15 Percent Faster

This music is a bit slow: it needs to be 15% faster.

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Eagles - Hotel California (15% faster tempo from start) - speeded up

This pub-rock-sing-along beardy twin-necked-guitar-noodling classic comes from Eagles’ fifth album in just five years. Although still relatively young, the band already showed signs of Mature Artist Slowdown. It has been alleged it refers to a Church of Satan, but what is unarguable is it lasts a pure evil SIX AND A HALF MINUTES and needs to be 15percentfaster.

Enjoy at 15% faster tempo, original is here for comparison.

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Portishead - Sour Times (15% faster from start) - speeded up

This incredible 1994 debut album from the Bristol-based outfit dropped like a bomb, at a time when I was either listening to passable indie guitar bands or ambient electronic noodlers. It had a vastly more sophisticated and detailed production, and managed to sound incredibly modern and classic at the same time.

Having said that, I do believe this track sounds better #15percentfaster, original is here for comparison: https://youtu.be/g7gutsi1uT4

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Arctic Monkeys - (15% faster from start) Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino Full Album - speeded up

It's always a bitter-sweet moment, when a formerly young and energetic band plunges over the precipice into playing their instruments "properly", the tempo drops, albums have "concepts" and everything becomes very serious. This is when #MatureArtistSlowdown has arrived.

Members of Arctic Monkeys are just 32, but "Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino" is their sixth album, after a worrying five year hiatus. Warning signs abound: it was composed in LA, it's mostly an Alex Turner solo record, it trundles, it has overt 60s influences.

However, once I sped the tracks up by 15%, using advanced technology, the album is a very enjoyable and interesting listen. Here is the whole album #15percentfaster for your listening pleasure.

Original is here for comparison.

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Elton John -  Circle of Life (15% faster tempo from start) - speeded up

Original song is here for comparison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gt4G4NVgp_4

In these difficult lockdown times, I've been listening to a few classic albums for the first time, like Goodbye Yellow Brick Road by Elton John; having grown up with Elton producing plodding material like this, often with deafening snare drums, it's a revelation to go back to the energy levels and upbeat tempo of his youth.

At 47, Elton had severe #matureartistslowdown , along with having a tendency to err into club-singing. This song from The Lion King is not bad but much improved by being #15percentfaster.

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Angel Olsen -  Spring (15% faster from start) - speeded up

Original song is here for comparison, with an awesome added video by YouTuber 송사라

This is a great song from highly talented songwriter Angel Olsen's fourth album, All Mirrors. Despite her youthful years, this album shows a few touches of #matureartistslowdown, with lush string arrangements and a much more measured tempo generally. Enjoy at correct tempo #15percentfaster

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Lil Nas X - Old Town Road (Lyrics) ft. Billy Ray Cyrus (15% faster from start) - speeded up

Here is the ubiquitous song, which is a bit slow, #15percentfaster.

Original is here for comparison: https://youtu.be/U4xPahDjY6k

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Bon Jovi - Wanted Dead Or Alive (15% faster from start) - speeded up

JBJ unleashed this monster in 1986, with a very moody B&W promo to accompany this VERY EMOTIONAL song, wittering about such nonsense as being a cowboy riding a steel horse.

Kudos to him though, for rocking a hairy chest and spangly jacket/bandana/huge barnett combo.

It's a good tune, but is clearly superior 15 Percent Faster

Original is here for comparison: https://youtu.be/Py6U3XMy-AM

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Arctic Monkeys - (15% faster from start) Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino Full Album - speeded up

Sadly this has been zapped due to copyright, so try here instead

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Star Trek Voyager - Opening credits (15% faster tempo from start) - speeded up

Star Trek Voyager was another long-running sci-fi series that ran from 1995 to 2001. The CGI opening sequence was considered very fancy for the time, winning an Emmy, although the reflection on the planet rings looks very odd: more, much more, about this here.

I've always disliked this introduction sequence's music, but Dr Mrs 15 Percent Faster is of the opinion that it's actually quite good; it's just too slow to excite the viewer for the space action to come. She says:

"The steady pace, while unexciting, is appropriate for depicting a very long journey that, apart from the odd deviation, is basically a straight line at constant velocity. Compare this to TNG, where they're always zipping around all over the place at a moment's notice, or for that matter, DS9, which doesn't move at all (as depicted in its dull and harmonically static music). The melodic and harmonic aspects of the Voyager music also manage to convey a nice combination of stately vessel proudly powering through space (albeit not very quickly), pathos of being a long way from home (the II minor), hope and determination (the leap upward in the melody), and a bit of spacey delta quadrant weirdness (the key shift in the middle section)."

Enjoy at 15% faster tempo, original is here for comparison.

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Radiohead - Street Spirit (Fade Out) (15% faster tempo from start) - speeded up

Radiohead are a much-admired band that released their first album all the way back in 1993, with popular, but completely terrible, single "Creep" becoming a huge world-wide hit.

As a band, they've unusually become much more musically interesting over time, although they could have mined a hugely lucrative whiny indie-rock seam for the rest of their careers. Guitarist Jonny Greenwood has become a noted film soundtrack composer, with superb discordant work for "There Will Be Blood" being a favourite of mine. I found their early albums impossible to listen to in their entirety, although some singles like "Paranoid Android" are classics individually and demonstrate great leaps forward in ambition.

2007's "In Rainbows" album was an industry changing event, as it was downloadable for free and the listener could elect to pay what they want. On a side note, a superb remix album by Amp Live is well worth checking out. It was also the first time I could actually enjoy listening through a whole album in one sitting, and the same applies for "The King of Limbs" (2011) and "A Moon Shaped Pool (2016)".

It was rather disappointing that social media feedback to their 2017 Glastonbury headline performance seemed to be desperate for music from the first 20% of their career, and "Creep" had been dug up from a deserved deep grave to please quality-indifferent nostalgists.

"Street Spirit (Fade Out)", whilst a good song, always seems to drag for me and seems to benefit substantially from being 15 percent faster.

Enjoy at 15% faster tempo, original is here for comparison.

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The Stone Roses - Ten Storey Love Song (15% faster tempo from start) - speeded up

After being unwisely given a million-pound advance, huge-trousered journalist-ignoring music legends The Stone Roses took five and a half years to produce their second album, Second Coming, which contains quite a few decent tracks but rather too many blues “work-outs”.

One of the peculiar thing about many initially innovative indie bands is that as soon as they have the money for a decent studio, a pining for Classic Rock can rear its ugly head: Primal Scream, The Zutons, The Charlatans, Ride and here the Stone Roses.

This leisurely effort does, however, capture some of their early magic, but the swifter version is better still.

Enjoy at 15% faster tempo, original is here for comparison.

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The Bee Gees - You win again (15% faster from start) - speeded up

In 1987, the Bee Gees were 29(!) years into their career when they released this plodding but enjoyable mega-hit (which strangely tanked in the US, perhaps due to lack of airplay). It contains many of the hall-marks of the veteran band making an 80s come-back: ear-bashing snare sound, slow tempo and a dilution of their signature sound.

I sadly can't include the original video for copyright reasons, so you're missing some amusing pony-tail and hat fashion stylings and random shots of a sexy lady. The lyric video does give you the chance to chuckle at such lines as "Oh baby, I shake you from now on" and "lay your fortress open wide".

Enjoy at 15% faster tempo, original is here for comparison: youtube.com/watch?v=1qiRmm3Q4gM

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Arctic Monkeys - Potion Approaching (15% faster from start) - speeded up

Dr Mrs 15% Faster spotted the slowdown the moment this ace band started “I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor” at the London Olympics opening ceremony.  Further research yielded a massive drop of 3BPM from the original single’s 207BPM. Whilst still putting out good records, there is clear indication of serious songwriting and enhanced musicianship reducing the tempo. To illustrate this I present hard-rocking number “Potion Approaching”, which shows notably improved alacrity. 

Original is here. Pic from here.

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Little Mix - Little Me (15% faster from start) - speeded up

This charming but dawdling effort by Little Mix benefits IMHO from the 15% speedup, but the most interesting thing about it was pointed out by Mrs 15% Faster who pointed out that it extensively *ahem* borrows melody and harmony from Gabriel Faure’s Pavane, written in 1887(!). 

It is almost always performed slower than the composer intended. Sir Adrian Boult heard Fauré play the piano version several times, and noted that he never took it at a tempo below 100 BPM.  

It’s been adapted and sampled a LOT: 

Little Me (Little Mix) ~82BPM 

Paparazzi (Xzibit) ~96BPM 

The only version to go at the composer’s reported intended tempo is the Jethro Tull one.

Have a listen to the other versions, especially the Xzibit one. 

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Original is here for comparison.

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Oasis - Don't Look Back in Anger (15% faster from start) - speeded up

True story: I once stood next to Noel Gallagher at a gig in Islington, North London, marvelling at his diminutive stature. Meanwhile, he was talking to his mates and pointing at me because of my giant size. Hey I impinged upon his consciousness. I've never been a huge fan of Oasis, and while they have some good tunes, they always seemed to have a tendency to trudge, even having replaced their drummer with the more technically able Alan White. Being only their second album, and still young, this Mature Artist Slowdown is inexcusable. This song, however, is one of their best, and will produce spasms of nostalgia in any forty-something, who can now enjoy this at more reasonable length (i.e. less than five minutes).

Original is here for comparison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fl0iZGUVGD0

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Ed Sheeran - Shape of You (15% faster from start) - speeded up

Ed Sheeran is a nice man from an impeccable artistic background who I saw supporting charity comedy gigs some years ago before he somehow "did an Adele" and started hanging out with rappers.  Having risen so rapidly, he hasn't time to suffer Mature Artist Slowdown: this one was recommended to me and is a borderline case, but I do like this slightly sped up version.

He also seems to be reasonably cool about allowing videos like this, so cheers.

Original is here for comparison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsr9-pB_OU0

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Documentary and 1,000 YouTube Followers

Radio Producer Steve Urquhart was kind enough to come round to my flat and interview me for his documentary about people who like making music faster and now he has completed this fine work: go here to listen to “FASTER! FASTER!” and hear my very own voice.  Also featured is ridiculously popular YouTuber NightcoreReality.

Although I’m not in her class, I am very pleased to have hit 1,000 YouTube subscribers and over 800,000 views!  If you’re not already a subscriber, my channel is here.