The Crap Bit in the Middle
Another thing that annoys me.
Those songs where, for no apparent reason, the band decide to drop a lump in the middle that bears no relation to what's gone before or what follows.
Different key, different time signature, different tune entirely. Could be a different band for all I know.
Serial offenders:
10cc. They did it with both I'm not in Love (the 'big boys don't cry' bit) and I'm Mandy, Fly Me (the 'massed acoustic guitar strumming' bit)
Macca. I give you Live and Let Die (the lairy bit in the middle) and Band on the Run. Also A Day in the Life, if I'm feeling particularly grumpy.
And Zep did it with the silly orgasmic bit in the middle of Whole Lotta Love.
I can cope with it in a proggy context, where you have to expect the odd bit of (f)artiness in the midst of a 24 minute epic.
It's the fannying around within a three minute pop song that ticks me off.
What do others think?
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I think 'I'm Not In Love' is pure perfection...
...but here's my nominations:
David Bowie- Ricochet; I think it's a great song, this one, but that 'Ricochet- it's not the end of the world!' bit in it is awfully cheesy, in my opinion.
Genesis- Your Own Special Way; never minded the song but Tony Banks' electric piano interlude is, again, very cheesy- it could have been cut right out of the song and it wouldn't have suffered from it.
You obviously never tried to dance to 10cc...
...aged 15 when the 'slowies' came on at the tennis club disco.
Where's the piggin' beat gone?
Big boys don't cry indeed.
"God Only Knows"
"God Only Knows" - I think Brian made the middle bit extra naff just to accentuate the beauty of the rest of it.
In My Life
I find George Martin's piano in the middle intrusive and out of place.
That's always bugged me
That's always bugged me too. It's just crying out for a nice, simple, understated George Harrison guitar solo. Sort of spoils one the Beatles' best songs.
U2 songs too countless to mention
Frequently featuring Bono Vox talky singing whilst Mr Sir Edge hits harmonics with his delay pedal turned up. Who needs an actual middle 8 anyway?
Oh, and its a harpsichord isnt it, Carl?
Check Revolution In The Head
According to IMac it's piano played back at double speed.
Squeeze
Cool for Cats - ever seen a dance floor hanging around, not knowing quite what to do until the verse kicks in again?
Exactly!
"Shaped up at the disco..."
Fat bloody chance.
Veronica
Costello makes a blinding single for the first time in aeons then sticks that 'On the Empress of India..' dream sequence thingy in the middle & breaks it.
Great idea!
Yeah, let's ban intros, middle-eights and outros. After all, they rarely sound anything like the verse or the chorus, do they? In fact, choruses are usually a different tune to the verse, so let's do away with choruses, too. And key changes in the final verse are right out. Simplify and standardise - it's the way forward.
key changes in the last verse are, by and large
rather naughty...
http://www.gearchange.org/
Now, now, pv....
Play nice.
It's just a bit of fun.
But, but, but...
I *was* having fun! Aw, come on, don't make me use smileys!
No, no...
...anything but smileys.
Obviously on a post-Brits mardy-trip, me.
Missing the many happy years I spent at the Brits Academy with my good friends the Arctic Monkeys.
I'd send...
...most of those monkeys off to bloody arctic.
(I concede I smiled at the bearing of the first up chappy, who snaffled a pipe on his way up the 2nd time. His cohorts clearly couldn't hack it, tho', and so ultimately let the image down. Are they teenagers? Where's Archies fence? Or was it Vulpes?)
That acoustic bit in "I'm Mandy..."
...is one of the most wonderful acoustic moments in musical history - it's bleedin' GORGEOUS - along with the acoustic breaks in BLUEBIRD, MAKE ME SMILE (COME UP AND SEE ME), COLORADO (Stephen Stills Manasas) and an instrumental snippet from one of those early Genesis albums..oh, and that one from THE WALL
Are we talking about the same bit?
The 'daddala-daddala-da-da' bit that is reprised at the fade-out at the end?
Surely not?
Funnily enough...
...I was in the pub the other day and Englishman in New York by Sting came on. That song is fairly harmless except for this weird bit where a drum break comes in and it sounds like a completely different song. It sounds less like a middle eight and more like he pressed the wrong button in the studio. Still it took me by surprise so well done Sting..clap clap.
Blimey, Stuart
Me too. Read the post and immediately that incongruity came likewise to my mind. I don't mind the jazzy noodling that takes place, but the nuclear drumming is sooooooo out of place. Even Mr Copeland didn't kybosh Sting to that degree in the Police. Ruins an otherwise innoffensive ditty.
Songwriting credits
I always imagine that songwriting credits are a lot to do with awkward middle eights, ie pacifying another band member. Given how 10CC were set up (4 songwriters), this was probably how their's happened.
A clever and lucrative technique is to shoe-horn your own bit into a cover version to bring in the cash. See 'The Tide is High (Get the Feeling)' by Atomic Kitten. Basically a Blondie cover with an unnecessary PRS-generating attachment.
Academy Award (c) winner Lionel Richie
Say You, Say Me was already a mangy old hound of a song, with the tritest lyric of Mr Richie's career - which is saying something - before that truly bizarre, up-tempo middle 8 hove into view, seemingly spatchcocked from another, totally unrelated song.
Just one of many reasons to scoff at the Best Original Song Oscar (c). Which has made me think of another: Anyone remember Calling You, from Baghdad Cafe? Gorgeous song, sung by Jevetta Steele, which enhanced the whole film. The winner that year was a tiresome, unlovable faux-gospel effort by Carly Simon, Let The River Run.
Calling You...
...is a lovely, atmospheric song, one of my very favourites; George Michael's version isn't bad either (not a phrase you read every day). As for Let The River Run, Wogan plays it quite regularly and I switch the radio off as soon as Carly Simon gives it some foghorn on the opening line.