been rocking to some 80s gems recently and being hit with the sax was like reuniting with an old friend. made me realize how long it's been since I've heard it on anything not classifed as Jazz.

what happened? it seems like saxophones went from pop staple to nonexistent quick fast. yeah, trends change, but I don't remember a gradual fade; *ish was abrupt. I'm basing this on the limited scope of my listening habits, but I feel it's more than just anecdotal. am I missing something?

music, and that's because these days most pop music is done by a producer sitting with a laptop and VSTs.

Horns (and ESPECIALLY saxophone) are pretty difficult to accurately duplicate with synths and VSTs, so unless a producer is sampling a record with a sax you're not going to see it as much. Cat's like Bruno and Justin Timberlake use them, but even if someone wants to bring in a sax player it takes a certain level of skill to record and mix properly, and you don't have nearly as many pop records being made in studios with professional engineers handling the work.

>Horns (and ESPECIALLY saxophone) are pretty difficult to accurately duplicate with synths and VSTs

too true. for me, at least. I've pretty much written off the entire brass/horns folder in my DAW.

huh.

I'll always remember Branford Marsalis' sax solo on Shanice's "I Love Your Smile".
In fact a lot of New Jack Swing stuff kept the band element of instrumental solos.

Shanice was 1991.
Mary J. Blige's debut was 1992.

It was a wrap after that.

I listened to Thriller a couple days ago and had to stop to really appreciate the solo on Beat It. on subsequent records, that space was occupied by Heavy D and Biggie (and... whoever the heck that was on Black or White).

great insights all around in these replies.

That's where a lot of people learned brass.

Now people just buy a guitar or bass or keyboard and play at home.

not saying that your statement isn't true, and i think that's why the Tadow situation is interesting.

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time to investigate.

instead of a sax solo put her on the pop charts with a wider audience when she did Lovergirl

Other than a few ska bands, and groups E-Street Band & Dave Matthews Band, others don't have saxophonists in their groups or doing solos on songs, it kind of became passe as they say.

Once hard rock & heavy metal took off, it was no need for sax solos, now kats have two & three guitarists (one on lead, one on rhythm, & one on bass) even most synth/keyboardists aren't present in bands anymore.

I loved it when Pete Rock "kind of" brought back the sax sound on his echoing horns in his beats but even that got old to some when others started to copy that gimmick.

think of all those 80s songs with the sax solos... none of them are really "guitar songs," you know?

At the same time that was happening, the guitar-driven styles (harder rock, hair metal, punk, college rock or 80s 'alternative') didn't have sax solos in large measure.

In RnB, the move away from live instrumentation certainly didn't help the sax's prioritization.

from a purely practical standpoint, the sax (or any brass, really) isn't the easiest instrument to learn. finding space to practice without annoying everyone around you is more of a challenge. and compared with the 'rock star' vibe the guitar has baked in, it's not hard to see the scales tipping in a particular direction. but I suppose this is slightly separate from the issue I brought up in the original post.

Nevermind..saw the other reply