| Jun. 5th, 2007 @ 02:00 pm 24 Greatest Rock Songs Meme |
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Hey, that sounds like: The Fall -- Totally Wired
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) manda_x started this, but I don't like her rules. So I'm just naming 12 rock songs that I really like. In no particular order.
If you don't like them, well, I guess you're just not as good a person as me. Be told.
1) Billy Thorpe -- "Children of the Sun". A shout-out to Mr. Thorpe, who shed this mortal coil last February. COTS is a fine piece of early '80s rock that builds slowly, pays off nicely, and never fails to put a smile on my face.
2) Soundgarden -- "4th of July". When you're a metal fan, you learn to become a connoisseur of songs about nuclear holocausts. This is perhaps the best ever written, even better than Megadeth's "Set the World Afire."
3) Foo Fighters -- "One By One". Easily the best thing about the album it's on. I defy you not to bang your head during the break before the last chorus, where Dave Grohl is pounding out those power chords and screaming "DONE! DONE! ONTO THE NEXT ONE!"
4) Black Sabbath -- "Hole In the Sky". Just about any Black Sabbath song could go on this list, except maybe for really weird/hippieish stuff like "Who Are You?", but HITS wins because it's on the metal mix I was listening to in the car on the way to work today.
5) Ministry -- "N.W.O.". I was never particularly worried about George H. W. Bush's presidency; mostly it confused me. So Al Jourgensen has really accomplished something by writing a song that makes him seem like a credible threat to the American People. (The sequel, despite much better material to work with, falls a little flat for me.)
6) The Rolling Stones -- "Gimme Shelter". There's a reason this song keeps getting used as background to mob bosses blowing up each other's safehouses and beating each other bloody in movies and television. That reason is awesomeness.
7) The Beatles -- "I'm A Loser". One of the rare tracks from their early period that sets a melancholy tone about love. The peppy rhythm and sweet harmonies mask real despair and self-loathing.
8) Steely Dan -- "Reelin' in the Years". You'll never realize how fucked up this song is until you stop and listen to the lyrics, because (like the song above) it's so peppy and swingin'. Especially the chorus: "Are you reelin' in the years? / Stowin' away the time? / Are you gath'rin' up the tears? / Have you had enough of mine?" Is that a cold way to cut somebody down, or what?
9) Prong -- "Another Worldly Device". Cleansing is a fucking awesome album, and I could add any of the tracks on it to this list. My favorite part is how it starts with a small growling in your left speaker, but after just eight bars the rest of the band comes barrelling in, with Ted Parsons dropping crisp, sharp snare hits in perfect time. Hell yes!
10) Megadeth -- "Looking Down the Cross". Before Dave Mustaine found God, Megadeth used to be a really kickass band. Songs like this one off their first album (whose lyrics sort of combine the Crucifixion with Passover in some kind of Biblical revenge-from-beyond-the-grave arc), are remarkable for Mustaine's ability to write a 6:00 song and keep upping the energy level right up to the end, rather than copping out after three, three-and-a-half minutes like most rock bands.
11) Metallica -- "The Prince". There was a time when Metallica's best material was not written by other people, but that time is long since past. This one's an old Diamond Head track that came out as a B-side to one of the singles off ...And Justice For All, and it has everything you want in a Metallica song. Furious beats, a killer riff, stout solos, and Hetfield in full throat. Plus, lyrics about Satan!
12) Judas Priest -- "Screaming For Vengeance". There are few finer moments in rock 'n roll music than when, at right around 2:00 into this song, the entire band drops out and Rob Halford makes the word, "SCREEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMINNNNNNNNGGGGGG!" last a full five seconds before they blast back in and lay down the coup de grace.
--- Ajax. |
pleased