why was the saxophone (and especially the sax solo) so ubiquitous in '80's pop/rock?

was it something in the air? just the cultural zeitgest? falling brass prices boosting sax production? a nationwide oral fixation? the irresistable blend of bleating woodwind over gated snare? why the rapid escalation of lead saxophone in '80's pop and rock music?

because the 80's were a time when people thought they were never going to dance again, so you know, one last dance with a saxophone, even though guilty feet ain't got no rhythm and everyone was guilty in the 80's, so therefore there were guilty feet everywhere

springsteen

think of all the awesome glenn frey songs with sax

The Heat is On
You Belong To the City

http://nerdapproved.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/sax-a-cat-lip-grip.jpg

http://www.moviemarket.com/library/photos/265/265029.jpg

b-b-b-because the heart of rock'n'roll was still beating

new book by hit 80s saxman
book by hit 80s saxman

http://www.rumorsinmusic.com/files/2009/07/men_at_work_business_as_usual.jpg

Good question. I think there was a certain amount of 50's nostalgia, a desire for a warmer sound and for simpler dance beats and brass just lent itself to that; rockabilly, ska, neo-jazz and soul, etc...

if i could replace every rap break in a pop song with a saxophone solo, by god i would. except when it's ludacris. and that guy on "shoop."

My theory, pulled out of my ass: After a decade of electric jazz fusion, the world of the sax player seemed not so far from the world of the rock band, and shit happened.

replacing krs-one on 'radio song' with a saxophone = wau

some enterprising young saxophonist should splice out jay-z from "crazy in love," prove their mettle over the break, and post in on youtube.

what was the last big sax solo in a pop song? last one i can remember is Shanice's "I Love Your Smile." Blow, branford, blow!

wait, no, i blame quarterflash.

http://bassic-sax.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/quarterflash.jpg

The dude on the Gerry Rafferty song, surely:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgbGaYTkkPU

at least one band today remembers

Ingham and Helliwell posit that it's "Baker Street", in their article "Rock and the Saxophone" in The Cambridge Companion to the Saxophone.

No, I am not making that up.

wait, no, i blame eddie money.

http://bloghamptons.com/media/2/20080620-LCW_01_6258.jpg

uh but doesn't it seem weird to try and trace this back to one song or band instead of maybe thinking there was something going on in the WORLD that necessitated more sax solos? i like m. white's theory

Haha Euler and I mindmeld.

kind of like when newton and that other dude invented calculus at the same time, or darwin and that other guy discovered evolution at the same time ... everyone discovered saxophone at the same time, but WHY?

i was gonna post a clintonsax.jpg but then i realized that was the 90's, not the 80's.

wait, no, i blame phil collins and paul weller and their ill-fated love of motown. and how exactly did they both stumble upon the very same horrible tinny grating horn sound. maybe they hired the same blokes. (thinking of latter-day jam songs that open up with piercing "mod" horns.)

What do saxes signify, sonically? Something like warmth, maybe, or something like sophistication on account of the jazz connection? The latter seems more correct for "Baker Street" or Roxy or "Careless Whisper". Saxes are really common in 50s rock songs (think Little Richard) and it wasn't that sound that the 80s picked up on.

we are talking about a decade where you could look like this and get a hit record. strange days indeed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/totp2/features/wallpaper/images/800/mari_wilson.jpg

sonically, saxes signify sexual relations

sexophones

yeah, i feel like this is one of those "brother, if you have to ask..." deals.

i know tom cruise didn't stand around asking "hey why all the saxophones"

Except now I can imagine him doing that.

has amy winehouse made a song as beautiful as this yet? (sorry, no sax, but carmel was sax-loving.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18w7HJRS-ug

Not buying the the 'Baker Street' argument. I liked the brass in Jam/Style Council and ska at the time.

i was more of a trumpet guy in the 80's

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNx1i8Gx3hM

Saxes are really common in 50s rock songs (think Little Richard) and it wasn't that sound that the 80s picked up on.

but it wasn't really a jazz sound either, it's like a new blend of rock/r&b sax with smooth jazz. my theory has something to do with the sax being the easiest brass instrument to pick up and get a passable tone on (and most of these 80s rock sax players had crappy tone imo, really hard and not warm & round like a good jazz saxophonist) and an easy alternative to yet another guitar solo.

oh wait there it TOTALLY a huge sax solo at the end of love is the law! hahaha, forgot about that.

