bands and they're goddamn orchestras

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

If I hear that the Lightning Seeds have gone anywhere near a horn section then they should all be jailed life. I find bands using orchestras usually on that crucial "keep the public interested" third album a rather turgid affair. Fine with the Beatles and the Stones but not now. what do you the public think?

― tom, Tuesday, 7 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I don't know, but please, just keep Jason Pierce away from the fuckers, it's gone and ruined the new Spiritualized album. Take out all the spacerock, and replace with 3 or 4 orchestras. Not a smart move, no!

― Kate the Saint, Tuesday, 7 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I think the problem is - as with a lot of bringing in new instruments and sounds - that orchestras are really big frightening things to deal with, and so a default mentality operated where you just put a massive sounding string-line on it and that's your lot. So the textural range of the orchestra is completely unused and it all just goes very Deep-Purple-With-Strings (similarly, when rockers start using loops and beats the loops and beats they use tend to be rubbish; when rappers start putting guitar riffs into their records they tend to be pretty low on imagination etc. etc.)

That's not to say they shouldn't try of course - what would you have preferred the new Spiritualised album to be like, Kate, just more of the same?

― Tom, Tuesday, 7 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

so its tokenism Tom? yr probably right. remember when every post- britpop band on totp had their little string section (it signifies pathos dontcha know?). that was funny.

as for spiritualized, well, i like spiritualized but of both options (more of same vs string overload) - i'm not finding myself hugely looking forward to either.

― gareth, Tuesday, 7 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Yeah, you're probalby thinking Metallica's S+M, that new Spiritualized album (what, somebody stole Jason's Kraftwerk albums?) and whatever? The Verve? Orchestra's = deep feelings, but that's a fallacy musicians never seem to understand.

Exception of course: E.L.O.

― Omar, Tuesday, 7 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Well it's not that orchestras don't equal deep feelings - they can, obviously. And even some of the post/Britpop stuff used string really well to go for that big melodrama effect. (My Life Story's "Angel" rather unfashionably springs to mind). But it's more that arrangers have a fairly banal idea of how orchestras should sound - I can't think of too many orch-pop records which show even my very rudimentary grasp of what happened to orchestral music in the 20th century. 20th C. orchestral music can work in a pop-cult context (film soundtracks for instance) so why the lack of vision among arrangers?

― Tom, Tuesday, 7 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

No, Tom, I didn't want Spiritualized to stay the same. I know that you have to change or else stagnate and die. I just wish Jason hadn't changed in a way that made his music sound more like _MacArthur Park_ instead of Neu!

― Kate the Saint, Tuesday, 7 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

their perhaps - i love orchestras, but i don't like the lightning seeds.

― Geoff, Tuesday, 7 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Like any musical device, it just takes tact. I like the orchestra in Iperial Bedrooom (elvis costello ) and DAvid Axelrod's too among others...

― Mike Hanle y, Tuesday, 7 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I think there's a technical explanation to why orchestras on rock records tend to suck: you have 4 or 5 central "rock" instruments occupying 80% of the mix, and then 40 pieces of orchestra limited, compressed, and smoothed over to squeeze somewhere into the ether of the rest. In what universe does a single acoustic guitar have more aural presence than 30 violins? It simply doesn't match, and it doesn't make sense sonically, and I get the feeling that's half the reason the "rock orchestra" tends to sound like someone just threw an embroidered blanket over what it was you were trying to look at in the first place.

Proof: when the same "orchestral" effects are arranged for small groups -- string quartets, 2-4 woodwinds, or whatever -- and recorded with the same fidelity as the "primary" instruments, they tend to sound just fine.

― Nitsuh, Tuesday, 7 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Oh, a caveat: except in the case of records where the "primary instruments" themselves are compressed, limited, and squeezed unnaturally into place. The Trash Can Sinatras' Cake just struck me as an example of the orchestra sounding fine because all elements are still treated the same way.

