Soundbreaking

When I was a kid, I grew up

with this television show called "American Bandstand."

And every time they rated a record,

if it was a good record, they would say,

"It's got a good beat and you can dance to it."

And I would go, "Okay."

That's what I want my records to have --

a good beat, and you can dance to it.

-Rhythm is at the root of the music we love.

When the groove is good, it's irresistible.

Music can get you wild.

Music can make you funky.

-What makes music exciting is the counterpoint.

It's this melding of opposites.

-It's about the punch and it's about that thing

that makes you want to stand up and dance.

-And it gets inside and it fills you

and sometimes you can't articulate it.

-It's that primal thing in dance music

that brings us all together.

-Our world has changed, and so has the beat.

It's gotten bigger, louder, and more exciting.

-James Brown -- you can't listen to James Brown

without getting up and wanting to move.

-Brown said that everything sounded like a drum to him.

It was this kind of symphony of percussion.

Oh, my God!

James Brown music just messed me up.

-I think that disco probably has a more lasting effect

than historians are willing to admit.

It's amazing and wonderful

that EDM now almost sort of rules the planet.

-Computer-driven music is the future.

-The main reason why EDM is so popular

is because you just start to move.

You can't sit still.

-From the manmade to the machine-engineered,

it's all about finding that perfect beat.

-Because that's what makes the people adrenaline go up.

Huh huh-huhhh,

uhhh...bam!

Okay, then. Okay.

It'll be an F for you.

Here we go.

-Right after I say, "Are you sure?"

Da da da -- yeah.

Oh.

-Hal, here's how I want to do it. Takes like this.

-All right, it's fun time. Fun time.

Here we go.

-Oh, really? -17, take one.

This will be the keeper.

and the quirky sound that -- that we heard.

And I just sat in the back.

I just thought about if I was Beyoncé,

I'm thinking. I'm quiet.

-He's not giving me no -- no love.

He's not -- he's not -- We're not in it together.

He's just... -I'm giving him nothing.

I'm Jedi.

Trick stopped the beat. And I look at him.

He was like, "What's wrong with you, man?"

-"What are you doin'?" -"What are you doin'?"

And he's like, "What do you mean?

I was gonna start another beat."

I was like, "Yeah, you just go and sit in --

sit in there. I'll be right... "

-He's like, "I got the whole thing."

He's like, "I just wrote the whole song."

The anatomy is there.

The heart's there, the lungs, the -- the stomach.

You know, the -- the...

I just have to put the legs on it.

-She came by to just kind of poke her head in

and kind of hear what it was, and she was like, "Oh."

-And she immediately -- There was no lyrics typed out.

Like, there was no nothing.

It was like, "Yeah, let me get with that."

Like, and the next thing I know,

she was on the other side of the booth...

-Singing. -...singing.

And we were like...

-Yeah. -...this is --

-He's thinking about how to connect the dots.

Lyrically, I'm thinking about, "B is from Houston."

I'm thinking about Southern. I'm thinking about...

Like, to me, it's a church beat.

So I just started with the...

It's, like, that's a sanctified beat.

-Because she's a Southern girl. -She's a Southern girl.

-I can see the paper fans in church

and the wooden benches and the reverend

and the baptisms that are going on

and knowing what's happening after that.

That's everything I get from one sound.

-So I'm like, "How do I get this Southern girl

on the dancefloor?"

-High-five, man. Yeah, man.

Yeah. Totally rad, man.

-I think that one's a keeper. -It's randy.

-A lot of people, when they think of gospel music,

think of the sound of the vocal.

They think of spiritual aspects of gospel.

But they very often don't think enough

about the rhythmic aspects and the driving beat.

Gospel has a...

Right? It's influenced by boogie-woogie and other styles.

That pounding, sort of frenzied aspect of gospel

is really important to its spiritual aspects.

It's -- it's what caused people in churches

to -- to catch the spirit and to go wild.

-But it directly got transferred into rock 'n' roll music

through the gospel fervor and energy

of people like Little Richard.

Ooh, my soul!

We're gonna do a little thing for ya.

-A guy like Little Richard, as with any sort of black artist

from that era, is giving you the black church,

as well as the black juke joint.

-Richard said, "I want to bring you to this train station.

I want you to hear something."

Said, "Now, listen to the train. The train's going all

choo-choo, choo-choo, choo-choo, choo-choo."

He said, "Now, watch when it pick up speed."

Choo-choo, choo-choo, choo-choo, choo-choo.

He said, "What kind of notes are those?"

I said, "Those are eighth notes."