Time for action—analyzing One

Swedish House Mafia came out with a dance music song called One in 2010. It was a pretty big hit in the dance music scene; let's discover why!

First, go to this link, and listen to the song at the following web page, while reading this section:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dg7XO1zgJHA

Here's the breakdown:

1. Intro 1a: This is 12 bars of claps, with the kick drum slowly fading, and the claps slowly fading into reverb. This area is extremely important. The DJ spinning this song cannot have any pitched instruments in this section of the song, because it may make the previous song sound out of key when he mixes it in.
2. Intro 1b: This is approximately 12 bars of the kick slowly subdividing into smaller and smaller bits, then some slight modulation is applied, and the kick no longer sounds like a kick, it sounds like a synth!
3. Section 1a: It is eight bars long. The main melody of the entire song is established using this new synth made from the kick drum...