― Nitsuh, Tuesday, 7 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Lou Reed -- Berlin. Plenty of current R&B (where would Survivor be w/o strings?) as well as occasional rap trax. Best R&B/Rap use I know of? The remix of R. Kelly's I Wish.

― Sterling Clover, Tuesday, 7 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

That makes a lot of sense, Nitsuh. There were a lot of bad classical-rock fusions in the 'seventies, of course. One of the worst I've heard is Bernstein's "Mass" (well, the "rock" part, at least). Usually when classical composers try to incorporate "rock" instruments into their works, even synthesizers, the results are just as embarrassing as when rock groups do the opposite. But starting with those dreaded Beatles, there are quite a lot of very nice chamber arrangements in pop/rock music.

― X. Y. Zedd, Tuesday, 7 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Tom said: "I can't think of too many orch-pop records which show even my very rudimentary grasp of what happened to orchestral music in the 20th century. " Fair point Tom - much as I love the Beach Boys, Morton Feldman they ain't, but (off the top of my noggin) how about 'Song Cycle' by Van Dyke Parks or 'Camofleur' by Gastr Del Sol?

And I'm depressed to hear so many people slagging off the new Spiritualised alb before it's even released! I've waited, what is it, four years for that fucker...

― Andrew L, Tuesday, 7 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

VDP is interesting cause on that album he seems to be writing baroque music of a sort but super-compressed, really information-dense, which makes it 'modern' I suppose (like I say I don't really need to know).

Spring Heeled Jack's first album?

I've heard one track from the new S'lized - it sounded OK, I didnt hear the 3-4 orchestras though so it's probably atypical. I hope I like the new record too - I'm surprised at how neutral I am about it actually, and the M Rev even more so who are one of my favourite ever bands on paper. All the more room for a nice surprise, I suppose.

― Tom, Tuesday, 7 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"dont really need to know" should read "don't really know". Odd typo. Grr.

― Tom, Tuesday, 7 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Most string sections on pop records = tremendous dud. I realise this clearly when I hear them being put to good effect, for example on the first track off the new Gorky's album.

― Nick, Tuesday, 7 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Hmmm...the only albums that I know of where strings and the rock triumverate are combined to better effect (outside of orchestral pop like BB's, et al) are early John Cale albums like "Paris 1919." It's one of the few albs that make me think that "chamber pop" might be anything other than Chicago Live Vol. 1-2000. And then there's the Rachels...but are they even rock, when it comes right down to it? (Note: this is not an endorsement.)

(Also, can anyone tell me if we've already done a Mercury Rev Classic or Dud/Search and Destroy, before I go and post a new topic?)

― Jess, Tuesday, 7 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I actually love well-deployed strings on rock albums. Just off the top of my head, Tindersticks, Bjork, and T.Rex have great string arrangements. Even an over-use of them like with ELO can result in some cheesey fun. I say Classic.

― Sean, Tuesday, 7 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Cale's later albums could get the fusion right too, every now and then. cf. Music For A New Society. Sundar should weigh in, what with his Glen Branca experience and all.

― Sterling Clover, Tuesday, 7 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Anybody ever heard the album by the Ex where they collaborate with an orchestra? They were selling it last time I saw them, but I was too scared to pick it up. Still, might be interesting...

― original bgm, Tuesday, 7 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Orch-rap highlight -- the rock festival episode of the Simpsons with Cypress Hill and the orchestra. Also, whatabout those old albums with orchestral arrangements of popular songs -- i.e. muzak? I have quite a few, and they're great fun.

― Sterling Clover, Tuesday, 7 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

And even some of the post/Britpop stuff used string really well to go for that big melodrama effect. (My Life Story's "Angel" rather unfashionably springs to mind).

Yeah, BUT the thing with My Life Story is that the string section pretty much were always an integral part of the band rather than something tacked on for the sake of the third album.

My Life Story, of course, got rid of the strings for the sake of the third album. Result: third album sucked big time - end of Story

They did it all round the wrong way I suppose. But yeah, Angel was v. cool.

