OT - Talking Music Monday
Slow day on the blog; let’s have fun with music.
I listen to a wide spectrum of rock music, from classic to 80’s to progressive, alternative, and grunge. Every once in a while, I hear a song with instrument that just doesn't fit with the normal rock band ensemble. But, the song works non the less. For example:
Clarinet
- Billy Joel – Scenes from an Italian Restaurant
- Supertramp – Breakfast in America (Tuba as well!)
- Wings – Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five
- Sting – Englishman in New York
Bagpipes
- AC/DC – A Long Way to the Top
Flute
- Jethro Tull – many songs
Strings
- Elton John – Madman Across The Water
The entire USC marching band
- Fleetwood Mac – Tusk
Rock bands bring in an Orchestra for live concerts and I’m sure I’ve heard a trombone in a song somewhere. What are songs you’ve listened to where they drop in a different sound?
Everything Counts by Deepche Mode is a classic in the synthpop genre. It uses Shawm, which is this weird woodwind instrument from the middle ages. Really unique, but fits the song so well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1t-gK-9EIq4
There's a xylophone in the song, too!
The xylophone---one of my favorite instruments on so much of the Frank Zappa musical catalog. Ruth Underwood is awesome!
Love Frank and the use of the xylophone.
Today just so happens to be Ruth's birthday. Love me some Zappa!
Arcade Fire (Regine) plays the accordian on a few of their songs.
Good shout on the bagpipes...definitely not something you hear very often in pop/rock music. Or like, ever.
And good shout on Madman Across the Water. No one seems to know that song but my dad would listen to that album a quite a bit and that song was an instant banger for me hearing it while a wee ole middleschooler.
"It's a Long Way" is in one of the weirdest keys to learn on guitar to mesh with the bagpipes.
I think "banging a trash can lid" is the only thing that meshes with bagpipes!
Doesn't Arcade Fire also have a harp in most of their songs?
Dropkick Murphys do a fun version of Amazing Grace and bagpipes are front and center in the son.
The Cowbell is the only answer. The Fish is a distant 2nd place.
Though it owes Blue Oyster Cult, hugely.
Mississippi Queen, anyone?
Saw Mountain back in the mid seventies, Corky Laing set his drums on fire and while they were setting up a new set, they started playing Mississippi Queen. All time classic concert.
Also with Mountain...
Leslie West (aka Leslie Abel Weinstein) and Felix Pappalardi.
Pappalardi studied classical music at our esteemed U-M and then had a noteworthy, albeit short, career. He produced the Cream album Disraeli Gears and he and his wife wrote the Cream hit Strange Brew. He met a sad end, shot by his wife at age 43. She was convicted of criminally negligent homicide.
Beat me to it. Good call!
LCD Soundsystem has some sick use of random instruments, including a high quality cowbell solo in Daft Punk is Playing at My House
Also another iconic dance-punk cowbell cut: House Of Jealous Lovers by The Rapture (another great DFA label act)
The Glockenspiel. Think The Ramones "I want to be your boyfriend." Or Danny Federici with the E Street Band.
Some quality glockenspiel on I Will Follow
In the classic rock area:
Supertramp - first rolled out the clarinet for Even in the Quietest Moments and used the Triangle on Asylum.
Santana - can't even begin to identify all the different drum variations if you ever saw a concert, so I'll say bongos, but that doesn't fully define it, the concerts in the seventies and eighties were three hour non stop epics of different drums and drummers that would roll seamlessly into the songs from the albums.
Thanks for that observation on Santana, I saw them a couple times back in the 80's and your description is spot-on.
violin (well, an entire orchestra) in November Rain by Guns and Roses. It's not that it doesn't fit the song, it's just that it was un unexpected sound after listening to Appetite for Destruction then Use Your Illusion 1.
The Who bassist John Entwistle playing brass on many of their songs.
Can You See The Real Me
My Wife
etc.
And their use of a violin solo at the end of Baba O'Riley
and their use of French Horn on Tommy's Overture and It's a Boy
etc.!!!
Good call, Entwistle was a talented multi-instrumentalist. Besides being one of the greatest bass guitar players ever, he stood out so often playing the french horn 📯 .
