This list includes compositional, performance, instrumental, and vocal techniques.

Lake Baikal is the world’s biggest lake by volume of water; it’s so big, in fact, that it contains 1/5th of the world’s unfrozen surface freshwater. It’s also the world’s deepest lake (just over a mile in depth), and is perhaps the world’s oldest as well. Baikal is home to a number of fascinating animals, including one of the only freshwater seal species, as well as an extremely fatty, scaleless, translucent fish called a golomyanka.

But what’s this got to do with music? Well, a Russian percussion group known as “ETHNOBEAT“—from Irkutsk Technical University—sojourned to Lake Baikal in March of 2012 to drum on the frozen surface of Lake Baikal. Watch as the group’s members brave the -20ºC weather to produce a beautiful array of percussive sounds using only their hands and the different types of ice at their disposal. The group owes the project to a piece of clumsiness—Tatiana, the wife of one of the drummers, had previously fallen on her bottom, producing an intriguing musical sound when she hit the surface. From there, a singular concert arose, turning frozen water into a symphony.

Eephing (sometimes spelled eefing) can probably best be understood as a type of “hillbilly beatboxing”—although it predates beatboxing by nearly 100 years. It’s a fast-paced Appalachian singing technique that can be crudlely broken down as 1/3 saying “eef” (or another vowel + f), 1/3 mouth-farting, and 1/3 gasping. Jennifer Sharpe, who profiled legendary eepher Jimmie Riddle on NPR, described it as “a kind of hiccupping, rhythmic wheeze.” It originated in rural farming communities in Tennessee where eephers would imitate the sounds of their pigs and turkeys.

Eephing has never seen much in the way of mainstream success, but got its 15 minutes of fame in 1963 when Riddle was featured on Joe Perkins’s single “Little Eefin’ Annie.” Little Eefin’ Annie reached #76 on the Billboard charts and exposed a generation of listeners to the unique sounds of eephing.

Check out this video for a short eephing lesson from Riddle.

Konnakol—sometimes colorfully referred to as “Indian scat singing” or “Indian beatboxing”—is the South Indian art of vocal percussion. It is a component of “solkattu,” the language of drum syllables, along with “tala” (or “taal”), the percussive part done with the hand on a “mridangam” drum. With tala, the meter is kept with waves, claps, and finger counts, while the musician simultaneously vocalizes the konnakol.

Performers of konnakol learn very complex, systematic, almost grammatical rules and techniques to produce rapid-fire vocal percussion. As with any advanced musical system, it must be seen and heard to be fully appreciated. John McLaughlin, a British musician and guitar virtuoso who studied konnakol and other Indian techniques and styles, said of konnakol: “if you can understand Konnakol—the most superior system of learning rhythm in the world—you can understand any rhythm from any country on the planet.”

Through-composed music refers to a piece of music that does not repeat any part of itself, or does so rarely. Nearly all compositions have musical elements that occur again and again, especially pop music, which has a fairly rigidly set structure that sees relatively few deviations.

Truly through-composed music is fairly rare, but there are a few well-known examples. Schubert wrote a number of “lieds” (romantic German poems set to music), where he wrote different music for every line. Haydn’s “Farewell Symphony” is also through-composed. In popular music, most so-called through-composed pieces do, in fact, have some amount of repeating elements, but are still largely considered to be a part of the genre. Perhaps the best-known example in rock is Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody;” the 1975 classic doesn’t have a chorus, and is divided into distinct sections that include elements of folk, rock, hard rocks, opera, and ballad. The Beatles have a number of tunes (including “Happiness is a Warm Gun,” “A Day in the Life”) which are hybrid-like songs that comprise two very distinct parts.

Hollerin’ is an ancient singing tradition whose origins can be traced back as far as the early days of language. It served a practical purpose—to communicate information over long distances. In the 1700s, in North Carolina, loggers hollered to communicated important instructions to one another; it survived for many years in various forms. There are many different purposes to a holler, including distress (danger), communicative (usually a basic greeting), functional (day-to-day farming calls), and expressive (the pure pleasure of hollerin’). Though hollerin’ has been functionally dead for some time, a revival has been under way since 1969 in the form of The National Hollerin’ Contest in Spivey’s Corner, NC. Held on the 3rd Saturday every June, the contest seeks to revive the extinct art and keep its legacy alive.

Field hollering, an African-American cousin to hollerin’, is a type of singing that can be considered a close relative of the “work song.” Believed to be a potential forerunner to the blues, field hollering doesn’t show up on any recordings until the mid-1930s but is known to have much older roots. It involves falsetto, portamento (sliding from one pitch to another), and sudden pitch changes.

