What happened to rock'n'roll saxophone?

August 8, 2024 12:27 PM

Saxophone was big in rock'n'roll in the 80's. Now, nothing. To the point where there was a joke in 30 Rock about vanished professions (travel agent, American auto worker etc.). Is there a reason why this happened? Or just tastes changed?
posted by musofire to Media & Arts (32 answers total)

Some things get used so much that they become a signature for that decade, if you use it after that it makes you sound dated. Same reason you never hear doo wop anymore unless someone is trying to sound like the 50's.
posted by InfidelZombie at 12:35 PM on August 8 [5 favorites]

Best answer: Nothing IMO. Lots of rock songs still have saxophone:

Sam Fender . if that's not prominent enough for you, Hypersonic Missles.

M83 -Midnight City
Bleachers - Modern Girl

Spoon - Cherry Bomb

War on Drugs - Under the Pressure

Valley Maker - Light on the Ground

Vampire Weekend - Classical

Taylor Swift - False God
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:50 PM on August 8 [5 favorites]

Some things get used so much that they become a signature for that decade

Alex Cameron put out a song, Far From Born Again, that sounds exactly like an 80's rock song and it has the sax in it.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:52 PM on August 8

just personally, i'd say songbird by kenny g. that was EVERYWHERE and i hated it and that easily spills over onto anything with that tone.
posted by Clowder of bats at 1:21 PM on August 8 [3 favorites]

I agree with Clowder. Kenny G was exceedingly popular but also made the saxophone very uncool.
posted by SafetyPirate at 1:23 PM on August 8 [7 favorites]

I think grunge happened.

Grunge stripped out a lot of what some people might have regarded as frippery from rock and roll -- saxophones, keyboards, drum machines, and other stuff that was left over from the prog-rock era or that had crept in over the course of the '80s from pop music.

Grunge suddenly made all that stuff seem deeply uncool.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 1:31 PM on August 8 [25 favorites]

As The Vegetables showed, it's still there. But it's not Top 40 any longer. And that's simply saturation, as others have brought up, and tastes change. It's a bit like, well, most things in music - you can find it if you look for it, but it won't be on every radio station / Top 40 playlist. Techno also peaked in the 80s into the 90s, but it's very much still around.

As to the saxophone in rock, that owes a bit to the E Street Band. And while they are still around, it just isn't the same as it was in the 1970-1980s, especially after the passing of Clarence Clemons in 2011.
posted by Meldanthral at 1:33 PM on August 8 [1 favorite]

Best answer: My hot take:
- 1950s R&B/rock revival waning in the 1990s
- punk/grunge/metal/indie anti-horn brigade
- songs with synth horn leads charted (e.g. "West End Girls")
- Fear's song "New York's Alright If You Like Saxophones"
posted by credulous at 1:34 PM on August 8 [4 favorites]

Ask Kamasi Washington. There's a partial discography in his wikipedia and you'll note he plays (and toured) w Kendrick Lamar, Childish Gambino, etc.
I'm not really questioning your premise one way or the other. But saxophonists still get plenty of work, and some, like Kamasi, get A LOT of work.
posted by atomicstone at 1:43 PM on August 8

Living, as I do, in New York City, I like saxophones.
posted by slkinsey at 2:02 PM on August 8 [5 favorites]

Lady Gaga edge of glory

Sax is coming back along with synth thank goodness
posted by St. Peepsburg at 2:08 PM on August 8

Ska punk probably didn't help either.
posted by mullacc at 2:36 PM on August 8 [1 favorite]

I agree with those citing Kenny G as the reason rock sax became a joke. As I was reading your question, Songbird began playing in my head.
posted by OrangeDisk at 2:38 PM on August 8

I think the real question is what happened to Rock and Roll. Now it is Pop or Country or hip hop, or rap. Very little true R and R.

I think the sax in popular music could have continued had it continued. (Duh.) Once the Big Man Clarence Clemons died, it sort of left a void.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 2:45 PM on August 8 [1 favorite]

a lot of those 80s rock sax lines are very saccharine fillers. I don't want any of those anymore. likely trended at first because it was a change from guitar. then, producers and labels - being the sheep they are...

same as putting gated reverb on the snare. a joyfully dead 80s trend I hope to never hear again.
posted by j_curiouser at 2:55 PM on August 8

I noticed this years ago and point it out to my wife all the time. "See? 80s sax! Gotta have sax if it's an 80s song!"

Of course some people still use sax in songs today, but yeah - it's way, way less prevalent. I think the "grunge killed" it theory is correct, but I'd add in college radio too. Whether it was grunge, shoegaze, or some other form of alt-90s music, sax was just uncool or forgotten.
posted by jzb at 2:59 PM on August 8

Could the way Yakety Sax was everywhere so fast and then equally rapidly became a tiresome cliche have blunted people's taste for sax in general?
posted by jamjam at 3:32 PM on August 8

I think if you are asking what happened to saxophone in pop rock n' roll that charts, that's a different question. You'd have to roll back to how many rock songs actually chart anymore, and then answer that question. 'Grunge' might be a ok starter point, but it was 30 years ago.
posted by The_Vegetables at 3:52 PM on August 8

I really hope this cultural change happened because everyone listened to Fear's song "New York's Alright If You Like Saxophones" and decided sax was over.

