geinoh
Group: Members
Posts: 20
Joined: May 2003 |
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Posted: Dec. 22 2004, 22:15 |
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Let's lose it in the mix
Published: December 21 2004 02:00 | Last updated: December 21 2004 17:52
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http://news.ft.com/cms/s/332155a6-52f5-11d9-8845-00000e2511c8.html
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We like to imagine cavemen, those hairy, grunting, chauvinistic ancestors of ours, as prototype hard rockers. That's why when The Troggs (short for troglodyte) released "Wild Thing" in 1966, its raw punky sound was labelled "caveman rock".
But the discovery of a 35,000-year-old flute in Germany this month deals a blow to early man's rock-and-roll reputation. Rather than pounding out drum solos with dinosaur bones like pre-evolved versions of Keith Moon, it seems our predecessors were fond of tootling an instrument that sounds wonderful in a Mozart flute concerto but absolutely does not cut it as far as pop music is concerned.
There are exceptions: the flute is a undoubtedly a good thing in much of Gil Scott Heron's work or funk songs like Al Kooper's "Flute Thing" (which the Beastie Boys sampled in "Flute Loop").
But in general it turns up in self-indulgent acid jazz and prog rock tracks, adding high-pitched convolution to overcooked music. If flutes really rocked then Jethro Tull's flautist-leader Ian Anderson would have been nicknamed God, rather than Eric Clapton.
The flute is not the only instrument in pop's sin bin. There are many others that have also suffered flagrant misuse, chief among them the saxophone.
Adolphe Sax's 19th-century invention, having found its niche in jazz, was one of rock and roll's founding instruments, alongside guitar, bass, drums and piano. In the 1960s it became a staple of soul and funk. Even when being made to sound like a slaughtered pig by Captain Beefheart, the sax could do little wrong.
Its good name was wrecked in the 1980s, however, when Bruce Springsteen brought it honking and screeching into stadium rock.
The sax player - eyes shut and head thrown back in phoney rapture - became the perfect musician for a flashy, insincere decade. Whether loud and brash in Huey Lewis and the News hits or smooth and pseudo- sophisticated in Kenny G's hands, the sax was well on its way to perdition (and adoption by Bill Clinton). Nowadays it is rarely heard, though The Zutons, a young British band, employ it to surprisingly good effect: perhaps a sax renaissance is on the horizon.
Some instruments simply shouldn't be allowed near pop: Paul McCartney's disastrous attempt to make bagpipes groovy in "Mull of Kintyre" is an example.
Others have suffered from overuse. Massive Attack and The Verve made orchestral strings fashionable in the 1990s, encouraging every two-bit band with aspirations of grandeur to add sweeping violin chords to their songs. At such times strings are not used for their musical merit, but rather as a sort of pretentious status symbol. Roll over Beethoven, and weep.
Which instrument has suffered the worst, most meretricious in pop music? Listen to the current British number one, "Do They Know It's Christmas?" and you can hear a strong contender.
Yes, that's right: the bells, the bells.
Apart from a brief apotheosis in Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells, the bells' inglorious pop history is littered with appearances in novelty Christmas songs like The Darkness's "Christmas Time (Don't Let the Bells End)". Nothing sours the season of goodwill quicker than bells in a pop song.
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, but I never said it would never play anything good again! I personally love the saxophone (*points at avatar*).