Amazing Songs

[Kaleb]

How often in your life have you been listening to a song and suddenly thought, "Holy nuts, this is amazing." I'm not talking about good songs, now, I'm talking about songs that almost defy description.
While I would prefer to limit this to one song per person, or something, we simply don't have enough active members to manage something like that. So I won't try to impose some sort of limit to the number of songs, but I fully expect at least a couple sentences in explanation. I suppose I'd better start this off, or something:

Pearl Jam- Black. Is it possible to sound more mournful? Eddie Vedder is a consistently incredible singer, but this is a performance well above his typical fare. Nothing sums the song up better than the final line: "I know someday you'll have a beautiful life, I know you'll be a star in somebody else's sky. But why, why, why can't it be mine?"

R.E.M.- Everybody Hurts. Sure, it might be a little cliché. But Michael Stipe has one of, if not the most emotive male voices in existence. An already beautiful song, it only gets better when set to the video, which I sadly don't have a handy link to. If you've got the spare bandwidth sometime, though, grab it off of a filesharing network- you won't be disappointed. I have never heard a song with this kind of stopping power; you hear this, and you're basically forced to just listen quietly. Trying to talk over Everybody Hurts just doesn't work. Try it sometime and see.

[Avelon]

Jim Croce - Operator
Simple, but utterly fitting guitar work with strong, very well composed lyrics. Operator is the kind of song that everyone who knows it stops to sing along to. "Thank you for your time; oh, you've been so much more than kind. You can keep the dime." At this point, my mother always grins and says, "Such a great lyric."
Sonata Arctica - *
This comment earned me a cordial 'f**k you' from Kaleb when asking for a second song to put on his list. While ALL Sonata Arctica songs, with the notable exception of 'Gate of Fear' (which you shall never speak to me about under fear of DEATH), are superb, there ARE a few that stand out. I will - though it pains me - select just one, as I'd like to at least appear to attempt something approaching 'sleep'.
Sonata Arctica - The Power of One
This is very reminiscent of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, A dramatic buildup, starting with soft rain and reinforced with a slow guitar riff, leads to a brief poem. The opening line of 'Father, I have killed many angels' grabs the ear, and you won't be getting it back until that soft pattering of raindrops fades away. The song has a strong message, with several other more subtle (and vague) messages worked in here and there. Oh, and an ass kicking guitar solo. This is a song that places you in near-meditative peace. It ends as it began, with the continuation of the opening poem, and a fade to silence.

I'm not that good at describing music, I fear. Give these two a listen, though - they're well worth it, even if it's not your preferred flavour of music.

[waizac]

pearl jams best song is...last kiss, thats SUUUCH a sik song

[Avelon]

Uhm... Last Kiss is NOT by Pearl Jam. That's a remake. J. Frank Wilson & The Cavaliers would be the original performers.

[DooM]

Well. amazing songs. I'm not easely amazed by music of any kind. Especially not by lyrics or some "amazingly" good guitar riff or something. I think a song is amazing when it can get me so far to put it on repeat so I don't have to restart it manually, because I want to hear it over and over again and that not being because it's so pittifully short. Yes, sometimes I restart a song from the Locust a few times over, but generally is because it's fun to hear but only lasts about 30 seconds...
Songs that I sometimes happen to put on repear are:

• Tears in the rain by l'Âme Immortelle
  
• Disharmony by l'Âme Immortelle
  
• 5 Jahre by l'Âme Immortelle
  

Now you'd probably think something like "what the heck does he have with this l'Âme Immortelle?", well, I gues it's still just a matter of taste. I just happen to like electro/goth.

[Yoda]

Camel (tis a progressive rock band) - Echoes. Echoes is the highlight of their album, Breathless, and is the proggriest of the songs. It has some great guitar work and decent lyrics here (not exactly one of Camel's highpoints, but they were always more instrumental based anyway). A lot of people don't like this album because it is uneven and more commercialized than their previous work, but I still think it manages to keep Camel's subtle style and is definitely interesting.

-Y

[DooM]

I always think it's bullnuts when someone sais that he/she doesn't like a band because they are to commercial... Any band who release an album release it just to have people buy it. If a band had no commercial thoughts at all they would just put up all songs they make and are good enough for download.
That means that every single band who release an album for sale have commercial thoughts and are basicly the same, it's just that some bands sell more than others, which makes them suck in some peoples eyes because they would be overly commercial oriented...

[Jest]

Theres a different between a sellout and a comercial band however. The sellouts are the one who sacrifice the music for the sale. Which can be annoying. Theres the midriffs (I tihnk that's the proper term) like Britany Spears all part of the Bubblegum industry (chew em up and spit em out) where her sales point wasn't the music, it was the teenage with breasts. She had to take off more and more slowly to keep the medias attention. I don't think it was ever about the music.

[DooM]

That is true, ofcourse there is a difference, but a band (or other form of musical artist) would never release an album with the goal of not selling any. They release it so people buy it. That means there is a commercial thought with it.

[Eskimo]

I was thinking about talking about a song by dredg but I changed my mind...

Pig Destroyer: Suicide through Decay- I’m not really into this group all that much, however, this song is a classic. The intense chords are only matched by the amazing vocals. For those who are the least susceptible to grind this is a must listen to.

[Soul-Divider]

Let it Be...by the beetles


wow, this song has all negative parts in it:
it's monotanous, it's the same line repeated 900 times [/exaggeration] it's overly depressing to listen to, there's a serious lack of instruments heard...along with other things I can't think of. Yet this song always makes me feel calm, relaxed and think...wow, life doesn't suck, it's just a pain in the arse. It's not a song I'd go out and buy 5 times or even 1ce...bit it's definately nice =)

A song that does all this with those ingreedients is amazing and near epic in my eyes.


also on the topic of commertialism. If I was to make a band (probably with jest as a double act =P) and I knew we were good enough to make sales on the songs. I'd wanna make a album or whatever, if anything just to pay off the cost of the instuments, our time ect. With also the makeup of not ahvign a real job because we'd be doing this instead....Although I'd never go like Brittney.
My point: I'd still wanna make a living from it, if I get rich big deal, that's just a bonus, it's not my aim.

[DooM]

eskimo said:

I was thinking about talking about a song by dredg but I changed my mind...

Pig Destroyer: Suicide through Decay- I’m not really into this group all that much, however, this song is a classic. The intense chords are only matched by the amazing vocals. For those who are the least susceptible to grind this is a must listen to.

Yeah Pig Destroyer rocks quite much, another quite amazing grindband is Birdflesh, they're not your avarage standard grindband, they make songs of between 2 and 3 minutes as other grindbands mostly stay below that
A great song they made is consumer mentality which lasts 3:04 minutes.

[Zeke]

Well, I know its old, but still.

Queen - Bohemian Rapsody
Its just brilliant. I can manage to listen to it all the time without stop and without getting sick of it. It has a good tune, is sang incredibly well, and has good lyrics and guitar. I'm almost listening obsessively...

[Jest]

Isn't Bohemian Rhapsody considered the best rock song of all time? I don't agree myself, but I think that's the common thought.

Imogen Heap- Hide and Seek

This song is very unique, it's almost purely harmony. Some of the voice tracks are slightly distorted with the harmony and then the last layer appears to be synth. It plays almost like a modern Hymn great song.

[Soul-Divider]

I find bohemian Rhapsody to be quite random, it has like nothing in it but random rantings in a tone that can be difficult to understand at best