Billy Joel is partly to blame for this too, folks.

phil woods + billy joel majik was one of the first times i remember actually listening closely to a sax solo on a pop record.

<3 that suburbs song. Scott do you know another mpls 80s band, The Wallets? Very VERY saxomophized.

LOL, was looking up Joel's Greatest Hits tracklist to see how many songs had sax solos and found this:

"New York State of Mind" (1976) - 5:58 contains different saxophone solo than Turnstiles version

I mean, what else can you say?

<3 love is the law

They look cool when properly lit in videos.

because new york's alright if you like saxophones

what was the LAST big hit pop/rock song with an '80s-style sax solo?

"How Do You Talk To An Angel"?

never actually seen the song in the context of the show (just that "i thought that vaughn was a robot..." sketch on ben stiller), but wow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5HIarf0CFM

wow, wow, wow.

first time they'd EVER played it

TIMMY CAPPPELLO. The saxophone equivalent in Tina's thighs.

http://www.ultimatetimmyfanz.com/VER5/

Not understanding that preposition.

haha.

of, I meant. you filthy people.

10/27/09
Tuesday
7:00 PM Princeton, NJ Barnes and Noble See Clarence "Big Man" Clemons on tour promoting the book "Big Man: Real Life & Tall Tales"

Someone should go ask this guy tonight.

Two reasons:

1) Corporate rock was so boring and bloated (see Quarterflash, Billy Joel, Huey Lewis that jackass in "St Elmo's Fire) that some sort of new tone was needed just to give these gray monolithic sounds some color! (You could say the same for all those horrible drum sounds, too.)

2) a) In the artsier music world, the sax had been kind of trendy since Bowie, and the art school kids who later formed bands were open to all sorts of instrumentation. So you've got violins (like in the Raincoats), the occasional trumpet (I like the one in Josef K's "Chance Meeting," weirdo drums (everywhere) and so on. b) A big funky free jazz / James Brown influence that crept into what's now called "No Wave" and plenty of UK bands like Rip, Rig & Panic.

this just reminds me of the Police Academy films when in every film the gun nut cop plays the saxophone at the beach party

http://slog.thestranger.com/files/2007/11/sax.gifhttp://slog.thestranger.com/files/2007/11/sax.gifhttp://slog.thestranger.com/files/2007/11/sax.gif

This ties into the "no guitar solos" thread. As a 60s/70s hangover, there was still a general expectation that pop songs would deliver solos of some sort in or another, but guitar solos had come to seem rather trite and dated. The sax solo could announce either retro soul authenticity or smooth urban sophistication, and those are two of the primary aesthetic fascinations of 80s rock/pop. Bob Seeger and Sade. Surprised that the decade's futurism and technological anxiety didn't give us more synth solos, though. Too ELP, I suppose...

there were synth solos in the 80's! lots of them.

i like to think that the decade began with the appearance of "cars" on the top 40 charts in 1980 (in the u.s. at least).

i like to think it started on jan. 1 1980

Yeah, I'm not saying there weren't any synth solos (guitar solos too!), but man, there were a lot of saxophones.

true, but you can't deny the grip that axel f. had on the world either.

80's saxual chocolate = the fifties glitzed up and smoothed out like reagan and michael j. fox.

http://www.janhammer.com/Img022.jpg

jan4evah!

smooth urban sophistication

Given that the Sharper Image went bankrupt a few years ago, it's like we're at the nadir of whatever notions of sophistication the sax represented at the 80s. I think Roxy Music, which had sax from the start, and slowly morphed from platform 'n flares glam to pink shirt and Armani stroke music, might represent something here. Also that poster of Image results for Nastassja Kinski with the snake on her.

also I think this guy had something to do with it:

http://www.hipolitodesigns.com/Images/Themes/1981Series/SteveSax.jpg

I was recently going to ask a related question--what happened to the sax as a pop/rock/r&B instrument? I don't think the '80s had any more sax necessarily than the 70s. Everyone from Springsteen to Bowie/Eno to Steely Dan to Prog Bands to soft rock to nearly every soul and funk group to Afrobeat to commercial fusion, etc. used saxes.

