Duos and Their Different Dynamics

Sisters, brothers, friends, enemies, or lovers, those who make music collaboratively develop relationships — and those relationships have stories.

Written by Audrey Kendrick

Often initially strangers, collaborators develop unique song production processes and have different paths to their rise or demise. As artists in teams navigate changes in direction, their music can reflect how they relate and bring the listener into the ideas they share. Providing passion behind lyrics or ideas for design, a subtly beautiful part of music is the unshared interactions that lead up to groups expressing themselves collectively. These are just a few of the understated relationships between creators.

FRIENDS: Daft Punk

Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, two 15 year olds with radioactive imaginations, met in French secondary school. Like most friends, they talked about movies. They shared music. They developed a deep fascination with the aesthetics of the 1974 rock opera, Phantom of the Paradise. The platform of weirdly specific appreciations and similar worldviews served as the perfect space for creating music, soon prompting the formation of a decidedly unrefined and youthfully peppy rock band. Although critics described the dorm-room project as ‘daft punky trash,’ fate did not allow their mutual wavelength to go unshared. The best friends pivoted to house music, debuting a project that inherited their upbeat expression and singular vision. Homework, a scattered, paint-splattered collection of layered and leveled songs that instantly elevate anyone's heartbeat, became the basis of a fitting yet unique assessment of the genre. Their sound, which dared to imagine the future, remained central to an original set and creative world the two defined on their own terms, often standing together against any music label’s influence. Adopting the now famous insult as their stage name, Daft Punk has continued collaborating for over 28 years, their close bond allowing them to seamlessly traverse artistic ventures across film scoring, high profile collaborations, cinematic shows, and eras of evolving style.

EVENTUAL ENEMIES: Simon and Garfunkel

Credit for an internationally acclaimed group goes to Parsons Junior High’s musical theatre, where two sensitive souls, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, befriended each other. The best friends started as a Doo Wop duo, before settling into a soft centered, rough-edged folk sound that defined the 1960s American music landscape. The emotionality weaved throughout their most popular album Sound of Silence, however, foreshadowed a turbulent and breaking relationship. Bitter insecurities and simmering resentment caused from comparisons between the two of them disrupted the balanced nature of their duo. Feeling betrayed by Art leaving him to shoot a movie in Mexico, Paul penned the stinging lyrics in “The Only Living Boy in New York,” saying, “Tom, get your plane ride on time. I know you’ve been eager to fly.” Evident frustration and increasingly toxic emotions built up until the dust settled into mutual resignation. The brief crossing of the two paths split for the better. Although their friendship was never the same after achieving fame, the song they developed still exists as time capsules of how their relationship evolved.

MENTOR-MENTEE: Kanye West and Chance the Rapper

Few lucky artists attract the attention of the musicians whose music they already loved. Chance the Rapper has been a Kanye West superfan since 2011. Both having lived and dreamed in the same city of Chicago, Chance strongly related and identified with Kanye’s ideas and credits his effortlessly addictive Late Registration-era songs with inspiring him to rap. His early work reflected respect and appreciation of the established artist with candid lyrics, gospel-like accompaniments, and themes about the disillusioned fragility of the education system. While Chance defined his musical presence, he continued to pay homage to his mentor, making the first track off of Acid Rap, “Good Ass Intro,'' an inventive riff off of the sunny side of the street energy in Kanye’s “Intro” from the Freshmen Adjustment mixtape. This one-sided admiration moved to mutual friendship three years later, when Kanye, naturally flattered by Chance's reception of his music, began supporting Chance’s production and career. Chance’s exploratory project in Donnie Trumpet and the Social Experiment included Kanye's in-person influence, having him peer edit as one of the first listeners on their debut project Surf. Rumors of a direct collaboration have been constant, and it is still a hopeful prospect that could bless us all.

IN THE FAMILY: Billie Eilish and Finneas

With another songwriter under the same roof, Finneas O’Connell turned to his little sister Billie. “Ocean Eyes,” an original song written for her dance instructor to choreograph, was the first time Finneas’ seamless production collided with Billie’s angelic vocals. Exploring a different mood in each track after, they approach different aspects of the songs with Billie’s dark and gripping concepts and Finneas’ experience with classical songwriting. Throughout many releases, they continue to produce songs that are either too catchy or too heartfelt to be ignored. Finneas describes their writing process as a "relay race," implying a competitive aspect of developing new, creative ideas. Hacking the nature of sibling rivalry into something constructive, they each produce independent ideas and build off of each other’s songs, resulting in experimental pop that is honest and reflects two unique (yet uniform) voices.

MARRIED (MUSICALLY AND LITERALLY): Sylvan Esso

After receiving a recording of a song and a request from Amelia Meath to rearrange it, Nick Sanborn complemented her breezy and rich voice with sparse beats and abstract instrumentals. This small introduction sparked further collaboration, which ignited romantic feelings. Their effortless off-center pop is a product of mutual ideas bounced off of two people in sync. Since being married in 2014, the pair have evolved their collaborative process, with Meade describing their writing as “sitting in a room and having small little arguments.” The way they approach composing small moments in time in their lyrics is organic just as the relationship they were able to build. With first-hand experience, they co-wrote the sweet words in “There are Many Ways to Say I Love You” and continue to be an example of love found by noticing the beauty in the way each other expresses themselves in music.

Songwriting and production can be a dialogue of dynamics between two artists. The personal nature of music is a platform for strong connections, and a specific way two artists relate translate into universally relatable songs. With each album or single subtly or explicitly referencing the journey of a duo through phases of mutual or one-sided love, their relationship can be the inspiration for creative expression. Through every diverse aspect of how each collaboration navigates making music, one fact remains: The heart of a song lies in those who make it.

Afterglow ATXNovember 19, 2020audrey kendrick