Tuvan throat singers accomplish something pretty amazing: they are able to sing multiples pitches simultaneously. These singers—from the Siberian region of Tuva—are using a vocal technique that’s a type of “overtone singing,” a style of singing that exists all over the world. Overtone singing likely originated in Mongolia, in the regions now known as Khovd and Govi-Altai. Traditionally, these “xöömei” have been men, but more and more women are beginning to learn the practice.

When you listen to a piece of throat singing music for the first time, it’s fairly breathtaking, and probably unlike anything you’ve ever heard. The singer begins with a deep, low, guttural droning sound, and then over time he breaks it up into its component tones, amplifying each one separately so it can be heard as a distinct note. It’s a tremendously difficult technique to master, as it involves several different components—throat singers must breathe circularly (see item 2), to allow the voice to be continuous and unbroken, then control various parts of their throat and mouth (lips, tongue, jaw, velum, and larynx) to create echo chambers in their vocal folds. From there they manipulate the sound to create distinct, multi-faceted, and truly unique music.

That wailing, unsettling sound that a banshee makes? That’s called “keening“—a type of musical, vocal lamentation usually associated with Ireland, though it exists in various forms in many other cultures. To keen is “to make a loud and long cry of sorrow; to lament with a keen.” Though it’s not commonly heard in Ireland nowadays (most keening ceased in the early 1900s), it used to be standard practice at funerals, either by a single woman or a group of women. Once upon a time, keeners (“mná caointe”) performed these “caoineadh” at wakes and funerals as a way of joining the community together in a display or grief and mourning. Keeners would praise the dead, but would also wail curses at those who had done the deceased wrong. More than simple mourners, mná caointe helped communities manage death, holdin spiritual duties as well—including assisting the deceased in their journey to the afterlife.

The practice may date all the way back to the Israelites (and perhaps even further), who passed the custom along through Eastern civilizations, then through the Greeks and Romans. In the Irish language, the word was written “cine,” very similar to the Hebrew word “cina”—”lamentation or weeping with clapping of hands.”

Hannes Coetzee lives in the small South African town of Herbertsdale, where he makes a living extracting aloe from succulents in the desert. He’s known around the world, however, for his unique style of playing guitar—he bills himself as a “teaspoon slide guitarist.” With a spoon in his mouth serving as a type of slide, Coetzee coaxes a distinct, twangy music from his steelstring guitar. The technique is called “optel an knyp,” which means “pick up and pinch,” and it’s a style of playing that, as far as anyone knows, was invented by Coetzee himself.

Coetzee’s story received some broader recognition in a 2003 Documentary called “Karoo Kitaar Blues.” The film chronicles South African musician David Kramer’s 2001 efforts to put on a concert featuring some of the country’s best unknown musicians.

Circular breathing is a fairly tricky breathing technique that effectively allows a person to sustain a musical note (or succession of notes) indefinitely. On the surface, it isn’t overly complicated—when you perform this technique, you’re essentially breathing normally, while storing a small amount of extra air in your cheeks so that when you run out of breath in your lungs, you can breathe quickly through your nose while you use that cheek reserve to keep playing. The mechanics are not complex to grasp, but actually doing it takes a lot of practice. Certain instruments, perhaps most famously the didgeridoo, require this type of breathing to properly play; while the originals of circular breathing are not known, it is possible that Australian Aborigines developed the technique specifically for the didgeridoo.

While many musicians have made a name for themselves (at least in part) through their use of circular breathing—including Mexican trumpeter Rafael Mendéz, British saxophonist Andy Sheppard, and American bandleader Irvin Mayfield—it’s none other than Kenny G who set a world record. In 1997, the adult contemporary-smooth-jazzist played an E-Flat on his soprano saxophone for 45 minutes and 47 seconds, managing to hold the note by using the circular breathing technique.

The most well-known talking-guitar musician is likely Peter Frampton, who famously sang into his “Talk Box” on the hit singles “Do You Feel Like We Do” and “Show Me The Way.” The Talk Box is an effects unit that allows the user to connect their voice to an instrument; Frampton has his own line of talk boxes and owes at least some of his success to the distinctive sound of his voice spoken through his electric guitar.

