Terrible Music Gimmicks!

[KickTheBobo]

New timers who dress up like old timers and play new timey music. I'm talking to you, Decemberists

I can't figure out if they're frustrated music nerds who really want to do drama, or drama nerds who wanted a larger audience.

Plus: Didn't HR start that whole singing over the phone thing with "Sacred Love" off of "I against I" ? maybe it should have ended with him as well.

Yes!!  You are my favorite first-time poster.

Except that the whole thing with "Sacred Love" was (supposedly) that he was ACTUALLY phoning his vocals in (not "phoning his vocals in") because he was IN JAIL!!  You can't front on that.
Plus, before HR, Paul McCartney did that canned/telephone/megaphone vocal thing whenever he was in "ragtime" mode, and it was used effectively AFTER HR, by... 
hm... 
uhhh... 
O.k. - maybe Phantom Hugger's right - it probably should've ended with him.

 Flash and the Pan used that effect well in "Hey St. Peter" as well as XTC in "Respectable Street" but yeah, they both predated Sacred Love.

I'm not sure if this counts, but the final track on this album seems to use the phone-effect at the start. I do believe it is quite killer. Released in 1992.

[Chris L]

Rappers doing the phone/canned/walkie talkie/intercom/drive-thru/whatever thing can be pretty cool:

Biggie Smalls in "Warning"
the police radio in LL Cool J's "I'm Bad"
various 90's-era Beastie Boys tracks
Lil Wayne ordering a new kitchen countertop (mixtape)

[Laurie]

Lil Wayne ordering a new kitchen countertop (mixtape)

That's awesome. Hook a girl up with an mp3, yo.

[kenkwan]

I hate when bands put siren sound effects in songs. If I'm in the car, I always think for a split second that I need to pull over to let the police cars/firetrucks/ambulances go by. It's dangerous!

[Laurie]

I agree kobekwan, they should just say "wee-ooh-wee-ooh," à la R. Kelly.

[Chris L]

I hate when bands put siren sound effects in songs. If I'm in the car, I always think for a split second that I need to pull over to let the police cars/firetrucks/ambulances go by. It's dangerous!

I'm ashamed to say "Summer in the City" has tricked me more than once into thinking some asshole was honking at me. 

[John Junk]

I hate when bands put siren sound effects in songs. If I'm in the car, I always think for a split second that I need to pull over to let the police cars/firetrucks/ambulances go by. It's dangerous!

I'm ashamed to say "Summer in the City" has tricked me more than once into thinking some asshole was honking at me. 

Wasn't there a Curb Your Enthusiasm where something like that happened?  Can't remember the song, though.  Wasn't "Summer in the City".

[Dorvid Barnas]

I hate when bands put siren sound effects in songs. If I'm in the car, I always think for a split second that I need to pull over to let the police cars/firetrucks/ambulances go by. It's dangerous!

That's why Welcome to the Jungle caused my dad to throw my Appetite for Destruction tape out of the car when I was 11.
At least that's what he said.

[dave from knoxville]

Could be he just had good taste. I recently threw my son's copy of a Jon Butler CD out the window because it was "interfering with my driving." Or at least that's what I said. What it was really interfering with was what little tad of goodwill I still have towards the human race.

[Laurie]

Could be he just had good taste. I recently threw my son's copy of a Jon Butler CD out the window because it was "interfering with my driving." Or at least that's what I said. What it was really interfering with was what little tad of goodwill I still have towards the human race.

Dave, based on your last.fm stats, I am pretty sure I would throw most of your CDs and records and cassettes out the window. Love you! 

[dave from knoxville]

Yah, I know, my musical tastes are probably closer to Breckman's than Scharping's. Good thing for both of them they don't have to hang out with me.

[GetOffMyBone]

I hate when bands put siren sound effects in songs. If I'm in the car, I always think for a split second that I need to pull over to let the police cars/firetrucks/ambulances go by. It's dangerous!

I take it you can't listen to the Best Show podcast in car then


Also, I don't mind it in rap music or the actual effect at all. I just think it is awful sounding as back up vocals in rock music.

[KickTheBobo]

Could be he just had good taste. I recently threw my son's copy of a Jon Butler CD out the window because it was "interfering with my driving." Or at least that's what I said. What it was really interfering with was what little tad of goodwill I still have towards the human race.

Save The Children.

[Fido]

-How about the vocals through a megaphone, speaker, or telephone.

-or those albums with about 15 - 30 minutes of silence for the hidden track. Yeah I'm talking to you New Pornographers and your live CD

-or the "studio banter" that might be included

Studio banter is almost always stupid, I think.  But vocals through a phone or speaker, sometimes I like it.   Like that Sonic Youth cover of that old Carpenters song I can't remember the name of -- "don't you remember you told me you loved me baybayyyy..." etc. 

[John Junk]

"Superstar"

I like the phone effect as used by The Makeup on their cover of Hey Joe.

"Hey Joe, where are you?" 

"...I'm in Mexico"