites]


I was just playing Regiment from My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, which has a similar but slower version of the beat.
posted by maudlin at 7:14 PM on June 6, 2017 [1 favorite]


Amen Break?
posted by cyclicker at 8:15 AM on June 7, 2017 [1 favorite]


I'm way late to the party but here it goes. According to Nancy Whang (lead synth player) in this article the beat comes from a "boombox that had a little built-in drum machine" that was given to James Murphy by Adam Horowitz from the Beastie Boys. So my guess would be that there are a couple songs built on the same beat. I'm sure some drum machine forum has identified the likely source, but I couldn't find it.
posted by cyphill at 4:27 PM on July 12, 2017 [1 favorite]


A very late addendum to my late answer! James Murphy did an interview with Lars Ulrich and describes it as “the Change beat”. So according to him that’s what it’s called. Description of the whole thing starts about 13 minutes in.
posted by cyphill at 11:05 AM on December 12, 2017 [1 favorite]


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