Trends in rock n roll come and go like…well….. (Insert cheesy metaphor here), but the most important thing is, I’m here to point them out to everyone! Rejoice!When you think of a rock band, you think of a lead singer hamming it up on stage, the guitarist straddling his guitar, the bassist holding it together, and the drummer pounding things with sticks and maybe even a keyboardist lurking in the shadows….god only knows what he does! But what if you take away the unnecessary….what if from five; the number is dropped down to two? Would they still be able to get the same sound? ....Well duh!
Gone is the age of excess….now is the time for minimalism, in every sense of the word. Not only are bands like the White Stripes reducing rock to its purest, simplest form, they’re also removing the perception that it takes big rock bands to make a big sound ….(enter slipknot).
The recent trend in rock seems to be of rock duos, two musicians…one sitting at the drum set and the other playing a guitar or a bass just reducing rock to its bare essentials.
The most notable rock duo in recent time is of course the ex husband-ex wife duo of the White Stripes with the eccentric musical genius Jack White on guitar and vocals and the trained monkey on drum styling of Meg White. With a musical palette that stretches all the way from blues to country to good old garage rock, they do it all with the same back to basics approach and they do it well.
Giving close competition to the White Stripes are the Jimi Hendrix disciples themselves, the Black Keys. Playing blues rock in the vein of the master; the Black Keys have turned out some amazing songs in the span of seven albums.
Alternative rock is not without its duos. Local H is an example of a hard hitting rock band making due with just a singer-guitarist and a drummer. Their full driving riffs are assisted by adding bass pickups to the guitar and a versatile drummer. Another group is the Matt Cameron led Wellwater Conspiracy in which Matt, one of the greatest drummers of the 90’s manages to belt out a song while rolling around on his set. All these years sitting behind Chris Cornell and Eddie Vedder, he actually has a nice set of pipes….who knew?!
Noise rock duo Lightning Bolt and indie rock’s golden boys No Age completely deconstruct punk rock and somehow manage to produce the sound of three guitars playing in tandem covered in distortion and feedback from just one tiny guitar.
Some other notable rock duos include the Fiery Furnaces, the Kills, the Raveonettes and the Two Gallants.