I think ultimately rock sax is kinda like cowbell, you can use it sparingly but if you go too wild on it, it starts to feel silly. But like, I went to see X a little while ago and I got so pumped when I saw Billy's sax come out I texted my sister. He only used it in a couple songs and it was just the right amount of sax.
posted by potrzebie at 3:52 PM on August 8

Let us not forget that Morphine made sax cool again in the 90s. But they were the only ones.
posted by credulous at 3:53 PM on August 8 [10 favorites]

Bill Clinton played Heartbreak Hotel on the Arsenio Hall Show in 1992, and after that, why bother?
posted by niicholas at 3:55 PM on August 8

I feel like lots of rock bands will employ saxes and horns on occasional songs but don't necessarily have a band member that plays them on the regular. Like of all the concerts I've been to over the last couple of years I can either actually remember a sax coming out to play some songs or don't remember but wouldn't be surprised at all if a sax did play.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 4:19 PM on August 8

30 Rock ended in 2012. “Rock” music is now dance pop music, the 1980s revival has been going on for 20 years, hence all the examples of sax in “current” (or since 2012) pop hits.
posted by Hypatia at 5:30 PM on August 8

The 1975 tours with a sax player. Here's a sample of one of their songs: If You're Too Shy (Let Me Know)
posted by effluvia at 6:33 PM on August 8

Rubblebucket's Stella the Begonia has a baritone sax in there.
posted by emelenjr at 7:48 PM on August 8

They’re recreating it! See SunCity80s.
posted by Violet Hour at 1:34 AM on August 9

Rather than Kenny G, I immediately think of Ro Lowe's character in St. Elmo's Fire and his dream of becoming a rock sax star. He was no Junior Walker.
posted by brookeb at 2:33 AM on August 9

Rest assured though, as long as Viagra Boys are active saxophone in rock'n'roll (depending on your definition of rock'n'roll) will be forever cool.
posted by soundofsuburbia at 5:40 AM on August 9

When you talk about rock sax in the 80s all I can think about is this scene (jump to 0:23) in The Lost Boys (1987).
posted by Bunglegirl at 9:09 AM on August 9 [1 favorite]

Hard to move beyond Careless Whisper by Wham!, with its aspirational video (get rich and you too can sulk on a yacht one day).

There's also New Sensation by INXS, where Michael Hutchence yells "Trumpet!" immediately before the sax solo - an in-joke, apparently, but if you don't know that you just assume it's a mistake.

The boozy sax on Your Latest Trick by Dire Straits has aged better but still sounds very 80s, on one of the decade's bestselling albums.

The problem is solo sax, and especially solo tenor sax. When you have a sax that's properly integrated into a band, ideally into a horn section, it can be great. A solo bass saxophone does not provoke the same cringe--is usually a welcome sight/sound. But solo tenor sax, eeek.
posted by lapsangsouchong at 1:00 PM on August 9

I remember when Eleanor Friedberger had a minor hit in 2013 with "My Mistakes" and there was debate if the saxophone solo was honest nostalgia or irony. The idea that it was simply a musical element that worked well with her song was hardly even entertained.

Saxophone in pop and rock was notable in the 80s but just as common in the 70s (Gerry Rafferty, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, R&B, soul and disco etc.) But as the 80s turned into the 90s a lot of things happened:

-- Dance, R&B, and pop music used more and more electronics.
-- Grunge happened, as mentioned above. But also before that, punk, metal and contemporary hard rock codified a "pure" rock sound of drums, guitars and maybe a keyboard. There was a whiff of racism there but a lot of it was class and cultural signifiers. Think of who listened to Paul Simon's Graceland and who didn't.
--Jazz pretty much died, in terms of mainstream culture. It became more of a nostalgia thing for the older generations, or a niche interest, or a subculture (John Zorn, The Lounge Lizards, e.g.). Sure, smooth jazz like Kenny G was selling tons, but it was immensely despised by everyone else.
--The boomers were losing their cred. The Rolling Stones, Steely Dan, and Bruce Springsteen the E-Street Band became "Dad rock". Tons of 80s music was rehashing of 60s soul, but that fell out of fashion too.
--Saxophone had become emblematic of a self-aware "cool", and coolness became more and more commodified and not to be trusted. Like niicholas said above, Bill Clinton, wearing sunglasses, was the final nail.
posted by hydrophonic at 2:04 PM on August 9 [2 favorites]

We have a dedicated sax player in my (rock, but weird) band. Sax isn't gone.
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:48 AM on August 10