See this thing? This is a stupid thing.As Marvin famously said in 1971, . Or maybe he was talking about something else, I'm not sure, I don't have the lyric book in front of me right now. But I do think we can all agree that breaking out your Dad's Crybaby wah-wah pedal when your band's song is lacking that last little something (you know, like good lyrics or a competent melody) to push it over the top and make it an international hit and change all of your lives FOREVER is rarely the answer.Living Colour's metal-funk classic "Cult of Personality" has an undeniable head-bopping groove, but the egregious wah solo is almost as bad of a taste-offender as it's dead-in-the-water chorus. The solo starts in a frenzy and ends up in an even less interesting place than where it started, as if it's regressing in ideas. Soundgarden's power anthem "Superunknown"'s solo is another offender, as Kim Thayil serves to show that he can muddy up a bridge with the best of 'em.Unfortunately if you've ever been in a crunch in the studio, watching the clock tick as your precious burrito money drains from your collective pockets and looking for something to save your half-written song, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Throw some bongos on there. Write an unnecessary bridge! Add a children's choir!
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Look at the Rolling Stones classic "You Can't Always Get What You Want." Memorable, vaguely uplifting lyric? Check. But they had to ruin an amazing song by kicking it off with a children's choir that did little for the song but make you wonder how they got so many children in the same room as Keith Richards. Apparently 40 years wasn't enough time to realize tacking on a children's choir was a terrible idea: exhibit B, Passion Pit's "Little Secrets."Let's all sign a pact, right here, right now: Leave the wah-wah pedals, bongos, sitars, zithers, and childrens' choirs at home.