The keyboard solo on 'Cuddly Toy' by Roachford

[Chicory]

Pure, rancid menace.
 
The sound that greets anxiety piss dribbling through your fluorescent shorts, down your shins and into your Fido Dido socks.

The dizzy, hot injustice of having a plastic football walloped into your face to a chorus of jaw flapping arsehole kid laughter.

Being the only person to witness a plane suddenly nosedive in the faraway night sky and having nothing but The Krypton Factor to comfort you.

Someone's six foot moon faced big brother in a bomber jacket turning up instead of your dad.

Please share your horrible moments in pop.  Not things that are meant to be provocative.  The more innocuous and Smooth Radio friendly, the better.

[Clatty McCutcheon]

The weird squeaky, squelchy keyboard solo on 'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun' is amusingly obnoxious. Also, once you think it's over it resurfaces and kind of continues intermittently chirping away in the background. Strangely, it kind of works though.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

Adele's random bits of American inflection in the song Easy on Me- "chaynce" instead of "chance", "chaaald" instead of "child", and so on. Pretty honking considering her voice is supposed to be her big selling point. I know many non-septics sing in an American accent but it's so much worse to me when it's only really noticeable in certain words. Edit- it's horrible because it sounds like shit. Doesn't really fulfil the remit but I've committed now. Sorry.

[Tikwid]

I've always found there to be something needlessly unnerving about the synth pad that plays throughout most of Boom Boom Pow by the Black Eyed Peas - feels like an ominous ambient sound effect in a Half-Life 2 level set in the sewers, where you can barely see anything and a manhack might fly out and gore you at any moment. eugh

[Chicory]

The exquisite 'Michael Caine' by Madness has a nasty, claustrophobic quality to it.  The ironically sunny synth timpani.  Those flat, pitch-shifted backing vocals.  Smyth's defeated monologue.  Perfect.  Still gets played regularly by and for people who just think it's a cheery song about the nation's favourite nonagenarian Brexit enthusiast.

[Better Midlands]

I've always found there to be something needlessly unnerving about the synth pad that plays throughout most of Boom Boom Pow by the Black Eyed Peas - feels like an ominous ambient sound effect in a Half-Life 2 level set in the sewers, where you can barely see anything and a manhack might fly out and gore you at any moment. eugh

That's actually a looped vocal sample of Rowetta who sang on Happy Mondays - Step On from this (acapella bit right at the end)

[extraordinary walnuts]

This instantly made me think of Taylor Parkes on Chart Music describing the horrible "We've been observing your earth" Davey Jones bit in the Carpenters version of Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft.

[Chicory]

Narada Michael 'Brian' Walden's signature whizz-bang production works wonders for Whitney Houston's 'How Will I Know' but the song takes a sinister turn towards the end.  A key change that goes an octave lower.  Always weirds me out.

[jamiefairlie]

Niche one:

Sheena Easton's debut single starts with two lines whose final words set my teeth on edge with their twisted forced American accent betraying her desperate thirst for fame and the American way. She's such a Thatcherite.

I wake up every mornin', I stumble out of bed
Stretchin' and yawnin', another day ahead

Beayud
Aheayud

Vomit!

[Sean Ymphs]

In That Loving You Feeling Again by Roy Orbison and Emmylou Harris there's some backing vocals that come in at 2:06, with some heavy detuned chorus effect that really jars with the rest of the song:

[buzby]

Pure, rancid menace.

In the video the keyboard player is using an E-Mu Emax sampling workstation to play the tortured digital organ sound (it's that wide-range pitch bending thing that sounds very wrong - you can't pitch bend a real Hammond like that). Contemporary 1988 live performances (when it was first released but failed to make the Top 40) use the Emax and a Roland D50, with the organ part played on the D50, using what to my ears sounds the 'Rock Organ' preset (which is what it sounds like on the record too). The Emax was used to play brass stabs.

When it finally became a hit in early 1989, the band's live setup changed to a Korg M1 and Roland D50 (one pair of each for the keyboard player and at the front of the stage for Roachford himself - he played the keyboard parts on the records, and sometimes did them himself live). In the performance of the song for the 1990 Princes Trust Gala, Roachford plays the organ part using the Korg M1's 'Organ2' Hammond organ sample-based preset, which sounds a bit more realistic than the very digital sound on the record.

[BlodwynPig]

Your honour, the prosecution in The People vs AI calls to the stand: Dr Roderick Buzby

[Clatty McCutcheon]

Can anyone identify what makes the odd noise that recurs at regular intervals throughout this early UB40 single (first appearing at about 0:16)? I mean, UB40 would go on to commit far worse crimes against music but it's kind of annoying.

[jamiefairlie]

Any mid to late 80s song that has synth "orchestral stabs". A truly awful noise.

[JesusAndYourBush]

I always thought the solo on Queen's 'I want to break free' was being played by Brian May with his guitar midi'd to a keyboard and the idea of May playing his guitar and this silly sound coming out of it amused me no end.

Much later I was disappointed to learn the solo was played by session musician Fred Mandel on a Roland Jupiter-8 synth.

