From Lex (via another blog): The 50 Coolest Song Parts. I had too many comments to leave in Lex’s Haloscan, so …
#49: The first 100 times I heard Been Caught Stealing, I thought I was listening to Ratt.
#40, La Grange: The reason I didn’t pursue music is that I realized that no matter how much I practiced or how much I drank, I’d never be able to play the drum parts in that song. (Note: I actually drink very, very little, which doesn’t help.)
#38, All Night Long: Are you kidding?
#36, You Can Call Me Al: Had no idea the bass line was a palindrome. Neat.
#32: More cowbell!
#27, Mexican Radio: I’ll always associate that song with high school chess club. Sadly, that was before geek was chic.
#26, The End: The intro gives me chills, especially after seeing Oliver Stone’s film.
#21, Under Pressure: Good, good choice. The British are the masters of being dramatic without being overwrought.
#16: “Hey you! Don’t watch that! Watch this!”
#15, Tom Sawyer: People give me such a hard time for being a Rush fan. But everyone likes this song.
#11: Hate to admit it, but I think the devil won.
#9: Yes, the Hot For Teacher drums are cool, but that’s a playable bass-drum line if you have relatively fast feet and a very reliable double pedal.
#8: Rock Lobster is the wrong song for the classic B-52s moment. All together now: “Tiiiiiiiiiin roof! (pause) RUS-ted!”
#6, The Immigrant Song: One of my favorite moments in Musician magazine history was the pair of photo captions ripping Whitesnake. “Plant: I come from the land of the ice and snow … Coverdale: I do too.”
#2, Won’t Get Fooled Again: That should be #1.
There are a couple I’d nominate:
- Radiohead, Fake Plastic Trees: Roughly three-quarters of the way through the song, the electric guitar finally kicks in, and the mournful lyrics hit an unrivaled primal-scream crescendo.
- Stevie Wonder, Superstition: He wastes no time. The hi-hat and snare at the beginning tell you that he has something to SAY in this song, and the keyboards tell you to sit back and hear the word. No rapper has ever caught a listener’s attention so effectively.
I’ll need to come back to this …