Did I Just Produce a Country Track for M3GAN?
Producing Songs I’ve Never Heard: “Miss Wannabe” by Jenna Davis [EPISODE 15]
This week’s song was a viewer recommendation from @james_conway on Youtube, he suggested I try working with Miss Wannabe by Jenna Davis.
Honestly, I hadn’t heard of Jenna before this, so I had no idea what kind of music she made. A quick glance at her Spotify profile made me think it might lean pop, but I truly didn’t know what to expect. I only found out after the fact that she’s the voice of M3GAN??! Icon.
🎤 Here’s the acapella if you want to play along and hear what I heard first:
Right away, this was clearly a country track. It reminded me of Before He Cheats by Carrie Underwood or Miss Me More by Kelsea Ballerini, with a strong hook, sassy energy, and a lot of personality. I was excited to get into it.
For this challenge, I used only sounds from the Splice pack: Presets Girlfriend by tracey brakes for Serum 2 by Moment. As the name suggests, it’s mostly Serum 2 presets, so I pulled drums and FX from my own sample library to round it out.
I started, as I usually do, by building the bass and chord structure to map out the arrangement. It felt like there was something kind of weird with the timing (honestly, kind of expected at this point), but once I got that smoothed out, things came together pretty quickly.
This didn’t feel like a track to go full synth-pop with, so I kept it more organic. I remembered a “Campfire Guitar” preset in the Splice pack that I thought could work. I tried crafting a finger-picked pattern that would evolve throughout the song, and once that was locked in, the track really started to take shape. That guitar became the core of the entire production.
To fill out the sound, I layered in an airy pad and some arpeggiated strings. Even though it’s all synthetic, it ended up blending surprisingly well with the country vocal, it didn’t feel too electronic or out of place.
🎵 Haven’t heard the original yet? Check it out here:
When I finally listened to the original, I realized I hadn’t actually strayed too far. Her version also centers around guitar, with minimal elements outside of drums. My version obviously used different textures, but the arrangement and energy were pretty aligned.
The pads echoed the slide guitar moments in her track, and my plucky guitar riffs captured some of that same twangy energy. No live instruments here, of course, but I think it still managed to land in the same ballpark.
What did you guys think? Have you listened to Jenna’s music before?
Let me know in the comments!
🔎 Looking for more?
Find all previous episodes in this series here
And make sure to check out my original music wherever you like to stream: https://spoti.fi/4jFkl9y