According to the rubric I’ve already been working with, the length and frequency of sax really hurts the grade here. Even for this long clip (2:39!): I cut out many sax parts. But damn, I pretty much love this solo. If you’re going to have this much sax, definitely do it like this guy.
Sade is one of the few 80s artists who actually deserves the sax accompaniment.
A bit shocking – it starts so suddenly and then scales down to about the level of the vocals. I’m glad they left it at this though.
Seriously, whoever was controlling the reverb knob got a bit out of control after awhile. Totally ruined a perfectly fine solo.
Not only did this actually add something meaningful to the song, it also gave me goosebumps the first time I heard it. True story.
When the knowledge that Roseanne was coming on wasn’t enough to compel me to turn off the TV, this theme song certainly helped.
I really don’t care that the playing is good. You can’t save a pop song by continuing to add more and more saxophone. If you have to add 3+ minutes of saxophone solos to compensate, then you should probably just go back to the drawing board. What about more cowbell instead? Since I really couldn’t decide what sax parts to remove to make this fit in a reasonable amount of time, here’s an extended version: The “short” one is just the most solo-like part, and the “long” is all the saxophone parts, including the vocal/saxophone callbacks. Enjoy.
With the weird orchestra-like hits alongside the sax and the singing, I couldn’t tell if I was playing Mario Paint or listening to a Roxy Music song. I wish it had been Mario Paint.
I have to say, I feel very conflicted about this one. For one thing, I totally did not expect a very smooth saxophone to start up right when the song seemed to be winding down. And just when that solo seemed to be winding down, I really didn’t expect it to end up kicking it up a notch. Nick, the guy who emailed me about this solo, put it best: “It really is quite something as just when you think it’s over the sax finds another gear and rockets off into the distance.” All that said, there really wasn’t much to complain about in the solo.