Song Analysis - Zombie the Cranberries

For my next Assignment at Uni, we are tasked with making a recording of a famous song, and have it sound as close to the original as possible! My group has chosen Zombie by the Cranberries, so today i'm going to breakdown the song so i know exactly what we're in for when we go to record!

Structure - Very Nineties grunge, sticking to the tried and true verse chorus pattern. The verse and chorus have a very similar flow to them. The verse being rhythmically driven but bass and drums. One guitar is clean playing leads over the top, while the hits fuzzed out root note chords. Then when the chorus comes in both guitars get distorted.

Intro - Clean guitar on it's own

Intro - instruments come in on the chorus(no vocals)

Verse

Chorus

Verse

Chorus

Verse

Solo Bridge

Verse

Instrumentation - 1 Bass, 2x Guitars, Drums, Vocals

Arrangement - Bass and drums heavily drive the song, with the guitars coming in on the chorus to create more dynamics.

Dynamics - Quiet Verses , loud Chorus

Rhythm - The song has a floating tempo which ranges from 71 Bpm to 90 Bpm, as it doesn't seem to be recorded to a click. Time signature of 4/4

Harmony - The key of the song is E minor, the main riffs chord progression goes

E Minor C Major G Major G/F#

Melody - the main guitar melody going through the verse is

B C, A B, G A, F# G F#, D, D, B

Which is played Hammering notes in twos down the neck of the 1st E string.

Guitar solo sits in E minor

Production - The song Zombie is on the Album No Need to Argue, which was recorded by Stephen Street in 1993.

Technology - Having that very 90s grunge sound, the Cranberries stuck to the barebones instruments, playing a Voxac30 and Marshall stack for the guitars, with BigMuff Fuzz pedals. the Bass is playing through the Ampeg SVT4 pro with a bit of distortion. As for microphones, my ear is nowhere near good enough to hear models of microphone. However i can imagine that they used a pretty stock standard setup. E.g sm57s on the guitars etc.

Mixing - Pretty standard Rock song mixing. Bit of reverb on the clean guitars, although that may be direct from the Guitarists pedal board. One guitar panned left one right, the guitars sit back in the mix until the choruses/solo parts. Vocals have light reverb, Backing Vox have delays.

Vibe - The song is a pretty dark protest song which focuses on the death of two boys who dies in an IRA bombing that occurred earlier in 1993. The song has a lot of emotion throughout and the notes throughout the song are very melancholic coupled with the heavy slow rhythm of the drums and bass. Definitely gets across the subject of the song.