Frampton, however, was hardly the first musician to experiment with talking guitars. Alvino Rey, an American swing era musician often credited with inventing the pedal steel guitar, pioneered a carbon throat microphone that was wired to affect the tone of his electric guitar. Rey placed the microphone on the throat of his sister, who mouthed words, producing what Rey called the “Singing Guitar.” Many of Rey’s tunes featured a small guitar puppet named “Stringy,” who acted as a sort of singing, guitar-voiced ventriloquist dummy.

In 1964, music pioneer Pete Drake released “Forever,” an album whose single of the same name was a huge hit. The “singing guitar” style was resurrected, and the song reached #22 on the Billboard charts. Drake’s mastery of the guitar, both “talking” and otherwise, led to him being featured on dozens of hits in the 1960s, including “Lay Lady Lay” and (most likely) “Stand By Your Man.”

“Chanking” is a guitar technique, found (among other styles) in punk, reggae, and rhythm and blues, where you squeeze (and hold) the strings against the neck of the guitar and strum at the same time. The word is a portmanteau (the result of two words blended together to form a new one) of “choke” and “yank.” The result is a scratchy, repetitive percussive sound that was made famous by James Brown and his guitarist Jimmy Nolen, and can be heard clearly on their 1965 hit “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag.”

Chanking is very closely related to “chicken scratching,” a similar technique that differs by the slight and quick release of the fretting hand. To make the chicken scratch sound, guitarists press lightly against the strings and quickly release, while very rapidly strumming with the other hand near the guitar’s bridge.

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This lister hopes some of the victims’ families and friends frequent Listverse and enjoy this list. Either way, we all suffer to think of a Christmas suddenly without our children. Classical music, perhaps more than any other genre, possesses a quality of timelessness. Its best examples do not remind us of any century or era, but provide what the French call an “oubliette,” “a place of forgetting.” 





Let us start with one of the finest fugues from the all-time master of contrapuntal music. This was chosen only because it is in a major key, so there’s no sorrowful, doleful atmosphere, and because among major-key fugues over the centuries, this one does not shy away from declaring and exploring its theme in a surprisingly difficult key for keyboard instruments. You may liken this one to the Pearly Gates opening and all the greens and blues of Paradise spreading into the distance.





This is Widor’s most famous piece, and for good reason. He wrote 10 symphonies for the organ at a time when Bach’s 1800s resurgence had claimed the title of Organ Gods firmly for Germany. The French wanted a share of the glory, and while championing the works of Couperin, Marchand, and a host of others, the contemporary greats like Franck, Widor, Eugene Gigout, Louis Vierne, and Marcel Dupre, to name a few, published tons of organ works in as many genres as they could think of.



Widor’s fifth symphony for solo organ has 5 movements, none of them a fugue, but instead they are written in legitimate sonata-allegro form, except for the last movement. Toccata is Italian for “touch,” and the traditional form is meant to sound light and delicate, typically allegro to presto. The most famous example is Bach’s in D minor, BWV 565. Widor’s is second, with a repeated rhythm phrased throughout that is quite easy to play even for intermediate students. Everything lies well under the fingers.





As a nod to The Hobbit, and New Zealand (Heaven) in general, this piece is possibly the most quintessential high-fantasy, sword-and sorcery genre music in the Classical canon. It sounds like the undertaking of the Fellowship to journey across Middle-earth to destroy the One Ring, or like Bilbo and the Dwarves setting off for the Lonely Mountain.



A publisher nicknamed this one the “Rhenish,” from the German “Rhein” for the Rhine River, as it sounded to him like the Bavarian Rhine valley. The main theme is epic, opening on full-orchestral half notes, with an immediate restatement by the brass section. It has been called “heroic” many times, because of Schumann’s heavy use of French horns. Music Appreciation 101: French horns signal the hero.



James Horner ripped it off for his “Willow” score. But then, almost all film composers rip off Wagner, even if they don’t want to.





Tchaikovsky’s last three symphonies – 4, 5, and 6 – are his masterpieces; and few, if any, symphonies flaunt more sweeping exhilaration than his fifth. The final movement is about 15 minutes long and recycles the two main themes of the 1st movement into new development. Tchaikovsky described the finale as “pure optimism,” and given the way his life turned out, his later criticism of it is understandable: “insincere, perhaps criminally so, like a fairy tale for an audience beyond adolescence.”



We can forgive him for that ever since WWII, when the fairy tale came true. Not that there was any doubt from 1943 on that the Allies would win, but to slack off from the attack, secure in this confidence, is the fastest way to lose a war. So when the good guys took the victory, the unparalleled blood and gore made this finale’s “stormy Cossack onslaught” more realistic. WWII gave this symphony lasting popularity.





