Solos (part 3 of__)

following on from Tears for Fears and the year 1985 -- not the obvious moment to look for Great Guitar Solos, you might think -- something else in that Eighties radio-rock vein, lyrical and non-excessive like "Everybody Rules", but slightly more epic... not a solo-solo in the 70s hard'n'heavy eruptive sense, but more like an intermittent peals-of-lead thing running all the way through the song and then really taking off from 2-40 onwards. Hats off to Mike Campbell, who also co-wrote the tune




Couple randoms about "Boys Of": it is part of a mini-genre of Eighties radio-rock I've just invented based around Robust Drum Machine Programming. Another example: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers's "Don't Come Around Here No More". (Also 1985!) (Ah, who knew - Mike Campbell is the guitarist in The Heartbreakers. It all connects! It's probably his Linn on both songs.)

Also, in Keenan's original hypnagogic pop piece there's references to "Boys of Summer" as a prime hypnagogic reference point, with the implication, i think, that this is some kind of transgressive taste-move, a la Sunsetcorp's "Nobody Here"/"Lady in Red". But as I recall, at the time "Boys of Summer" was simply accepted, widely, as one of the best songs of 1985. I'm pretty certain it made the NME critics poll of Singles of the Year, and wouldn't be at all surprised if did the same in Pazz 'n' Jop. I bought "Boys of Summer" at the time. (Much the same applies to that other chillwave reference point, Hall & Oates: they had a fair number of critical supporters at the time; "I Can't Go For That" was NME's Single of the Week... Penman was on duty, called it avant-MOR or something. And I bought that single too. So a lot of the Eighties AOR mainstream that hypnagogic is "salvaging" is just quality music that until now hasn't computed in the terms of lo-fi/post-noise amer-indie culture)

Okay back to the solos... also in the not-quite-a-solo vein (and riffing off Phil's debut contribution), here's something from Hugh Cornwell--an exceedingly under-rated guitarist--namely, the gorgeously lyrical solo to "Golden Brown", coming in around 1.51

(BTW i have never seen this video, didn't know it even existed, it was never shown on TOTP i'm pretty certain)



i'm working my way towards some proper phallo-ballistic, supernautical, sky-shredding type solos don't you worry