We’re back with another deconstruction, this time with our Head of Education and Curriculum and master of Track Deconstructions, Ski Oakenfull. In this video, Ski breaks down the Weeknd’s hit track, ‘Blinding Lights’. If you’re new here and not familiar with what a deconstruction entails, it’s where we take a well-known track, break it down to its core elements and recreate it before your very eyes.
Released back in November 2019, via XO and Republic Records, ‘Blinding Lights’ was met by immediate success, peaking at number one on the Canadian Hot 100 and topping Billboard’s Hot 100 chart for four weeks. The track was written and produced by the Weeknd, Max Martin and Oscar Holter and broke records, becoming the longest-charting song on the Hot 100 of all-time the Weeknd’s most successful single of all time racking up 1.6 billion streams – the best-performing global single of 2020.
If you’d like to get your hands on the MIDI files from Ski’s “Blinding Lights” deconstruction, you can download them in full here – it will only cost you the price of your email!
To create this deconstruction, Ski uses Ableton Live along with an Ableton Push 2 and Native Instruments Komplete M32. He kicks off the breakdown by going through some of the song’s key elements, including the beats, the bass, the chords and the melody before dropping in the acapella of ‘Blinding Lights’ for good measure.
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These deconstructions are a tool we use frequently to teach elements of composition and arrangement but to get the full picture we recommend you study with us. The most comprehensive study we offer is our flagship degree programme, the BA (Hons) in Music Production and Sound Engineering (also available online).
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