The Crazy Story of Behind Eric Prydez' "Call on Me"

March 23, 2022 9:33 AM

"Eric Prydz’ music career received a massive boost after he released the #1 UK hit ‘Call On Me” based on a sample from a Steve Winwood track. Thanks to YouTuber HowardHandsTV, he has told the story of house originally Thomas Bangalter of Daft Punk fame and DJ Falcon 2 years earlier were playing in their club sets the famous sample over beats mainly as a dj tool." Thomas Bangalter & DJ Falcon - Call On Me and the original, Steve Winwood - Valerie, and finally Eric Prydz – Call On Me.
posted by geoff. (43 comments total)

The popular version of Valerie by Steve Winwood from 1987 is also a remix - the original was from 1982, though IMO the differences are extremely subtle.


That driving beat works so well in so many different formats for so long - I don't get why rock has gone so far to the 80bpm draggers and ballads for their radio pop hits. So boring...

'80s video: a wind machine rental is not cheap and he mentioned breeze in the lyrics, so let's get our money's worth!
'00s video: 20 blondes and one guy and one black chick simulating excer-sex. So inclusive!
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:48 AM on March 23, 2022 [3 favorites]

It's easy to hear how the original Call On Me worked to move in and out of tracks like One More Time.

Here's Prydz making that cut live.

People who don't recognize his name may also know Prydz from Pjanoo.
(Orchestral version)
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:27 AM on March 23, 2022 [3 favorites]

Obligatory link to Prydz' Opus - one of those pieces of music that builds and builds until, eventually, the epic drop arrives.
The Four Tet remix is also good but screws with you by omitting the drop.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 10:38 AM on March 23, 2022 [6 favorites]

Opus is pretty much one of my fave tracks of all time. Thanks for posting the remix!
posted by mon_petit_ordinateur at 10:52 AM on March 23, 2022 [1 favorite]

This just makes me miss YTMND
posted by 7segment at 11:40 AM on March 23, 2022 [3 favorites]

That would require some kind of stadium house Leekspin remix :P
posted by snuffleupagus at 11:46 AM on March 23, 2022

Uh...that Eric Prydz video might not be the best thing to open at work.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 11:57 AM on March 23, 2022 [7 favorites]

OK so here's a bit of deep cut trivia about this video. One of the women in the video, the one in the light blue and dark blue horizontal stripes, is Laura Jayne Smith, the sister of 11th Doctor Matt Smith.

Put their names together into Google Images.

THEY ARE BROTHER AND SISTER. THAT AIN'T RIGHT.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 12:32 PM on March 23, 2022 [2 favorites]

Uh...that Eric Prydz video might not be the best thing to open at work.

Not if you work in a gym.
posted by Pendragon at 1:00 PM on March 23, 2022 [3 favorites]

The popular version of Valerie by Steve Winwood from 1987 is also a remix - the original was from 1982, though IMO the differences are extremely subtle.

The Winwood video linked in the OP is not the popular 1987 remix version from Chronicles (which Wikipedia tells me was by Tim Lord-Alge), but something akin to the 1982 single that The_Vegetables linked to above, only of inferior sound quality to the vinyl version. The 1987 Lord-Alge remix version of "Valerie" is noticeably different from the original 1982 version in several respects (including but not limited to more reverb in the vocal track, additional instrumentation, and a much more obvious synth crescendo at the end of the refrain).

I personally prefer the 1987 remix to the 1982 original, and both to the later dance remixes that remove almost everything besides Winwood singing the title. But YMMV.
posted by skoosh at 1:26 PM on March 23, 2022

Right, Stevie Windwood. Boy, "Valerie" was not music's finest hour.
posted by From Bklyn at 1:46 PM on March 23, 2022 [2 favorites]

Unabashed lover of 80s Steve Winwood, and "Valerie" never fails to make me happy. I tried the EDM video thing above - uh, no thanks, on several levels.

Also: I guess spelling and grammar are not very important in articles about EDM?
posted by davidmsc at 1:54 PM on March 23, 2022 [3 favorites]

Was there a name for that technique where the compression/EQ comes in and out so it sounds like it's coming from inside a broom closet and then comes back to normal?

Because that was annoying.
posted by JoeZydeco at 2:34 PM on March 23, 2022 [2 favorites]

Edit: Tom! Tom Lord-Alge!

Extra-important to clear up any confusion about first names in this case, because three(!) of the Lord-Ange brothers, including Tom, are audio engineers.
posted by skoosh at 2:59 PM on March 23, 2022 [1 favorite]

I guess spelling and grammar are not very important in articles about EDM?

You're right, it's much more important to the authentic rock'n'roll spirit. Everyone blames Yoko, but the Beatles [sic] actually broke up over the Oxford comma.


that technique where the compression/EQ comes in and out

Some combination of phasing and flanging; also pretty common in guitar fx (like that 70s and especially 80s hard rock 'jet' sound).

