Meanspeed® Music Review

One of the most powerful song of the 1970s was LANDSLIDE by Fleetwood Mac.

I would call the mood peaceful yet disturbing.  I blame the disturbing aspect on the speed of the song, which is approximately 79 4/5 bpm.  In this song range we find the most known songs of solitude, despair and loneliness.

The peaceful aspects of the song abound: beautiful vocal in one of the best pop-rock bands of the 20th century, perfect melody, harmony, production and engineering.  This “disturbing” quality: it is a subjective assertion I am making about the emotion expressed in the song.  Some could ask me: “well, why do you hear it as being sung out of a spirit of solitude, just because other songs that you gave found at that speed show the same?”  And my answer would be: I may be completely off.  Did I ever ask Ms. Nicks’: “what was your emotional expression, or at least the expression which you felt as you performed ‘LANDSLIDE’ as recorded?”

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Ian A Schneider
James Manning-san
June 1, 2010
New Jersey, North America

Thing is: even if I *did* ask her, and even if she thought she *knew* – she, like most of us, would have to admit: our subconscious is more powerful than our conscious minds, and she herself had no idea what she may have felt, thinking, expressing: or NOT on this recording!  She might say to you, “Oh, Christie wrote that vocal, I had never seen the words before that one take, I just wanted to leave the studio and had no emotion whatsoever about the song itself.”  And yet, the song is haunted and the speed gives it away.  Such is not always the case.

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It is just this: the confidence level of a song in the 79-85 bpm range is enormous in regard to: highest percentage chance of raw emotional; abandonment and solitude.  I urge your opinion – but I rarely get any.  And until Steve Jobs finally decides to at least give a couple of dollars to the New Jersey Free School, as far as the images – though copyrighted feel free to litter your guest bathroom with them.

Landslide-3d-9-trials-meanspeed music _bpm map

It is a way to make guests leave -  once they see the chart, esp if you invest in a 99¢ frame, whether it’s remarked on or not you can make an issue of it and bore them home in minutes.  Not that same has ever happened in my house…

Meanspeed®-Carlton Summary
beats calibrated per trial=252
trials measured=10
mean time per trial=3 minutes, 10.05 seconds
standard tempo/mean speed=79.8 beats per minute
average beat length=752 milliseconds
mean-emotion according to the meanspeed music conjecture=loneliness

Landslide-3d-9-trials-meanspeed music _bpm map_3

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