Lately I've been thinking a lot about the concept of a power trio. Although I am a synth player, I do sincerely believe that the power trio is the purest musical form in Rock. It is to contemporary music as the string quartet was to Beethoven.
A lot of my favorite bands are power trios, the most notable of which are Rush and The Police. I also find that the bands that make me go "wow" tend to be power trios. An example of this would be Behold... The Arctopus; a band which I do not regularly listen to but which simply astounds me with its weirdness and the technical proficiency of the members.
So I would like to open up this commentary on power trios on this website, to find out what fellow music fans have to say about the construction. Some questions that I hope to answer include:
- Is the power trio the purest musical form in Rock?
- Is the power trio dying out or does it have current relevance and potential for a rebound?
- Would the power trio be possible without modern studio wizardry, and do the countless overdubs that a power trio requires threaten their musical integrity?
- What are the best power trios, and can we learn lessons from their success that could help us find out about the form as a whole?
- Is a power trio still a power trio if, say, the guitarist is replaced by a synth player?
- Are non-Rock trios that comprise bass, guitar and drums still power trios?
- What is the history of the power trio?