Saxophone in Rock Music - Cool or Annoying?

[claws]

Just wondering where you stand.

[voltron]

Hmmm...really depends I guess. If it's No Wave it's cool. I'm not sure - oh s**t, wait - Swervedriver has a sax song and it was cool. Talk Talk used a lot of jazz instrumentation on Laughing Stock and it was great. Pink Floyd used sax on The Final Cut. I might be wrong but I think Amorphis may have used sax on their later period albums as well. So, condidering all that I guess you could say I think it's cool. 

[zombie no.one]

swervedriver are cool, was it on one of their long druggy sounding tracks?

I used to be quite good friends with the son of roxy music's sax player when he lived a few doors down from me. can't be dissing the sax in rock situation 

[Mofo Rising]

Well, it depends on the song in question.

I have always been of the viewpoint that any instrument is fair game as far as rock music goes. There's no reason that rock music should be only guitar, bass, drums, and sometimes keyboards. If it works to add brass, wing that mother.

That being said, the saxophone is probably the instrument that lends itself to a wankfest as ready as lead guitar. We get it, guy, you enjoy playing on your organ.

But take this, Midnight Oil's "Power and the Passion."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pKPNnk-JhE

It's a normal enough rock/pop song, but the introduction of horns at the end turns it into a blistering finale. You may or may not like that song, but take away the brass section and it loses more than it could gain without.

[RCMerchant]

Like Zoltron and Mofo say-depends on the song...and the band-
now heres cool,baby-

X Ray Spex with the late Poly Styrene....!!!!!
OH BONDAGE! UP YOURS!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fmZQrTONME&feature=related

...and then you got astonishingly annoying sax on Billy Joel's It Still Rock and Roll to Me...but I can't-won't!-torture with that dirge of  dire drek.

[AndyC]

I would see a saxaphone as a fairly conventional rock instrument, not really out of place per se.

Although, there are some songs that make really good use of it, and I'm particularly fond of some that have incorporated things like a string or a horn section.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkGfPrst29Y

Great horn section in that one, but it does fit in well. You aren't overwhelmed by brass and woodwind, but it adds a lot to the music.

[zombie no.one]

Steely Dan are masters of the tasteful sax solo (Deacon Blues and Dr Wu spring to mind, loads of other tracks too)

[voltron]

swervedriver are cool, was it on one of their long druggy sounding tracks?

Yup. It was "Never Lose That Feeling / Never Learn".

[Jack]

A sax is right at home in certain bluesy rock stuff.  It's an extremely expressive instrument - in the hands of the right person 

[tracy]

A sax is right at home in certain bluesy rock stuff.  It's an extremely expressive instrument - in the hands of the right person 

Exactly. I've always liked the depth a good sax solo can add to a song.

[Allhallowsday]

Many classic Rock songs include sax. 

[Trevor]

The saxophone solo in Gerry Rafferty's Baker Street makes the song.