Wrapping up the first week back after a short break, Mike Shinoda produced yet another track live on his Twitch channel. This new track was titled “Not A Love Song” by Lizzy McAlpine, a musician that is a little more established than the usual artists Shinoda works with for #ShinodaProduceMe.
“Most of the artists I’ve put on the channel don’t have a team … Lizzy, whose track I’m doing today, is a little further along … She has a hundred and ninety thousand followers on Instagram, so I think she’s the biggest artist I’ve produced on this channel. And to be honest, I kind of want to produce artists that are a little smaller, but Lizzy is so good and most people still haven’t heard of her, that I was like ‘I gotta reach out and see if she’s down to do this’.”
As usual, Shinoda began the production session by playing McAlpine’s original track for his Twitch viewers to hear for the first time. McAlpine included in her submission vocals and guitar, and after listening to it, Shinoda stated he didn’t want the production to make it low energy or boring. However, he also didn’t want it to be very high energy either because he thought the intention of the song was subtle urgency where McAlpine is trying to get something off her chest.
Shinoda explained that he wanted to experiment with a couple different aspects of the song, starting with drums. Before the stream, he pulled a few different drum sounds, piano, organic keyboards, and some sound loops he believed could work with McAlpine’s original submission.
“She [McAlpine] posts songs on her social media, she puts little jams and things that she’s writing. I don’t think I’ve seen a person post more quality song writing content on social media than Lizzy McAlpine.”
With a suggestion from McAlpine, who was watching the production live, Shinoda decided to select more than one drum beat for the song, one with a more minimalist sound and another with a little more energy that Shinoda describes as a break beat. Shinoda also decided to record his own shaker to go with the drums, as he did not like any of the pre-recorded ones he already had in Ableton. Next, Shinoda recorded piano, another track of guitar, and melotron before spending the rest of the stream, and the next day’s stream, focusing on specific parts of the song and details of various instruments, such as the bass, flutes, piano, and vocals.
Lizzy McAlpine is a singer and songwriter from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She has released one album in addition to multiple projects and singles, drawing heavily on lo-fi, pop, and indie-folk. She currently has over one million listeners on Spotify and posts clips of new music regularly on social media, giving fans a constant stream of new content to enjoy. McAlpine released her debut album last August titled Give Me A Minute, following a previous eight track project titled Indigo in 2018, both of which can be found on Spotify and Apple Music. Her album featured thirteen tracks, including singles such as “Over-the-Ocean Call” and “Pancakes for Dinner”. These tracks were handpicked from a pool of 150 songs McAlpine had written while studying in Spain, before she decided to devote herself entirely to her music career. Following the release of her album, McAlpine collaborated on a song with Ben Kessler in 2020, whose song “Known Like This” was one of the first tracks Shinoda worked on as part of the #ShinodaProduceMe project. Most recently, McAlpine released a new single titled “Bored” with Australian artist Thomas Headon, and is currently working on her second album.
If you weren’t able to see Lizzy McAlpine’s “Not A Love Song” be produced live by Mike Shinoda, you can still watch the Twitch replay below! Make sure to check out McAlpine’s music, as well as Shinoda’s previous production sessions. And stay tuned to Shinoda’s Twitch channel weekdays around 10 a.m. PT for more productions live streams!
