Where Did All The Saxophones Go?

For a long time I’ve wondered what happened to saxophones in popular music. It seemed to me that around the late 1980s, the sound of sax solos in pop music came to an end. Why did that happen? What ever happened to those sax players? Questions like this have me

Well it turns out I’m not alone in pondering this. I was poking around the ‘net today and came across the February 8, 2008 blog post by Helienne Lindvall written for the Guardian, in which she asks: Behind the music: where did all the saxophones go? 

By the beginning of the nineties, the previously ubiquitous sax solo was all but extinct. Has any other instrument suffered so much?

 Watching BBC4’s show How Pop Songs Work a few weeks ago, there was one particular comment that stood out like a sore thumb in an otherwise entertaining and somewhat interesting program. Talking about the feelings that certain instruments convey, arranger John Altman said: “The saxophone is obviously a good, sort of sexy, romantic instrument that people have preconceptions about.”

Say what? The only part of that sentence that rang true to me was “that people have preconceptions about”. When was the last time you heard a sexy little sax solo in a pop song? I’d say, probably sometime back in the 80s.

I had a conversation with a songwriter recently, about what we used to do before we became writers. He said that he used to be a sax player. “Wow, it must have really sucked when the 90s came along”, I reflected. “Yup, that’s when I became a producer”, he replied.

From 1978 to the end of the 80s, it seemed like every other track in the top 40 had a sax solo. Of course, the most famous usage was in Gerry Rafferty’s Baker Street, in which Raphael Ravenscroft’s sax solo was the actual hook of the song.

Then we had Hazel O’Connor’s Will You, from the now cringe-worthy 1981 “punk” film Breaking Glass. Of course, in retrospect it’s all so clear, it must have been faux punk; it had a sax solo on it.

I admit, the sax solo in George Michael’s Careless Whisper might have been considered romantic back then, but sexy? There’s more than a vowel’s difference between sax and sex.

Boy Meets Girl’s Waiting For a Star to Fall wrapped up the sax era as the decade drew to a close, and by the time Bill Clinton pulled out the, erm, instrument, during his election campaign, he was just confirming how the saxophone had become desperately uncool.

Is there any other instrument that has suffered such a complete demise? Even the ol’ jazz flute can sometimes be heard on the odd house track.

The pan-pipe sank without a trace in Celine Dion’s Titanic theme My Heart Will Go On. Then again, that was never a hip instrument in the first place.

Since Mark Ronson seems determined to bring it back, daringly featuring a sax solo in his version of Radiohead’s Just, could there be space in Room 101 for another instrument soon?

If so: any suggestions?

It seems to me that some instruments tend to fall in and out of fashion. The ones that do, seem to be the ones that have a strong presence, are not capable of playing more than one note at a time, and thus compete with the vocalist for space in the song. For the saxophone, its burden is doubled, because it has the unique ability to mimic vocals more than any other instrument.

Now of course it should be said that a saxophone in a song can compliment the vocalist, but oftentimes it is not seen that way. The sax seems to bring out extreme reactions in people: you either love the sound or hate it. Oftentimes there is no in between.

The saxophone is currently just not a fashionable instrument in pop music. Will it be in the future? Who knows…I personally hope so, but then I’m obviously somewhat biased.