{"id":236,"date":"2012-02-04T22:51:49","date_gmt":"2012-02-04T22:51:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.ameliamason.com\/?p=236"},"modified":"2012-02-04T23:03:41","modified_gmt":"2012-02-04T23:03:41","slug":"sax-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.ameliamason.com\/?p=236","title":{"rendered":"Sax Attack!"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Saxophone. In the context of rock or pop music, it is largely presumed to be a thing of the past. When we hear \u201csaxophone,\u201d we think Bruce Springsteen, Kenny G, or, most damningly, \u201cthe \u201880s<\/a>.\u201d (It\u2019s easy to blame the \u201880s for crimes of bad taste, but I beg you to remember that Dave Matthews<\/a> made spectacular use of the saxophone all through the \u201890s.) These days, anytime saxophone wanders too far outside the (admittedly fluid) confines of jazz, it is at best hopelessly retro, at worst unbearably cheesy. To whit:<\/p>\n

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Truthfully, saxophone kind of belongs in that song. I can\u2019t imagine it any other way. But it\u2019s still hard to take seriously, and whenever someone tries, I want to grab them by the collar and shout, \u201cWhat are you thinking??! DON\u2019T YOU KNOW YOU\u2019RE PLAYING WITH FIRE?!\u201d This will sound like sacrilege to my fellow banjo-lovers, but B\u00e9la Fleck might be the worst. As far as I can tell, the Flecktones are just playing really complicated Weather Channel music<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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But I didn\u2019t bring this up just to rip on the saxophone (only the Flecktones). No, I am here to say that I have CHANGED MY TUNE (pun intended!). Sax is back, and I\u2019m kind of loving it.<\/p>\n

The recent surge of saxophone ardor is, I think, partly a symptom of the \u201880s nostalgia that lingers persistently in popular culture, despite a generation of twenty-somethings who are a little too young to remember that decade clearly. On their recent albums, both Lady Gaga (who was born in \u201986) and Katy Perry (\u201984) invoke the soaring, unabashedly corny sax solos of yore. Gaga tapped Clarence Clemons, of the E Street Band, to perform on the lovingly-crafted, Springsteen-esque \u201cThe Edge of Glory,<\/em>\u201d<\/a> and Perry, in a slightly more farcical gesture, cast Kenny G as a wayward, white-suited saxophonist in the music video for \u201cLast Friday Night (T.G.I.F.),\u201d<\/a> itself an affectionate send-up of \u201880s teen movies.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s more than just arch, self-referential saxophone that has made a comeback. The sax seems to be a pretty popular instrument with indie-rockers these days, and two of my favorite records from last year make admirable use of the saxophone. It\u2019s all over the tUnE-yArDs album w h o k i l l, <\/em>and\u00a0a force to be reckoned with. On the fierce, percussive \u201cGangsta,\u201d two saxes enter in unison with a low, menacing drone, and then veer apart, honking and squawking through a series of unsettling melodic leaps towards the song\u2019s chaotic conclusion.<\/p>\n

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Bon Iver also makes great use of saxophone on his self-titled new album, which is a bit of an ode to unusual instruments of all kinds. Banjo and pedal steel guitar feature prominently in a lush sonic landscape so deep you could almost drown in it. Unless you listen closely, you might not even notice the saxophone, a warm echo straining to be heard above the roiling undercurrent of percussion and synth. But it\u2019s there.<\/p>\n

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  Saxophone. In the context of rock or pop music, it is largely presumed to be a thing of the past. When we hear \u201csaxophone,\u201d we think Bruce Springsteen, Kenny G, or, most damningly, \u201cthe \u201880s.\u201d (It\u2019s easy to blame … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[24,14,28],"class_list":["post-236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pop-music-over-analysis","tag-indie-rock","tag-pop","tag-rock"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.ameliamason.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.ameliamason.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.ameliamason.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.ameliamason.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.ameliamason.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=236"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"http:\/\/blog.ameliamason.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":251,"href":"http:\/\/blog.ameliamason.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236\/revisions\/251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.ameliamason.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.ameliamason.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.ameliamason.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}