I don’t follow much modern music, so perhaps this theory is completely whack, but is the tradition of harmony singing in rock best maintained by hard rock bands? With the exception of overtly harmony singing-based bands like Fleet Foxes I don’t hear a great commitment to harmonies in indie rock. Much of hip-hop has abandoned melody let alone harmony singing. The “boy band” phenomenon is dead, right? Modern-day power pop doesn’t really count because no more than 800 people buy that stuff.
If my 3 minutes of reflection and analysis are correct, since Queen and then Van Halen cemented a place for harmony singing in hard rock there’s been no turning back. Next to the Spandex and hair spray, that entire ’80s Hair Metal era was marked by tight harmony singing more than the killer guitar riffs on which metal was originally built. Hard rockers have become the keepers of harmony singing in rock.
The theory that boxing has gone downhill ever since big, athletic guys from poor backgrounds have realized they can get football and basketball scholarships rather than directly entering into human animal abuse can be applied to power pop and hard rock. In the ’80s, with the dream of Beatlemania over, multi-talented, extroverted musicians realized they’d be better off beefing up their tight, tuneful, harmony-dependent pop music in stacks of Marshall amps and Ed Stasium-engineered arena rock-worthy drums and cashing in/getting laid for once.
Well for starters, there’s Arcade Fire, Stars, Broken Social Scene.
Neko Case, with and without The New Pornographers, works well with harmonies.
One of the things I like about Wussy are the weird harmonies Chuck and Lisa do. It’s like part Appalachia, part John-and-Exene.
I’m not talking about “weird” harmonies, but the kind of tightly arranged harmonies that were once the domain of bands like The Byrds and The Beatles. It seems to me like hard rock bands have put the most work into that stuff, and it strikes me as kind of funny.
I don’t think hard rock bands do that now. Hard rock now is Nickelback, right? There’s nothing Beatlesy or Byrdsy about those clowns’ harmonies.
Dr Dog is good for some solid harmonic action.
Not necessarily “Byrdsy” harmonies, Oats, but “professional” harmonies, as icky as that term might be for any of us to swallow. I’m saying that the hard rock bands have carried the load for keeping the sort of harmonies that a band like Badfinger or The Eagles would have been responsible for in the ’70s – AND I’m saying that among popular music, hard rock artists may be at the fore of using pro harmonies.
Can you cite some modern-day hard rock bands with these kinds of harmonies. Because Nickelback make The Eagles sound like The Louvin Brothers.
I am intrigued by the fact that you cite bands FROM 25 YEARS AGO as the current, hard-rockin’ keepers of the rug harmony flame.
No, Hrrundi, that was the start of hard rock’s taking up the flame. Last night, for instance, I heard Brad Lidge’s new intro theme, some Linkiln Park song, and it reminded me that when I’m researching the lunkheaded modern-rock tunes that ballplayers use as their intro music that the modern-day hard rock bands have an old-fashioned, slightly cheesy reliance on classic rock harmonies that play an unexpectedly key role in their music.
Modern country is the new rock, and Nashville recordings definitely have lots of harmonies.
When ever I see a pop act on TV, say someone like Shakira, there’s always a backline of harmony singers.
In the indie world, Grizzly Bear, Animal Collective, and Deerhunter all feature harmony singing. Mr. Mod already mentioned Fleet Foxes, so maybe your band name has to have something to do with the animal kingdom before the urge to harmonize kicks in.
Correct, and to connect up with one of yesterday’s discussions, that is why today’s Nashville stars have three, four, five guitarists on stage: They’re really there for backup vocals, but they strum acoustic guitars because the sight of male backup singers is insufficiently manly for the genre.
I’m sensing LITTLE agreement with me on this insight. I didn’t mean to talk about the “new rock” or Shakira, I’m talking about what’s left in the Rock bins. Who woulda thunk that hard rockin’ lunkheads would keep the flame of professionally recorded harmonies alive? Dumb “insight?” Certainly!
A week behind in RTH reading and that’s the way it will be for a few month’s as my Internet connection is spotty here in Italy (my Vodaphone card makes dial-up seem blazing out here on the outskirts of Ostia).
Mr. Mod, you’ve hit on another reason why little in rock in the last 2 decades appeals to me. Add the lack of swing and black influence and it’s no wonder so little of it hits any buttons with me.