This is one of this lister’s personal favorites. Respighi’s “Pines of Rome” is among the best works of program music in history, worthy of recognition alongside Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique and Beethoven’s 6th Symphony. There are four movements, and Respighi intended each to depict an ancient Italian scene, the last one a rather simple image of an army returning along the Appian Way to a triumph in Rome. It has always seemed most fitting on the surface to think of Julius Caesar’s 13th Legion, the most famous of Rome’s armies, but it returned from Gaul in the north to Rome, and the Appian Way begins at Rome, which it connects to Southeast Italy.



Respighi scored this movement for full orchestra, plus 8, 16, and 32-foot organ pedal stops on the lowest B-flat. These pedal beats give the music its driving pulse and Respighi specifically reminds performances, in the score, that the organ is as indispensable as the heart. The music sounds precisely as he intended, as a grand entrance: Caesar at the head of the 13th, Jesus riding a donkey into Jerusalem, and so on.



The first of three Mahler entries, but flooding the list with one composer was not arbitrary. Mahler wrote symphonies almost exclusively, and although he was certainly obsessed with death, his music is rarely morbid. Most of his symphonies have happy endings. He seems to have been fascinated with the notion of no longer existing. He intended his second symphony to be a sort of grand funeral for the hero of his first.



The second begins darkly, and becomes darker, but turns into an apotheosis of death, since it leads to new life. The lyrics beginning the finale of the last movement are Mahler’s, added to a poem by Friedrich Klopstock. Mahler’s addition – translated from German – reads: “Oh, believe, you were not born for nothing! You have not lived, or suffered, for nothing! What was created must perish, and what perished must rise again! Stop trembling! Prepare yourself to live!”



Mahler sets this to music so glorious that at the premiere, women passed out in the aisles and grown men wept.



Though this symphony certainly has its tragic moments, it is possibly Mahler’s least morbid. It is also the longest in the standard repertoire, with some performances lasting over an hour and a half. Mahler intended it as program music, and titled the movements to tell a narrative. The final movement he titled “What Love Tells Me,” and it lasts some 30 minutes. It is notoriously difficult for an orchestra to play properly slow throughout. The tendency is to rush, and an iron-willed conductor is required.



It builds and builds to a climax, then backs off and builds to another which is even more powerful, then backs off and builds to an impossibly ultimate elation. If you will pardon the expression, this movement is passionate musical intercourse, a consummation of love, and not just of the physical, which is love’s basest form, but of all aspects and levels of what love means to Mahler, and what he makes it tell us.



There follows the climax a prolonged afterglow that seems to make sure of love’s thorough fulfillment, before dwindling into a vibrant quiet on the tonic, without a bang to let the audience know it’s over.





No 1812 Overture?! No – as a matter of fact, this one is even more exciting, and it doesn’t need to cheat with siege cannons. Tchaikovsky could build a piece of music more inexorably than perhaps any other composer. This is not to say the music is better, but in terms of pure exhilaration he can put you on the edge of your seat more readily that just about anyone.



The last movement of his fourth symphony is one long climax. It begins in a breakneck fortissimo, and ends in an even faster breakneck fortissimo, based on a Russian folk song, “In the Field Stood a Birch Tree.” The 1812 Overture also makes excellent use of such folk songs to express the Russian countryside.



This finale is splendidly punctuated with pounding tympani, quite in the vein of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, which is surprising given that Tchaikovsky was very critical of Beethoven. Tchaikovsky loved melody more than anything and referred to Mozart as “the Christ of music.” This movement is thus loaded with development of the primary theme, slamming through two climaxes before returning to another statement of it for good measure, then slamming it into an ebullient roar of happiness.





Beethoven set out with this mass to write his finest sacred work – in the same way that he set out to write his finest symphony with his ninth, his finest sonatas with his last five, and his finest chamber music with his late quartets. By the time he wrote these pieces, he was completely deaf, unable to hear a cannonball explode next to him.



“Solemn Mass” is just another title for the standard Latin mass, distinguished from the “Missa brevis,” or “Brief Mass.” The Solemn Mass usually consists of 5 movements, the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei. Bach’s Mass in B minor may be considered a solemn mass, but is also one of the few “Missa tota” (“Total mass”), to have been composed, omitting none of the minor lyrics.



Beethoven intended his Gloria to be the most glorious music he could possibly compose. His religion is hotly debated, but there can be no doubt that he believed in God, as he wrote in the margin of the Gloria manuscript, “Gott über alle Dinge!” “God over all things!”



