03 January 2007

We've Covered the Flute, What About the Children's Chorus?

The other very rock n roll trope that shouldn't be rock n roll at all (besides violins) is the Children's Chorus.

The use of said device reached its apogee in the late 80s/early 90s, it's a gimmick not deployed as often anymore. Just three examples here, let's not go crazy with these YouTube posts here.



Come on, you know you wanted Martika back in the day. Cheesy? Yes. Pretty sweet anyway? Hell yes. Probably the main song I was thinking of when thinking of this gimmick.



I've never bought a Smiths album. I never had to, usually had a girlfriend who owned one or two at least (never liked full on 'goth chicks' but always had a thing for 'goth-lite chicks'). The Marr/Morrisey collaboration produced some amazing songs. Love hearing the kids singing 'hang the DJ'.



I'm leaving out plenty of good choices, but you get the idea already, and any list tackling this subject would be inadequate if it didn't have a little Pink Floyd.

Now go eat your pudding, you've earned it (even if you skipped eating your meat, I guess that makes me a sensualist).

4 comments:

bill said...

First one I thought of was Dear God by XTC.

XWL said...

I debated including that song, but it's a single child singing, not a chorus, so by the arbitrary rules I imposed upon myself it was disqualified.

Great use of a child's voice to bookend the anti-religious rant throughout the rest of the song, though.

Andy Partridge can write songs.

After watching that video I downloaded all the XTC content they had on URGE.

But my favorite Andy Partridge project was his more sixties tinged side project Dukes of the Stratosphear

vbspurs said...

When you're tired of The Smiths, you're tired of life, as Dr. Johnson used to say.

Cheers,
Victoria

bill said...

Busted by a technicality. That's what I get for never paying attention to lyrics--never knew it was an anti-religious rant.