1st August 2009

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“the bane rendition”: the lost art of the rock instrumental

Want to hear a totally badass modern rock instrumental? I thought so.

The Raconteurs are: Brendan Benson, Jack Lawrence, Patrick Keeler, and, of course, Jack White (of The White Stripes and The Dead Weather). Consolers of the Lonely is certainly one of my favorite albums of the last 10 years; take a gander if you haven’t already. And by gander, I mean listen to it. I’m of the opinion that the Racs are one of the best rock bands in the world right now.

“The Bane Rendition” was released as the B-side to The Raconteurs’ break-out single “Steady as She Goes” (For some reason it hasn’t been included on either of their albums: Broken Boy Soldiers, Consolers of the Lonely). It’s unreleased-ness caused me to not hear it until it came up on pandora at work the other day. An instrumental? In the Oughts (seriously, what will the 00’s be called?)? What a song. I freaked out. Figuratively.

“The Bane Rendition” shows the Racs’ understanding of how to make a straight-up bad rock song: The subtle, unstably yet affirmatively overdriven guitar intro is nearly a direct tribute to one of the best song openings ever (Norman Greenbaum’s “Spirit in the Sky”). The pulsing bassline supports the easygoing tempo; the basic melody is super-simple, but carries a lot of power. The genius of the song is that the instrumentation makes an obvious, almost strained attempt to keep the volume low, foreshadowing the crescendos to forte levels, which only come a few times throughout the song. Good rock bands know that “good rock” isn’t necessarily synonymous with “loud all the time.” And great rock bands can get a song to be captivating with or without lyrics.

All this talk about instrumentals got me thinking…keep an eye out for my list of favorite instrumentals.

Thanks for reading.