Thus, this setting of praise to God is the most primordial in its expression of love and exuberance, with wanton abandon, a sort of Bacchanalia without sin, and with only worship of God for intoxication. It includes one of Beethoven’s best and grandest fugues, on “In gloria Dei patris. Amen,” which translates to “in the glory of God the Father. Amen.” This leads without pause into a searing coda of full orchestra, and a chorus with soloists, trading back and forth, until the orchestra storms from the Tonic D Major into the dominant G and sweeps the chorus to an ethereal “Gloria!” ending on the 5 chord.





There exists in all music no more cosmic, resplendent conclusion to an exposition and exploration of any subject than the last 15 minutes or so of this symphony. The actual finale, if you want to call it that, may be defined as the final six minutes, beginning with the Chorus Mysticus singing, “Everything transitory is only an approximation; what could not be achieved comes to pass here; what no one could describe is here accomplished; the Eternal Feminine draws us on high.”



This begins “as a breath” in Mahler’s notes, then builds into an exultation of love, eternal life, and death conquered. It transcends the word “finale.” It cannot be described in a single word. Many have been tried: “celestial,” “euphoric,” “jubilant,” “overpoweringly ecstatic,” to name a few. Perhaps “empyrean” is the best. The orchestration calls for massive forces, including an organ and an off-stage brass band of 4 or 5 trumpets and 3 trombones. It’s hard to say what images come to our different minds, but Mahler doesn’t leave much room. It sounds like paradise.

The post Top 10 Musical Moments To Redeem Your Faith In Mankind appeared first on Listverse.

The premise of his claim bothers me still. Videogames and movies are the last refuge for up-and-coming composers in this day and age. Sure, every city has a symphony if you want to go see the works of Beethoven. For an artist composing original works, however, there are few better ways to get your music heard than to break into the game industry.

So here, in slightly arbitrary order, are 15 examples of truly wonderful music from videogames:

Let’s start it off on a happy note. This song evokes images of a simpler time in gaming. A time before gritty reboots and deeply flawed protagonists, when the good guys were good and the bad guys needed to be stopped. It’s unfortunate that music of this style helps establish a setting that would be considered almost childish by today’s standards, but I just can’t help but feel good when I hear the swell of those trumpets through the last half of the song.
Composers : Koji Sakurai / Masahiro Andoh / Takayuki Hattori / Yuko Fukushima

This one may be a bit of a cheat on my part, as this version of the song never appeared in any of the Suikoden games. However, it is an official release as part of the brand, so I’m going with it. I could have chosen any number of songs from the three celtic releases, but Time of Calmness is – hands down – my favorite. The first half is a mellow burn, reminiscent of the first game in the series when your hero returns to his wartorn home city where the once joyous theme is now just a haunting echo. But when the song opens up midway, it does so with gusto.
Composer : Miki Higashino
Arrangers : Yoko Ueno / Yuji Yoshino / Yuko Asai / Shigeyoshi Kawagoe.

Red Alert was a silly, silly thing. It was a real time strategy game set in WW2, with time travel and giant Tesla coils capable of destroying armies. And by silly I mean awesome, of course. While this is not the best song on the list, and the only metal one, it wins a spot by being perfect for the game it was in. The song is dirty, mean, and I always feel like I should get a tetanus shot after hearing it. My only complaint is the superfluous dance remix sounding thing at the end – but honestly, I don’t remember ever hearing that in the game, so maybe it was added for the soundtrack release. I could be wrong!
Composer : Frank Klepacki

When you’re developing a game to be the flagship of an entire console, it’s probably best not to neglect any aspect of it. As a result, the Halo theme is an incredibly polished and professional piece of music. This is the version from the first game in the series. Later versions added wailing guitars and piano parts, and they sound pretty good… But I believe this to be the purest version. To everyone’s surprise they decided on a new theme for the fourth Halo game – but it just doesn’t have the same majesty as the original and its various reincarnations over the years.
Composers : Martin O’Donnell / Michael Salvatori

Who doesn’t love swashbuckling to pirate songs? Pirates was a mediocre game; still, my friends and I had some fun with it for a while, and the soundtrack still gets play in our game room now and again. Sadly, most of the songs are disappointingly short.
Composers : Adam Gubman / Adrian Decker

I’ll admit I never played Nier, but the music is too good to exclude it from the list. The music was composed specifically for the game, but without any relation to what the game is about. In fact, elements of the game were later altered to better fit the music provided. Seems like an odd way of going about it to me, but the end result is wonderful. There is a general theme of melancholy that seeps into every song on the OST. Even those tunes which seem to have everything necessary to be upbeat, somehow end up sadder.
Composers : Keiichi Okabe / Kakeru Ishihama / Keigo Hoashi / Takafumi Nishimura

Some songs are just plain beautiful. Beyond Good and Evil was a great game, which for various reasons failed upon release. With a strong female protagonist (IE fully dressed) named Jade, your task was to stop the destruction of your world from an alien invasion, while armed with little more than a stick, a camera, and your journalistic integrity.

