Here's the second installment of Anatomy of a Song, our tribute to the art of songcraft. This series of posts is celebrating American Dust's September release of the debut Bye Bye Blackbirds album, Houses and Homes. The Blackbirds excel like no other when it comes to stirring up the dark magic of perfect pop song creation and we love them for it. You should too!
Every week we're introducing a different song element and requesting that you, the readers, write comments that include your favorite examples of that particular element from the history of "popular" song.
This week: The Solo
Let us know your favorite all-time solos. Don't restrict yourself to the guitar solo. Feel free to include a solo performed on any instrument you want.
Examples of my favorites are:
Smashing Pumpkins - Cherub Rock (Guitar)
Mott The Hoople - The Golden Age of Rock 'N' Roll (Guitar)
Starbuck - Moonlight Feels Right (Marimba)
The Eagles - Hotel California* (Guitar)
Television - Marquee Moon* (Guitar)
*duh.
Don't forget to download the free Apology Accepted EP by The Bye Bye Blackbirds from the American Dust website. While you're there, you might as well pre-order the album!
www.americandust.net
6 comments:
Posies - Solar Sister
I've never been a fan of guitar solos. They bore me to tears. I like riffs; I like composition; I even like lead guitar parts (i.e., deliberate, ordered elements of the composition as opposed to the haywire noodlings of underappreciated fretjocks); but solos? They are complete utter wanker bullshit. Before you guitar chauvinists begin giving me the business, just know that I am a guitarist.
All that said, on "Solar Sister," the second track from "Frosting on the Beater," the Posies manage to shoehorn a remarkably challenging, interesting, direct, and -- here's the kicker -- complementary guitar solo into an almost unbearably cloying slab of saccharine popcraft. This particular solo bounces around with more regard for the abruptly busy drum line than any other element in the song, bending the notes into microtonal spaces that carry the listener to place of genuine relief upon returning to the more settled elements characteristic of the rest of the song.
It's also short. You shouldn't need a minute to make your point, Blurryfingers.
I'm a real sucker for the cool, brainiac soulfulness of Denny Dias, but you'd be hard pressed to beat the duelling majesty of Kimberly Rew and Robyn Hitchcock! Oh, and Richard Thompson's the greatest. And James Burton. And...
Hm, Duane Allman on Whipping Post off Live at Fillmore East?
Michael Bloomfield on the title track off East-West?
Any other great solos off albums with East in the title?
joe, the eagles? I gotta say that hotel calif is the absolute worst pile of laurel canyon bullshit ever.
that said:
enon "starcastic"
Top Five All Time Great Solo's:
1. Cinnamon Girl- Neil Young and Crazy Horse
2. Moonage Daydream - David Bowie and the Spiders
3. We Are the Pigs - Suede
4. Bluebird - The Buffalo Springfield
5. Good Morning, Good Morning - The Beatles
sweet sweet call on the Suede solo
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