80s killed it, see "Careless Whisper", etc.

the sax being the easiest brass instrument to pick up and get a passable tone on

Tina Turner had that sax player that looked like Conan and was in some of her videos.

Duran Duran - Rio
Rolling Stones - Waiting for a Friend -- They went out and got a ringer as that is Sonny Rollins playing that solo.
Foreigner- Urgent -- Also went out and got a ringer by using Junior Walker to play the sax solo.

has no one posted walrussax.gif yet? shame

Great songs ruined by lousy sax solos.

I totally thought it was the influence of "Baker Street". Kinda the way the ubiquity of the vocoder today can be (at least in part) blamed on the massive hitness of "Believe" by Cher.

the sax being the easiest brass instrument to pick up and get a passable tone on

I was gonna post this but sarahel beat me to it, I really think this is a key part.

Probably said already, but maybe it has something to do with demographics. A lot of baby boomers who grew up in the 60s w/ those ideals of what pop should be were buying records in the 80s. So you had Big Chill, Soul Man, the Blues Brothers, and rock & roll bands were supposed to have a certain kind of R&B influence and that included some sax. Frat Rock, Animal House, etc. The 60s R&B bar band ideal had a sax in it, that was like the last vestige of dance bands that had a full horn section.

wait no one has summoned INXS?

INXS

http://www.moesrealm.com/img/album_covers/inxs-what-you-need.jpg

their sax player had a funny name

i feel like i should have something to say in this thread...

hi there. whatcha talkin' about?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VwBMyrIPzE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FuMi2hhg_w

their sax player had a funny name

Everyone in the band had a funny name!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q_odSgDQeE

i posted this somewhere else, but this was one of the best things i've seen in a long time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEuq6JfeMAo

http://home.planet.nl/~lfblaauw/ds_nl/mk_cw.jpg

I was made to go with my girl
Like a saxophone was made to go with the night

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYu2cnei5H0

found this after all the "mistrial" talk on the '80s albums poll

Was enraptured by the muppet's version of "Bohemian Rhapsody" the other day and had the idle thought that part of the blame might be pinned on the ineffable coolness of http://ridgewine.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/zoot.jpg Zoot.

THESIS: Jazz Fusion
ANTITHESIS: Steely Dan
SYNTHESIS: 80s Sax Rock

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJSqcvAQ8l8

Gorgeous sax solo starts at 2'45"

interesting thread with interesting answers.
The thing is : are there other instruments that have been very popular at some point and then totally disappeared ?

The piano as a lead instrument, as in Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, and lots of 50s R&B more generally.

and no I don't the mean the piano in ballads, I mean in rockers, and I mean as the main instrument, not as something giving textures in the background.

ah wait, not totally disappeared. I just remembered that recent british indie band with one : the zutons.
keeping the flame !

piano ? It doesn't seem to have disappeared at all. without really thinking, I had solange's "I decided" in mind, for instance but I suppose you could find some in many other songs that are not ballads. (oh also "still dre" !)

and back to sax : I'm not an expert but I feel there must be some in the amy winehouse, duffy etc albums, no ?

http://images.mirror.co.uk/upl/m3/may2008/5/6/DC46B558-95B8-2C1E-2603682985059D4C.jpg

and back to sax : I'm not an expert but I feel there must be some in the amy winehouse, duffy etc albums, no ?

yeah but those are more section parts than lead sax or solos

also they are going for a consciously retro vibe

But so, I'm guessing were some of the 80s bands that used it (retro 50s vibe), at least until it just became a default sound.

yup, agreeing with hurting, there.
about the zutons I must say I have no idea what they sound like... but the sax player is kinda hot (not on that pic, though) !
and about the sax in the winehouse etc, as it's still used in these cases for instance, maybe it's not so much the sax that has disappeared as the instrumental solos (except guitars, I suppose) !

