Single Review: The Calls – Fall Inside

The first thing I did to hear The Call’s new single *Fall Inside* was to click on the YouTube link. I like to get a first impression before I make up my mind on what I am going to write. No looking at lyrics, no thinking cerebrally – just listening to the song and ‘feeling’ it.

When I heard the intro I thought “oh ok…sounds like it’s going to be Jimmy Hendrix revisited maybe?”. Then seconds later I hear the guitar / drums groove and I think “Wait a minute – is this a ‘60s or is it a ‘70s retro song?”

*Fall Inside* is a fabulous perfectly balanced taste of both. And you know what that means….people who were young back in the ‘60s and ‘70s will automatically become fans because it hearkens back to THEIR early years. And trust me -‘sounds like’ comparisons that bands are sometimes loathe to do are there for a reason. It’s an automatic portal to fans of who already like the style of music you are playing.

I remember the ‘70s music well and I kind of think of it as an ‘after-party’ of the ‘60s. “Peace, man”, “outta sight”, “groovy” from the ‘60s melded into the ‘70s “chill”, “be there or be square”, “can you dig it”.

What I am hearing in *Fall Inside* is a ‘60s sounding psychedelic guitar riff with a ‘70s sounding drum & bass groove. And I’m liking it. A LOT. “Then you fall inside/Then you fall inside again”. “How about that/How about that/How about that”. Those hooky lines that get and keep your attention focussed on the song.

A mashup of 2 decades each of them extraordinary in their own way. The ‘60s was about youth rising up to “stick it to the man” while the ‘70s was party time! Disco exploded but so did folk music, hard rock – music in every genre took off. It was like the steam valve had come off and it was full steam ahead – literally.

Remember the old “song popularity” advice: give it the whistle test. If people can whistle it, then the tune is memorable which means it increases your chances of your song being covered resulting in more royalties for you.

*Fall Inside* is a fresh take on making a song memorable. Not in the old-fashioned whistle-test way. In the combining the best of 2-great-music-eras way.

Some in the music industry have updated the whistle-test theory and have travelled too far down that path – songs eventually became formulaic and generic. And worse, music stars battle it out in court claiming someone “stole” their melody.

So there’s now a word for that: “Poppelganger” and here are some examples:

https://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/songs-that-sound-like-other-songs__18842/

Remember when Britney Spears’ 2 hit songs: Baby One More Time & Oops I Did It Again? Well someone superimposed the 2 songs to reveal they were basically the the same formulaic song just different lyrics

Just google Blog.FactorFiles.com/britney-mashup

There’s a solution for that according to Damien Riehl on his TED Talk “Copyrighting all the melodies to avoid accidental-infringement” which you can hear on the TED Talk site.

Going to one extreme or the other is probably not the solution. Having now listened to *Fall Inside* no less than 20 times so far and enjoying it every time, to me they struck the right tone so to speak. Their music is reminiscent of the ‘60s and the ‘70s but manages to sound fresh, alive and *NOW*.

I laughed when I read their bio which said “THE CALLS are a vehemently DIY band who write, record and rehearse all their music in a converted barn and travel around in an old window cleaner’s van.”

Of course they do – I wouldn’t expect anything less having taken a joyful ride on their musical journey.

WEBSITE: www.thecalls.uk.com

YOUTUBE *Fall Inside*: