“Sometime in the last 10 or 20 years, rock drumming has changed. Many drummers will now don headphones in the studio (and sometimes even for live performances) and synchronize their playing to an electronic metronome – the click track. This allows for easier digital editing of the recording. Since all of the measures are of equal duration, it is easy to move measures or phrases around without worry that the timing may be off. The click track has a down side – some say that songs recorded against a click track sound sterile, that the missing tempo deviations added life to a song.” (Music Machinery via The Daily Swarm)

According to this data:

Troublemaker by Weezer – No click track
American Idiot by Green Day – click track
Enter Sandman by Metallica – No click track, tempo deviation in song
Never Again by Nickelback – No surprise there, Nickelback uses a click track.
Fire Fly by Breaking Benjamin – It is clear that they use a click track too, but what is interesting here is that you can see the bridge, the hump that starts at about 130 seconds into the song.
Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin – Tempo deviation, John Bonham never used a click track.

We reached out to David Bendeth who produced Fire Fly by Breaking Benjamin. His comments:

“Just because you see a drummer with headphones on does not mean he is playing to a click, it just means he is trying to. Click tracks don’t speed up or slow down – drummers do. This test should be retaken with more accurate data”

Michigan rock act Pistol Day Parade independently released their debut full-length in January which was produced by Mike Brown (Breaking Benjamin/Papa Roach/Velvet Revolver/Three Days Grace. For fans of 3 Doors Down and Velvet Revolver. Check out the track Better.

“Neil Young has gone on the record in support of music publishing powerhouse Warner Bros. Reprise’s policy deleting and muting its artists’ videos on YouTube, after negotiations between Google and Warner broke down.”

Young’s music was removed from YouTube along with a countless of other artists.

“According to Young, the underlying reason for this is that no strong industry standard exists for paying artists and copyright holders exists for online videos. Everything has to be renegotiated each time,and when these negotiations fail, it hurts fans and artists in addition to the companies doing the negotiating.” (Wired)

“YouTube has a responsibility to respect the artists it facilitates and resist punishing them to make a business point,” wrote Young. “It is time for industry-wide standards of artist compensation on the web.”

The Rise of Science is BMI’s pick of the month and will be perform at Arlene’s Grocery in NYC on March 3rd. They will also performing in Austin, Texas at the Red Gorilla on March 18th – the same week as SXSW. Our favorite track is Shortcomings Can Be Incomplete. For more information email theriseofscience@yahoo.com

“The six-unit Virgin Megastore chain will close two more stores, the Union Square location in New York City at the end of May and the Market St. store in San Francisco at the end of April, sources say.” The Times Square location will close in April

“In August 2007, the Virgin Entertainment Group North America was acquired by two real estate companies – the Related Cos. and Vornado. Since then, the chain has been reduced from 11 units – with the industry awaiting word of the fate of the three remaining stores in Denver, Los Angeles, and Orlando, Fla. ” (Billboard)