Michael Kamen: the genius in the background of classic rock
Every generation will have a handful of musicians who don’t get the respect most people think they should. For as much time and effort they put into making the greatest music on Earth, it’s another matter of trying to capture the public’s eyes as well as their ears the same that The Beatles and Led Zeppelin did in their prime. Although Michael Kamen isn’t necessarily on that level of familiarity with classic rock fans, his fingerprints have been all over the greatest anthems of the past half-century.
Because if there’s one word to describe Kamen’s work, it would be ‘emotional’. Regardless of the number of sessions he played on, he was usually responsible for putting the finishing touches on songs that felt like they would be ordinary ballads otherwise, either working behind the keyboard or making lavish orchestrations.
While many artists would just present arrangements to orchestral players and have them figure it out independently, Kamen was always good at listening to what the song needed every time he went into the studio. Even if it wasn’t written on the page, his way of inventing lines gave a layer of sophistication to the worlds of prog-rock, metal, pop and everything in between.
When working with Pink Floyd on The Wall, his creative decisions on anthems like ‘Comfortably Numb’ are half the reason why the song works. The original idea was to have David Gilmour strumming guitar throughout the chorus of the song, but having the strings arpeggiating the chords behind him helps illustrate the feeling of being weightless on a drug high like ‘Pink’ is in the context of the album.
Even though Kamen stuck around and was mentally scarred working on The Final Cut, Floyd was just the beginning of putting his stamp on rock and roll. Going into the 1990s, his work with legends like Guns N’ Roses and Bryan Adams helped put orchestras back into popular rotation on the hit parade. It may have been made to satisfy Axl Rose’s ego on ‘November Rain’, but for as overblown as the song is, getting Kamen in for the job is the only way the metal legends could tug on people’s heartstrings that hard.
When working with Tom Petty on the album Wildflowers, Kamen brought the kind of drama that Petty heard in his head to life as well. There was a moodiness spread throughout all of Petty’s records, but hearing Kamen in the background on ‘Wildflowers’ or ‘It’s Good to Be King’ turned them from a guy and his guitar to a cinematic landscape spread across five minutes.
Beyond just his abilities as an arranger, Kamen would also casually throw together some of the greatest pop songs of all time as well. Outside of his time collaborating with artists with songs that were already completed, Kamen took the lead when penning Sting’s ‘Fields of Gold’, as well as adding different melodies to ‘Moments of Pleasure’ off of Kate Bush’s The Red Shoes.
If there was one piece that says it all for Kamen, though, it would have to be his work with Metallica on the album S&M. After all, he was the one who turned ‘Nothing Else Matters’ from a pillowy love song into the orchestral masterstroke that landed on The Black Album, but hearing the live album in context, you’d swear that Kamen is playing the band like an instrument.
Even when tearing through songs that should be purely thrash metal like ‘Master of Puppets’, him putting subtle touches into the mix with strings and the occasional woodwind instrument was something that James Hetfield would have never thought of on his own. But that’s what being a session musician is all about, isn’t it?
As opposed to taking the opportunity to grandstand, Kamen always played what was right for the song, whether it was reactionary to what the artist was doing or putting in something new that breathed new life into something which would have been considered dull by comparison. He may not have received the type of adulation that his collaborators did, by in terms of raw emotion, he should stand right alongside cinematic legends like John Williams for how much heart he put into his tracks.