― jamesmichaelward, Tuesday, 7 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I actually really love it when a band can deploy an orchestra to beautiful effect. I just love the sounds of strings... The problem is just that arrangements are all so trite. That's why I really loved the arrangements on Björk's Homogenic and on Radiohead's Kid A/Amnesiac among others.
I'd say the antithesis of anything I'd want from a string arrangement is something like Smashing Pumpkins' Tonight, Tonight or whatever that Creed song is on the radio. That really manipulative swell of violins.

― Melissa W, Tuesday, 7 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Yeah, bands who resort to using tacked on strings section merely for instant 'class' are awful - didn't Shed Seven use one in a desperate attempt at a 'sweeping ballad' (= depth/style) with, predictibly, disasterous results.

Still, I love the 'Orch-Pop' of Tindersticks, Jack and My Life Story. Can't stand The Divine Comedy though.

― DavidM, Tuesday, 7 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Yeah, the strings on Tindersticks' "Don't Look Down" is a particular favorite of mine. The sound of falling into a chasm.

― Melissa W, Tuesday, 7 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Portishead make the string section a pretty integral part of their sound. Admittedly they're closer to film soundtracks than rawk, but maybe that's the point.

― tha chzza, Tuesday, 7 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

GRATE Built to Spill song on "THere's Nothing Wrong With Love" w/small string section (2 violins, viola, cello, i think?)

what do ppl think of the portishead thing?

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 7 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

If you mean Portishead in general, I never quite got it, the whole lazy beats + John Barry score = sublime. Massive Attack either for that matter. Artists who aspire (or just ape, for that matter) to being soundtrack-y can often slip right into the background. They also seemed to have the live charisma of a stump.

― Jess, Tuesday, 7 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

hey chzza - didn't see your post. isn't there a portishead album that they recorded w/full-on orchestra?

david byrne hired local musicians for each gig of his recent tour, so for the new york show he introduced them off a piece of paper. pretty kool.

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 7 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

My post wasn't a full-on endorsement of Portishead (I only like maybe a quarter of their stuff), but just an observation that they've found a way to incorporate an orchestra into pop music that doesn't sound wretched, like the person above who pointed out the absurdity of having a guitar fill up 80% of the acoustic space while a 50-piece string section saws away in the background.

Actually, I think a good example of this sort of thing is Radiohead's "No Surprises", where the string section has a high, brittle, toy-like sound that fits the atmosphere of the song very well.

― tha chzza, Tuesday, 7 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Yeah, Portishead's live album has a full orchestra on it. They took it on tour with them! I always wondered how the hell they afforded it; I mean, they don't sell that many albums, do they?

― tha chzza, Tuesday, 7 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Wasn't it a very small tour?

― Josh, Tuesday, 7 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

(Also, can anyone tell me if we've already done a Mercury Rev Classic or Dud/Search and Destroy, before I go and post a new topic?)

I know we did a Yerself Is Steam thread already that might of covered some that ground...

― bnw, Tuesday, 7 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Tracer Hand, thanks for mentioning David Byrne. Look Into The Eyeball's arrangements really impressed me.

Is it my imagination, or did every single Britpop band use the same string/brass sections? I remember watching TFI Friday and seeing the Kick Horns every bloody week...

― John Davey, Wednesday, 8 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Dick E. Knee's vast love of the tedious and pointless Gorky's Mynci is just another of those ridiculous, inexplicable things about him, that go to make up the skinny moderator we love so much.

― the pinefox, Wednesday, 8 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Fuck off pinefox. You don't know Jack Schitt about Gorky's and their marvellous progressive rural ways.

― Nick, Wednesday, 8 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Is it my imagination, or did every single Britpop band use the same string/brass sections? I remember watching TFI Friday and seeing the Kick Horns every bloody week...

Yep ... and they all had string arrangements by Audrey Riley.

― Nitsuh, Wednesday, 8 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Manipulative strings= awesomely melodramatic! Good example: Goo Goo Dolls' IRIS.

― 1 1 2 3 5, Wednesday, 8 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.