Barracuda
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:00 PM on March 23, 2022 [2 favorites]

Nah, I don't think it's flanging. Take the above clip at 1:54 (sorry, it's the NSFW video), and it's like everything under 1000hz is clipped out or muffled and then (choose your song) it's slowly brought back in or it's brought back all at once for the drop.
posted by JoeZydeco at 3:05 PM on March 23, 2022

Yes -- I had always thought that effect (which is pretty heavily overrused) was a combination of flange and phase linked to a VFO (which is also what I thought people use in a pedal to make guitar sounds come 'in and out' like that) , but I lack the skill to go tinker and figure it out. I guess it could just as easily be some combination of compression/gating and hi/lo pass.
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:08 PM on March 23, 2022

You could do a workout video for all of Winwood's hits. "Back in the Thigh Life Again", "Consign Her Swings", etc.
posted by credulous at 3:09 PM on March 23, 2022 [2 favorites]

Was there a name for that technique where the compression/EQ comes in and out so it sounds like it's coming from inside a broom closet and then comes back to normal?

i thought it was just filtering on the EQ tbh
posted by burr1545 at 3:09 PM on March 23, 2022 [2 favorites]

'Filter' knocked a couple dusty neurons together.

The parlance is apparently 'filter sweep.' I guess you would link it to an oscillator or modulator if you want it to happen to a beat.
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:20 PM on March 23, 2022 [4 favorites]

Yes! Thank you. Still annoying.
posted by JoeZydeco at 4:21 PM on March 23, 2022 [1 favorite]

The Four Tet remix is also good but screws with you by omitting the drop.

Four Tet is one of my favorite remixers because he understands the principal tenet that undergirds any good remix: It is an interpretive and transformative art form. The job is not merely to reheat a song with new dressing. Kieran Hebden understood that the thing "Opus" does - that death-defying build and drop - could not possibly be improved upon. The best you could hope for is to summon the feeling one gets from the original, and that's the musical equivalent of a desktop shortcut: it just points to a real thing somewhere else. Four Tet and the other great remixers know that it's about guiding a known song into an unfamiliar landscape. What new emotions or experiences can you see now?

(I always think of this breathtaking interpretation of Rufus Wainwright's "Tiergarten" by Supermayer.)

Anyway, "Call On Me" and the whole "re-edit" subgenre make a mockery of my exegesis, but that's fine, because a banger can be its own kind of journey, too. Like skydiving instead of taking the train. I just happen to be more of a train guy.
posted by mykescipark at 5:07 PM on March 23, 2022 [3 favorites]

French House/Filter House

Relatively extreme use of low pass filters synced to the beat.

Love this genre! The video is great once you can get used to the style of the youtuber.
posted by kittensofthenight at 5:16 PM on March 23, 2022 [3 favorites]

I asked this question 12 years ago, one of my faves, lots of great info and links in this genre.

https://ask.metafilter.com/150189/Is-it-called-Funky-House
posted by kittensofthenight at 5:23 PM on March 23, 2022 [2 favorites]

Here's Prydz making that cut live.

I've always heard that he refuses to play Call on Me, so either that was bad info, or that was a unique moment.
posted by chaz at 7:14 PM on March 23, 2022

Now that you say that, I may have misinterpreted the video title, and maybe it's some rando DJ making the cut. But it still conveys how it might have sounded originally.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:20 PM on March 23, 2022

Was there a name for that technique where the compression/EQ comes in and out so it sounds like it's coming from inside a broom closet and then comes back to normal?

It's called sidechain compression. It's not phasing or flanging (although these are used plenty in french/filter house as well and hence might seem to cause the effect).

A compressor applied in the "normal" way will decrease the volume of a track when it hits a certain level. This is often used to prevent distortion in recording. If you're playing guitar and suddenly switch your really loud overdrive on, the compressor will go "this sound exceeds my threshold!" and will reduce the volume until the original sound is back below the threshold (eg, you turn the overdrive back off).

Sidechain compression is where the sound that exceeds the threshold (your overdrive guitar) will make the compressor reduce the volume of /something else/ (your frustrated bass playing bandmate). In the case of EDM, the kick is the sound that exceeds the threshold, and the bass (or sometimes the entire mix) briefly has its volume pushed down until the kick ends. Since the kick occurs quite frequently, this produces the "pulsing" effect.
posted by solarion at 8:00 PM on March 23, 2022 [8 favorites]

It's called sidechain compression.

