Rick Rolling with the times:

Like Kate Bush’s “Running up that Hill”, this song’s always been on front-wave of tech in music, so what can today learn? Hirway spoke with with Rick to find out.

Digital production: then & now

8' then : computer > acoustic sounds.
Now: computer < acoustic sounds

11' then: lots of v. short takes spliced together.
Now: long takes tuned. Is former really more authentic? Hear end of Jas pod for more on this re. “Tip of my Tongue”

13' then: 6 mo on mixing. Re-record at lower 114 BPM w/ syncopated bass to recreate 120 BPM energy. (N.b. good choice: I accidentially kept 1.25x from prev podcast and sounded poor a little faster).
Now: MIDI auto retimed in a week by hired mixer. E.g. I late BPM-matched 2 sides of Divided Selfie.
But labels dragging heels on male baritone vocalists (like me) hasn’t changed. George Ezra only notable exception.

16' drum intro chopped & reversed. Like “island” synth hook

Artist promo: then & now

Then: sign artist from live show and have him serve tea (4') for months til he can have a go, and then only back him when office peers heard playing.
Now: scour streaming/social micro-risk takers. Shame MAS Records unfunded, cos it was the one way artist’s got served tea. Now industry got them making it again.

Then: only make a music vid once gone number 1
Now: slam 7 TikToks out with viral hashtags in hope of getting a billion views on your music vid like Rick. Hey I guess sometimes playing it cool is the best way.