“Something in the Air” by Thunderclap Newman had the potential to be a great pop song. Great instrumentation and lyrics, until two minutes in, when the song launches into what can only be very charity described as a “solo”. It consists of someone banging out two chords on piano for an entire minute, with some rather feeble attempts at ornamentation.
Twenty-five years later, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers covered the song, and while it’s much more listenable, even the inimitable Mike Campbell wasn’t able to redeem the solo into something mildly interesting.
Any other potentially great popular songs which were ruined by crappy solos?
As a Renaissance fan I seriously disliked the Andy Powell solo at the end of the studio version of Ashes Are Burning. It sounds like a bad session musician hired for one day, which is pretty much what it was.
Porcupine Tree in a similar vein hired Rush’s Alex Lifeson for a completely lifeless and cheesy solo in the middle of Anesthetize, from their last album.
I kind of liked that song, even the solo. Then I got the whole album, and the same piano solo cropped up in several of the songs. Apparently the only riffs the guy knew.
There are many and if I ever find time I will try to come up with more (very busy work week this week; lots of travel).
The first song that comes to mind wasn’t ruined, per se, but the lead took a great song and dumbed it down to cliche for the length of the solo: Enter Sandman by Metallica. Kirk Hammett is a decent lead player in many cases, but this just blows - it is a set of strung-together licks that have no coherence and their basic feel is completely different vs. the menace of the song. And towards the very end when he does a little triplet pattern that almost sounds like it has a wah on it? Argh - I think it sounds awful; like a boogie break - who needs boogie in a song about nightmares? I really wish they’d tried a completely different approach…
Oh, dear god, yes. Endless modal noodling over a two-chord groove. Miles Davis could make that work. Ray Manazerek, not so much.
I’ve never been a big fan of ELP, but Carl Palmer’s drumming has always been puzzling to me. The drum solo in Carn Evil #9 drives me up a friggin wall. It just sort of takes off after the guitar solo, with no regards to where the song’s been or where it’s going, sounding like a monkey hyped up on amphetamines, tempo completely out of control, and then comes crashing back to tempo when Emerson’s keyboards come back in.
It just jars me on so many levels. It might sound good if it seemed at all musical or intended. However, it sounds like a complete trainwreck to me.
I like the organ solo in “Light My Fire,” and I also like the guitar solo in “Free Bird.” What I don’t like is the intermnable bullshit ending to “Layla” and the shorter, but still way the hell too long, ending to “Baba O’Reilly.”
A feature of the '70s was the obligatory drum solo. A pox on them all. What are you supposed to do during them? When played live the rest of the band had the sense to walk off stage during the solo. The audience wasn’t so lucky.
Just so you don’t feel alone, I thought of that one, too, but decided not to mention it as it’s not what I would call a solo. But, yeah, that one bores the tears out of me, too.
The guitar solo in Free Bird doesn’t bug me so much. It’s so ridiculously over-the-top that I have to believe it’s meant somewhat tongue-in-cheek. Right?
How about Living Colour’s Cult of Personality? The song has a great groove and an borderline offensive rip roaring & out of key mindless indulgence of a solo.
oh lord, do I agree with you there. Vernon Reid is a great, great player, but there is no need to attempt Ornette Coleman free jazz in a hard rock solo…
**puly ** - remind me, did I ever share my drummer’s story about working with Carl Palmer when he (my buddy) engineered Asia’s second album? Lord, you are so right…
Ghost of the Navigator by Iron Maiden is one of their finest songs, except that the solo in the middle it sounds totally tacked in, and doesn’t even go with the rest of the song…as if they already had the song written and then Steve says “hey, this could use a guitar solo. Janick, grab us one of your solo recordings and we’ll include it”, and then they fastforward to halfway through the recording, pause it, insert the solo, and then unpause it.
I’ve mentioned it before in similar threads, but Rage Against the Machine “Killing in the Name” is the most dreadfully disjointed out of place solo I’ve ever heard. I’ve heard kindergarteners using chalkboards for their first time create better sounds.
I’ll also vote for Moody Blues “Nights in White Satin” flute(?) solo. It isn’t necessarily written badly, but is poorly produced and performed, the audio level seems way out of whack.
Creedence features two long-play songs in their anthology, their cover of I Heard it Through the Grapevine and Born on the Bayou both of which end with 5+ minute solos that are nothing but meandering explorations of pointlessness.
The scene: a top recording studio in London in the early 80’s. My buddy is getting one of his first big engineering assignments - Asia’s second album. His job? Setting up and doing the engineering prep for the legendary Carl Palmer, drummer for ELP, Asia, etc.
My friend showed up for work hours early and used all of that time tuning Carl’s kit, placing mic’s, checking all the effects associated with each mic - you name it. And since Carl has a kit the size of, well, a huge freakin’ drum kit, my friend had to crawl underneath a few rack toms to get in and out, so this was a physical, hectic, stressful situation for our first-time engineer. But it was worth it because he was doing it for the legendary Carl Palmer.
After all this, the Producer (my buddy’s boss on the project) comes in, sees all the excruciating work my friend has done on this, his first job, and kind of snickers to himself, but at the time my buddy doesn’t put 2 + 2 together. They both remain up in the control booth, finalizing settings for that day’s recording. Later, the legendary Carl Palmer comes in, blithely gets behind the kit (not sure how he did it blithely, but my friend assures me he looked smooth), picks up the sticks and…proceeds to rip off a drum fill that sounds like a cat falling into a stack of cookware. My friend looks up at his Producer, who says something along the lines of “well, that pretty much shatters your fantasies, don’it?”
Apparently it was common knowledge that Carl couldn’t keep proper time and was all about the fills – which couldn’t sound great if you can’t keep time!- nice time to tell my friend! Weeks later in the session, my buddy was playing the kit to check a mic set-up he had changed and Geoff Downes and Steve Howe both came in and tried offer my buddy the job playing drums since they found Palmer’s timekeeping so bad. I doubt they were serious, but it was a way to get under the legendary Carl Palmer’s skin - and there was so much infighting that they couldn’t pass up the chance…