[jamiefairlie]

Can anyone identify what makes the odd noise that recurs at regular intervals throughout this early UB40 single (first appearing at about 0:16)? I mean, UB40 would go on to commit far worse crimes against music but it's kind of annoying.

I like that noise, a kind of 'vworp'. It's all over dub records of the time, usually echoey as per the style.

[Ascent]

In the video the keyboard player is using an E-Mu Emax sampling workstation to play the tortured digital organ sound (it's that wide-range pitch bending thing that sounds very wrong - you can't pitch bend a real Hammond like that). Contemporary 1988 live performances (when it was first released but failed to make the Top 40) use the Emax and a Roland D50, with the organ part played on the D50, using what to my ears sounds the 'Rock Organ' preset (which is what it sounds like on the record too). The Emax was used to play brass stabs.

Pitch bend on a Hammond Organ is the audio Uncanny Valley.

[Ascent]

I always thought the solo on Queen's 'I want to break free' was being played by Brian May with his guitar midi'd to a keyboard and the idea of May playing his guitar and this silly sound coming out of it amused me no end.

Much later I was disappointed to learn the solo was played by session musician Fred Mandel on a Roland Jupiter-8 synth.

I thought exactly the same. I've never understood how they could make a Jupiter-8 sound so horrible. Takes skill.

[Norton Canes]

See this is why I am reluctant to learn any musical instrument, and thereby find out how different types work.

Normal person hears the keyboard solo on 'Cuddly Toy' by Roachford: "That's the keyboard solo on 'Cuddly Toy' by Roachford"

Person who knows about musical instruments hears the keyboard solo on 'Cuddly Toy' by Roachford: "Aargh! Rancid piss mince! &tc."

However I don't want to leave you bereft of Roachford-related musical content, so I'll just say that the piano line in Family Man always sounded very much like the piano line in Depeche Mode's Policy of Truth.

[JesusAndYourBush]

I remember Roachford appearing on The Last Resort with Jonathan Ross on Channel 4.  This was back when he was still spelling his name as Rochford.  Jonathan Ross introduced him as "Wotchford".  Presumably this disgusted the man so much that it was the reason why he changed the spelling from that moment onwards.
According to wiki this is not true, but it's what I remember.  Possibly it's memory shenanigans aka Mandela Effect.  I'm sure I remember his name being spelt Rochford in the end credits and in the TV Times.  Why would I remember this? Maybe the show was supplied with a wrong spelling of his name, or maybe my brain made it up!

[Chicory]

Normal person hears the keyboard solo on 'Cuddly Toy' by Roachford: "That's the keyboard solo on 'Cuddly Toy' by Roachford"

Person who knows about musical instruments hears the keyboard solo on 'Cuddly Toy' by Roachford: "Aargh! Rancid piss mince! &tc."

I'm about as musical as Liam Gallagher's underpants.  It just sounds like someone having a stroke in a graveyard.

[Goldentony]

is it just me or is the sound of Cuddly Toy by Roachford perhaps the most sexually powerful sound of all the time? every time I listen to it I can only see visions of erection after erection spinning infinitely through a big vaginal universe with torrents of cum circling the air in impossible angles

[Russ L]

I truly hate the keyboard voice used in the DUDDLE-UH DER DER-DER DEEER, DER-DUH-DER-DER-DÈR-DUH-DER bit of Stevie Wonder's "Living For The City", an otherwise amazing song.

[buzby]

I truly hate the keyboard voice used in the DUDDLE-UH DER DER-DER DEEER, DER-DUH-DER-DER-DÈR-DUH-DER bit of Stevie Wonder's "Living For The City", an otherwise amazing song.

Innervisons was recorded using Bob Margouleff and Malcolm Cecil's gigantic modular synth TONTO.

The solo part in Living For The City featured multiple Moog and ARP oscillator modules played in unison.

[Russ L]

The solo part in Living For The City featured multiple Moog and ARP oscillator modules played in unison.

Points for innovation but I find it to be a decidedly unpleasant sound.

[soaking wet, mate]

Probably about 15 years too late to do this, but one of those 10hr videos of a loop of the exquisite keyboard solo from Tina T's 'What's Love Got To Do With It' would be great for at least an hour or two

[Beagle 2]

Any mid to late 80s song that has synth "orchestral stabs". A truly awful noise.

It's allowed to stay in Owner of a Lonely Heart. Funniest moment in rock.

[amateur]

The bit in Starships by Nicki Minaj (1:49) where in lieu of a post chorus it just drops a load of diluted dubstep synth noises.

Appalling, delicious, give me more.

[Chicory]

Despite a stellar vocal performance from the Real Lady Diana, 'Chain Reaction' gives me bad vibes.  The cold, tick-tock rhythm you can't really dance to.  The eldritch synths that positively growl with malevolence.  Those ridiculous hamstery Bee Gee backing vocals they insisted putting on it.  The way it seems to veer out of control towards the end and the way there is no end, like a squeaky, possessed, accelerating merry-go-round you can't climb off.

[Norton Canes]

Well it is about orgasms