The sax is a cool solo instrument. Too bad Kenny G killed it.

keeping the flame alive:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0ISF95axZQ

i have nothing to contribute, but this is an extremely interesting question. (and a really interesting genre of question, if you catch my drift.)

also again with the retro vibe but: julee cruise's first album has some beautiful sax solos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82vpVI9gpNM

I have one word for you- Sergio!

This is totally the case again according to current indie pop lately?

it's sort of interesting that sax reached its high point in rock around when jazz popularity may have been hitting a lowpoint (although IDK maybe by the mid 80s the marsalises had already done a lot to revive it)

I think the fad for this atm is pure nostalgia but turned up to "novelty" whether done well or not.

the sax being the easiest brass instrument to pick up and get a passable tone on

the sax is not a brass instrument ffs

i haven't heard any of this indie pop with sax--where is it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEPhGPliP6E

the sax is certainly the most modern of the wind instruments which is probably why it outlasted the other wind instruments in popular music.

rolling quarterflash thread

it's also free of a lot of the historical connotations that other wind instruments bring

the sax being the easiest brass instrument to pick up and get a passable tone on

the sax is not a brass instrument ffs

― wk, Monday, May 13, 2013 4:25 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Also as far as winds, having played clarinet and sax, the former is much easier to get a good tone from.

i haven't heard any of this indie pop with sax--where is it?

― call all destroyer, Monday, May 13, 2013 7:33 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Destroyer, Deerhunter, M83 depending on how picky with genre definitions you are, Wild Nothing, I'm pretty sure there are way more I'm having trouble recalling by name... Or am I way off on this?

that one deerhunter song on halcyon digest had sax, but it was more 70s glam sax than smooth 80s sax. destroyer and m83, yeah i guess so. they're just coming from a different place than, like, huey lewis and the news.

sure. huey lewis was coming from the 80s. destroyer & M83 are coming from "the 80s".

not really what i was getting at but sure

Was the Huey Lewis and the News saxophone more of a referent to early rock and roll?

that is what i was getting at

I didn't say it had any thing to do with the 80s myself either as much as that a rising sax solo fad may have something to do with nostalgia for the time. Also weird is that anytime a sax solo shows up lately it must be mentioned in the review of that song/album. Kind of reinforces the novelty perspective on it. Wish I had more examples but maybe I'm just imagining it's a fad.

Feel like I've heard more top 40 pop w/ sax than indie pop w/ sax, see: two of the biggest pop songs of the last three years featuring a sax solo. Also I don't know if M83 would fit into indie pop, but Midnight City was definitely everywhere in movies, tv shows, commercials, trailers. It got played over a scene for a movie that came out this year too.

Maybe just "hip" pop and rock? I know M83 has an extremely wide reach now; straight pop.

kitschy retro-80s sax on recent lady gaga and katy perry albums

and i was just being a pest CAD. agree that huey's 80s dadrock sax was a somewhat different thing than the stylishly modren new romantic sax destroyer references.

The sax battle of live sax and delay sax on "Urgent" is the apex of this movement.

Or is it "You Belong to the City" with the delay...

In any case

http://www.thesax.de/Urgent.pdf

Cocaine. That's probably the only reasonable reason I can come up with as to why there were so many fucking saxophone solos and mullets in the '80s.

Lewis' "The Heart of Rock & Roll," in addition to having a saxophone solo, also notes the decline of another woodwind ("the oboe may be barely breathing").