Nevermind! I am wrong. I was mistaken about what JoeZydeco was referring to in the song. There is definitely sidechain compression as well. But what occurs at 1:54 is the use of a high-pass filter, where low frequencies are omitted from the song. snuffleupagus is right - the filter is gradually excluding more and more low frequencies, causing the song to sound like it's receding into the distance.

everything under 1000hz is clipped out or muffled

This is essentially what's happening, yes.
posted by solarion at 8:28 PM on March 23, 2022 [5 favorites]

I am nonetheless grateful for the amazingly succicnt explanation of what 'sidechain compression' is, which I had filed under "inscrutable audio incantation" (being trained in radio, and a total dabbler in music production).
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:36 PM on March 23, 2022 [1 favorite]

Speaking of orchestral versions of "Pjanoo," it's the second track covered in the BBC Radio One Prom of Ibiza Classics, which is just wonderful. Come for Robert Miles' "Children," but stay for Faithless' "Insomnia."
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 9:31 PM on March 23, 2022 [2 favorites]

At the risk of flying in the face of the more thoughtful remix culture (which I generally prefer):

Relentless Pjanoo

(haven't had the time to move away from Spotify yet, sorry)

begins with the High Contrast d'n'b version.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:50 PM on March 23, 2022 [2 favorites]

I came to post the four tet remix of opus (because that track is bonkers), and stayed for the actual post – fascinating music history lesson!
posted by nikoniko at 10:43 PM on March 23, 2022 [1 favorite]

music history, you say?

Right, Stevie Windwood.

I'm a man

Gimmie some lovin'

Blind Faith - Can't Find My Way Home

Traffic -- 40,000 Headmen (Welcome to the Canteen)

Traffic -- Low Spark of High Heeled Boys

and even in the 80s, when 'Back in the High Life' was his hit, don't miss Roll With It.

Winwood should have been in the Traveling Wilburys.
posted by snuffleupagus at 11:09 PM on March 23, 2022 [11 favorites]

For sure, Snuffle, Steve Winwood is a legend. He even has another dance music workout video with hundreds of millions of views on youtube, released a couple years ago, lol: Higher Love (Kygo and Whitney Houston Remix)

(Ultra Music might be even cornier than Ministry of Sound...)
posted by nikoniko at 11:32 PM on March 23, 2022 [2 favorites]

ahh, I forgot all about Higher Love! Totally burned into may brain too, thanks. (And maybe some of the Prydz same video inspo referenced in some of those shots, lol.)
posted by snuffleupagus at 11:33 PM on March 23, 2022

Aw, I loved Ministry of Sound in the 90s - the Sasha and Digweed mixes were favorites of mine. I'm bummed to hear the label was sketchy.
posted by Pronoiac at 11:59 PM on March 23, 2022 [2 favorites]

'00s video: 20 blondes and one guy and one black chick simulating excer-sex. So inclusive!

It's not appreciated enough that the video too is a sort of remix/reimagining, of the 1985 John Travolta/Jamie Lee Curtis 'masterpiece', Perfect.

though that one had far fewer hot early twenties blondes and far more middle aged balding men
posted by MartinWisse at 12:23 AM on March 24, 2022 [4 favorites]

probably it was a common piece of knowledge already at the time of release. the white label name was Thomas Falcon, which also previously had "So Much Love to Give" "Together" and "High again" (a remix of Chris De Burgh).
this was as a part of the success of "french touch" which was very big in the beginning of the millenium. in the meantime, Eryc Prydz has got a massive boost due to the rise of the Swedish Mafia. he was an underground household big name back in 2003.
posted by avi111 at 6:27 AM on March 24, 2022

Four Tet is one of my favorite remixers because he understands the principal tenet that undergirds any good remix: It is an interpretive and transformative art form. The job is not merely to reheat a song with new dressing.
I agree and I didn't intend to imply the remix was bad- it's excellent in the way that Four Tet's mixes usually are - the two versions do different things with the same material.
The original is epic while the mix is a genuinely witty take on it - "You want the drop? YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE DROP!"
posted by thatwhichfalls at 11:19 AM on March 24, 2022

'00s video: 20 blondes and one guy and one black chick simulating excer-sex. So inclusive!

Well, the video only has 8 women and includes some brunettes, a red-head and an Asian chick but I get your point.
posted by Pendragon at 11:24 AM on March 24, 2022

Snuffleupsgus..oh man…Blind Faith. Wow. I hadn’t thought of that song in years, but it was a frequent listen back in some dark dark days. Post my ill-advised violence career, during chemical dependency, just learning to atone and mourn the nice kid I’d been while realizing that I didn’t have a me or a place to go back to. Oof.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 11:52 AM on March 24, 2022

Also, having now watched the video through, the link in this post to Bangalter and Falcon's "original version" is incorrect. That version is the Retarded Funk demo version, which eventually got updated and used as the Eric Prydz version, and the only available version of Bangalter and Falcon's take is this live version from 2002 where it's used more as a DJ tool (notably, no "I'm the same boy I used to be" line).
posted by solarion at 6:41 PM on March 24, 2022

I generally prefer his techno work as Cirez D but even as a black-wearing techno snob I can’t deny the simple glee of this and Pjanoo. While the “just take one sample and keep it simple” style of this kind of thing can wear thin most times but when it’s 5 seconds of perfection lifted from an otherwise blah tune (sorry Stevie) by someone who knows what works on the dance floor.. it makes me stop working and dance in the kitchen every time.
posted by thedaniel at 12:49 AM on March 25, 2022 [2 favorites]