Musical Style and Themes
Tim Rice-Oxley and Dominic Scott were the main writers of the band's songs during their early years. When Scott left in 2002, Rice-Oxley became the main composer. However, Rice-Oxley credits the rest of the band on all compositions, so that royalties for song credits are shared.
The band has been known as "the band with no guitars", because of its heavily piano-based sound. By using delay and distortion effects on their piano sound, they often create sounds that aren't immediately recognisable as piano. Rice-Oxley said during an interview in Los Angeles that they tend to think piano-related music is boring and what they really wanted to do was try something different. He referred to the piano as an odd instrument to form part of a rock band instrumentation, comparing it to The Beatles' set of instruments. Rice-Oxley's distortion piano has been key to most of Keane's multifaceted style, varying from Hip Hop on "Dirtylicious" to house on "Tyderian".
During their early years most songs were about love or broken relationships (most notably "She Has No Time" and "On a Day Like Today"). However, other themes — including the relationship between Rice-Oxley and Chaplin — have emerged in more recent compositions. Other themes have been explored; for example, "Is It Any Wonder?" and "A Bad Dream" are both about war. More recent themes have included the impact of being a celebrity in "Better Than This" and "Clear Skies" and criticism of religious violence in "Perfect Symmetry".
Keane have covered songs by artists such as U2, Rufus Wainwright, Depeche Mode, Genesis, The Beatles, The Cult and Queen with Tim saying: "I guess it's classic song writing that is the main influence rather than one band in particular – we love people like Nick Drake who can convey so much emotion and write songs and albums that will be loved and cherished for many years – the things that will be in people's record collections for their whole lives."
Read more about this topic: Keane (band)
Famous quotes containing the words musical, style and/or themes:
“Creative force, like a musical composer, goes on unweariedly repeating a simple air or theme, now high, now low, in solo, in chorus, ten thousand times reverberated, till it fills earth and heaven with the chant.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The difference between style and taste is never easy to define, but style tends to be centered on the social, and taste upon the individual. Style then works along axes of similarity to identify group membership, to relate to the social order; taste works within style to differentiate and construct the individual. Style speaks about social factors such as class, age, and other more flexible, less definable social formations; taste talks of the individual inflection of the social.”
—John Fiske (b. 1939)
“I suppose you think that persons who are as old as your father and myself are always thinking about very grave things, but I know that we are meditating the same old themes that we did when we were ten years old, only we go more gravely about it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)