I blame the popularisation of the portable synthesiser - that tectonic shift at the end of the 1970s entirely changed how to make and perform music. The balanced combination of forward-pressing, angular, rough guitars and rounder, backbeat live drums changed at the start of the 80s, when insistent, unexpected, otherworldly synth lines were lined up with sharp drum machine sounds (or 'gated reverb' processed drums). Both were tense and needed smoothing for pop - hence why basslines became looser, laid back and sometimes meandering (taking influence from disco too), and sax was a more apposite guitar substitute. Add in that the punks secretly loved glam and Bowie and Roxy Music, and as music morphed through new wave and into new romanticism and beyond, the likes of Japan, Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet and Soft Cell revived some sound tropes and the notion of style - a gleaming saxophone satisfying both angles - which fed through into the commercial sound of the mid-80s.

Well that's what I reckon anyway...

Just heard Nicolette Larson's "Lotta Love" and the sax has that sexy reverb with synth-strings underneath. Firmly in the pop-sax canon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmkTbgiWqmg

so is "Walk on the Wild Side" ground zero for this? Was wondering if that was some kind of turning point - a rock guy using a saxophone in a jazz way, as a solo instrument, to specifically evoke urbanity and blackness, but not within the context of a horn section or R&B arrangement. Seems like this approach gathered steam throughout the 70s (Steely Dan, Springsteen maybe?) and then reached full ubiquity in the 80s with the saxophone signifying authenticity against a backdrop of plastic new wave smoothness

Rolling Stones - Brown Sugar was '71, Walk on the Wild Side is '72.

I feel like the influence of Junior Walker looms very large in rock saxophone, a lot of the solos discussed in this thread seem to be going for that sound/vibe.

Definitely. Walk on the Wild Side and Deacon Blue are from the jazzier end, but something like Heart of Rock n Roll is straight Jr. Walker

first roxy music album came out before walk on the wild side i think

Yeah, there are sort of a handful of rock sax solo archetypes. There's the Jr. Walker-style "saxophone = you are at a party!" solo, the Walk on the Wild Side-style skulking through the streets at 2am solo, the Baker Street style "oh my god I have to emote so bad right now I can't even put it in words!" solo

I'm not that familiar with his stuff tbh, but isn't Van Morrison an influence? Traffic used sax too.

I don't even know if "Moondance" has sax on it but it sounds like it should have.

yeah actually the train of thought this thread revive got me on was wondering whether the sax solo ever really *left* rock and roll, and if so, for how long and why.

I think an important distinction is the separation/isolation of the saxophone from a larger horn section - not just for the duration of the solo, but on a given track as a whole. cuz a lot of early r&r/R&B are still working in this big band context that also incorporated other horns. But by the time we get to the 80s the saxophone (usually) stands alone, it's a walk-on star/guest spot without any supporting horn players.

that's all true of Jr Walker though, and the 80s also had horn section pop hits

Sussudio seems kinda different than the stuff on this thread tho (even if it does have a similar Motown throwback vibe). but yeah can't argue about Jr.

Yeah, I was just thinking that maybe the absence of sax from 60s rock would be more interesting to probe... so essential to, say, Yakety Yak, but totally dropped even by bands that clearly adored those records, like the Beatles. Obviously, the lead guitar takes over a lot of that role... like, the main riff on "Satisfaction" could have easily been a sax part. Is it just that promising young saxophonists, out of highschool, found jazz way more attractive as a genre in which to play and develop their talents, and then became available later for session work? (Versus, say, orgsnists, who obviously found lots to do as band *members*...) Were high school brass bands maybe not a thing in 50s Britain, cutting the definitive Merseybeat sound off from this instrument? Just kinda tossing ideas around here.

the absence of sax from 60s rock

now that you mention it this does seem to be a thing, doesn't it

Guitars are cheaper and easier to learn.

Folk revival/ Dylan etc.

easier to learn? idk about that

What were the last big rock songs to feature sax before it went into decline? "Yakety Yak" and "Tequila" are both 1958 but there are surely ones after that which I'm just forgetting.

the main riff on "Satisfaction" could have easily been a sax part

I always heard that distortion pedals were originally developed to imitate saxophones, though I don't know if it's true.

What were the last big rock songs to feature sax before it went into decline? "Yakety Yak" and "Tequila" are both 1958 but there are surely ones after that which I'm just forgetting.

