Switching the Backbeat

Abstract

This article explores manipulations of the nearly ever-present backbeat in rock music from the “long” 1980s. The status of the backbeat as not only metrically consonant but a defining feature of rock meter is discussed within the context of dual-aspect meter. Operating from the assumption that isochronous snare drum hits in rock are heard as a backbeat, placing those snare drum hits on beats other than 2 and 4 creates a particular kind of metrical dissonance, which I refer to as a backbeat switch. I examine two ways in which a backbeat switch occurs, the quick flip and the polymetric pogo. A quick flip usually occurs at a phrase break, where the drummer apparently (but intentionally) “drops a beat” and then resumes the backbeat pattern, thus shifting it “to the left.” A polymetric pogo involves a situation where the backbeat-insistent drummer is pitted against the rest of the band playing in an odd-cardinality meter, resulting in snare hits that bounce back and forth between even-numbered beats and odd-numbered beats every other measure. Short examples by The Cars, Paul Weller, Steve Vai, and Sting are used to demonstrate the article’s fundamental concepts, and longer examples by Tesla, Jerry Goldsmith, and Extreme place these concepts into larger contexts.