And besides the Baba O'Riley violin solo, there's the frequent use of string instruments on one of my all-time favorite albums, The Who's 'Quadrophenia'.
Speaking of The Who, the jew's harp on "Join Together" deserves a mention too. Reportedly played by Moon and Daltry live but by Townshend on the recording.
Penny Whistle - Paul Simon - You Can Call Me Al
So it WASN'T Chevy Chase???
Why they shot the music video in the Iowa Hawkeyes visitor locker room, I don't know.
I only listen to Steven Sharer and I don't think he plays any instruments.
Damn you for making me look up this...shit.
I generally don't notice such things, but I always appreciate a well-timed harmonica.
The recorder on Stairway to Heaven is odd, but it clearly works.
Noel Gallagher had a lass playing the effing scissors on an album and in concert.
NOFX - The Decline
it doesn’t normally have odd stuff but they did a set with Bazz’s orchestra that was pretty cool.
I'm gonna take it in a different direction, notorious wu tang clan part 1 - YouTube , Biggie over Wu-Tang (RZA) instrumentals is classic. There was animosity between Biggie and the Wu, so Biggie didn't get to work with The RZA.
rza did long kiss goodnight.
in terms of rap i thought nas with national symphony orchestra was unique and pretty good
Wish they could've done more together.
Loggins & Messina include a flute in the LP version of Angry Eyes. 7:40 minutes long, but the radio version cuts out the flute making it 4:48 minutes long.
Good call on Angry Eyes (extended version only). The bass through line during the long bridge is perfect.
you mentioned trombones? Chicago has the essential three piece horn section which define tight. I saw them at Interlochen last year and horns were the star of the show.
Sitar (Indian stringed instrument) in many songs, especially from the 60's starting with the Beatles and Norwegian Wood.
Banjo has been in a bunch of stuff - Take it Easy by the Eagles and... others I can't think of. Also Bela Fleck is a totally rad banjo player.
Sting may use the same instrument in Desert Rose
The Beatles' Tomorrow Never Knows also features sitar and is an absolute banger (as the Chemical Brothers knew as well)
If you haven't before, highly recommend listening to Ravi Shankar, he worked closely with George Harrison and was hugely influential in the popularity of sitar in 60s music. Also his daughter Anoushka Shankar is amazing too (and his older daughter is Norah Jones).
I first heard of Ravi S. because of the Beatles
still listen to him
"Chants of India" is a great album
I took a Music Improv class through the residential college back in my freshman year in 2009 (great class, taught by one of the jazz professors with the music school, highly recommend it if its still there.), and for "extra credit" he assigned us to go see Ravi & Anoushka Shankar play at Hill Auditorium (tickets were super cheap for students, like less than $10). It was absolutely insane. Thanks to Mark Kirschenmann for having us go to that.
Fitting this thread of instruments you don't expect ( and work) and the Shankars. This clip of Raga Piloo with classical violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja and sitarist Anoushka Shankar is out of this world and skillfully mimics the same performance from the mid 60's by Ravi Shankar and Yehoudi Menuhin.
Beautiful! Found the original on Spotify.
I used to associate bagpipes and rock music with Big Country. Then, I found out that the bagpipe sound was derived from engineering the guitar sound, which actually I found to be more impressive and palatable, because I really only want to associate bagpipes with a funeral service, not fist-pumping rock and roll
Since you mentioned "Orchestra", I remembered a take from a critic a few years ago, when ELO had yet to be inducted into the HOF. In his case against ELO being inducted he referred to the band as something akin to an "over-produced pop band", as if that wasn't exactly who they wanted to be and is reflected in just about everything touched by Jeff Lynne. What would you expect from a rock band who puts Orchestra in its title?
BTW, "Breakfast in America" is one of the most overlooked rock records IMO. It's a shame that it's never listed on any great album list.
My 17 year old son says 'Breakfast in America' is one of his favorite albums with Child of Vision the best song.
Ween. They typically have quirky alternative rock with basic instruments and a lot of synth when needed.
However, they have a couple things that went way out of their quirky self:
1. They had an entire country album. I mean legit country music.
2. For the song "Bananas and Blow", they used a calypso based approach and instruments (i.e. steel drum)