Bunch of Dave Clark 5 hits had saxophone. "Lady Madonna," too.

not to keep bringing it back to Jr Walker, but Shotgun was '65 (actually later than I imagined). Was it perceived as kind of a novelty record at the time?

(xp) beat me to it!

Weren't there other 60s Motown hits with solo sax? I'm blanking out but I feel like there were.

Was it perceived as kind of a novelty record at the time?

Hard to say, but Walker had eight more top 40 hits in the 60s after "Shotgun."

Weren't there other 60s Motown hits with solo sax? I'm blanking out but I feel like there were.

idk about Motown but Spector had more than a few feat Steve Douglas during the 60s iirc

Weren't there other 60s Motown hits with solo sax? I'm blanking out but I feel like there were.

― on entre O.K. on sort K.O. (man alive), Wednesday, November 11, 2015 1:30 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"Get Ready," "I Can't Help Myself," "Ain't Too Proud To Beg," likely dozens more.

KIng Curtis had a couple of sax-led hits in '67 with "Memphis Soul Stew" and "Ode to Billie Joe," and a minor hit covering Led Zep's "Whole Lotta Love" in '71 (all on Atco label)

Also a sax solo on The Doors' "Touch Me" (by Curtis Amy)

Were high school brass bands maybe not a thing in 50s Britain, cutting the definitive Merseybeat sound off from this instrument?

I don't think there was ever a state-sponsored musical education program in British schools comparable to that enjoyed by students in the USA. Also, the '50s were a time of severe post-war austerity in the UK, so kids who were interested in learning an instrument had to hope their parents would buy one for them. The schools certainly weren't handing out saxophones to anybody.

Also, the '50s were a time of severe post-war austerity in the UK

Skiffle!

the disparity between the elite who could afford saxophones and the lower classes who had to make do with a washboard became known as the cumberland gap

Coltrane was a big influence on psychedelia but yeah those players came out of folk mostly where sax isn't a thing. by the 70s when psychedelia had run its course / shifting into fusion sax comes back, "Us and Them", second side of Wake of the Flood ("Weather Report Suite" !)

don't forget the early prog guys using sax in the late 60s - vdgg, king crimson, soft machine, beefheart

& Fun House, which is Coltrane through James Brown

also Bowie obv but this is probably covered above

(xp) Before that: Family and Traffic.

This is kind of making me want to do a comprehensive study of per capita saxophone usage in rock history over time.

Seems like something "big data" could accomplish with a database like allmusic.

People forget Clarence Walker's work with the Beatles (unfortunately no recording clips here):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pz6ZwIlGfw4

Vast Halo - that kind of economic difference was also on my mind... though I don't think US public schools ever handed out instruments free, FWIW. For an authoritative period source on instrument sales, see Mr. B Natural.

Nah I'm pretty sure there were and even still are public school programs that loan instruments to students, though fewer today. In fact I have heard the decline of such programs in poorer urban schools cited as one of the factors in the rise of hip-hop. Keep in mind that it's a bit harder to track in the US because you're dealing with fifty different states' school systems, to the extent there was even centralization at the state level in some of those states.

Ahhhh yeah loan program makes more sense, duh.

the main riff on "Satisfaction" could have easily been a sax part

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVCW3-GszVU

using a saxophone in a jazz way, as a solo instrument, to specifically evoke urbanity and blackness, but not within the context of a horn section or R&B arrangement

my god that ginger baker air force track is awful

hahaha was just about to post something to that effect. i sort of give a pass to early 70s TV-live performances in front of early blue screens with psychedelic backdrops. but they really don't have a good handle on how to musically 'freak out' in a collaborative fashion. the renaissance faire guy on the drums, who i'm forced to conclude is ginger baker, strikes me as the weak point here. the sax is fine?

I have enormous, long-held hatred of Ginger Baker fwiw, but Cream is sort of tolerable, whereas that is just execrable.

his ham-handed drumming is definitely part of the problem but it's a terrible arrangement too

Graham Bond on sax I notice.