Home Sweet Home was the piece played over the end credits, while the camera panned slowly through her lighthouse/war orphanage home, over children’s drawings and photos of well-earned happier times. Very moving.
Composer : Christophe Heral

The 1981 release of the album “Escape” marked the height of Journey’s popularity. With hit songs like “Don’t Stop Believin’” and… wait, that’s the wrong Journey.

Journey – the game – was released in early 2012, and it is one of the best ever arguments for video games as works of art. The soundtrack is no exception: the idea was to “create music that would be dynamically changing while still containing a composed emotional arc.“ No easy feat, it turns out. Music development took three years – the entire development cycle of the game. Three years may seem like a lot of work for a game that can be played through in an afternoon, but the experience is something I would recommend to anyone.
Composer : Austin Wintory

Quitting Warcraft is a bit like trying to leave the mafia. Even now there are forces trying to drag me back to it, despite my protests. I think they might be getting the wrong idea from the fact that I still listen to songs from the original soundtrack so often, but come on… This song has all the hallmarks of a winner. It has so much power – as is appropriate for a game with ‘War’ in its very name – and that final series of sorrowful notes sends a chill up my spine every time.
Composer : Jason Hayes

I’m a sucker for a sad violin. Almost as much as I am for an angry fiddle. I can’t recall ever hearing them in the same song before, but it perfectly frames the emotions as the music flows from sadness into anger, and then moves into what could only be described as vengeance. Toss in a mellow acoustic guitar and some powerful female vocals, and it makes for a very solid work.
Composers : Yoshitaka Hirota / Yasunori Mitsuda

One of the first bits of advice I ever received about writing a story was that your protagonist will often need to be beaten down. Once he or she has nothing left to lose, then the stage is set for a truly meaningful comeback. In this case, the song itself is that comeback. This song represents the act of rising up out of the blood and ashes, to do what needs to be done. It’s unstoppable, growing ever more and more insistent – even when it seems impossible that it could possibly continue to do so.
Composer – Jack Wall

The Beatmania series is complicated. The gamers are tasked with playing the music provided, using a 7-button analogue keyboard. The higher the difficulty selected, the more difficult the music piece becomes. That is where Osamu Kubota comes in. Over the years he has provided a wealth of amazing short piano works to the series to really challenge the hardcore players. Fans of the series work very hard on being able to master songs like this one, practicing for hours at home so they’ll put on a good show at the arcade.
Composer : Osamu Kubota

For a turn-based strategy game fought with tanks and guns, Valkyria Chronicles had an art style and plot-line that were surprisingly beautiful. The whole game is presented with visuals that feel like a sketchbook, despite being 3D rendered. The love story is very well written, and avoids most of the tropes in Japanese storytelling, which don’t translate very well to a western audience. I’ll admit I might be a little biased in putting this song so high on the list, but it’s a lovely piece either way.

Alternately, I would have loved to add Rosie’s theme, as sung by Hedy Burress in the English version, but the entire scene is a massive spoiler.
Composer : Hitoshi Sakimoto

I could have included the entire soundtrack, really, but I had to pick one song. Bastion is an indy game released in mid-2011 to rave reviews. The game-play is enjoyable enough, but it was the music and narration that really sold it. I’m not even sure how to describe the soundtrack. It has a southern blues twang, a massive string section, as well as heavily sampled beats which I’m normally not a fan of. It all comes together perfectly in the end.

Zia’s Theme isn’t a very good representation of the soundtrack as a whole, but it is the most iconic and poignant song from the game. It appears at first to simply be a melancholy little ditty from a lonely survivor. As you play on, it becomes clearer that it is actually a call to war between the underground people and the wall-building ones above ground. Such a pretty song, yet with such a brutal implications…
Composer : Darren Korb

In many ways, the Skyrim theme is a bit derivative of number seven on this list, and maybe even inspired by it. Still, everything about this song is massive. An aggressive male chorus, a booming orchestra, and chilling, distant female vocals punctuating the pauses… Every time I hear it I just want to go out and punch a dragon in the face. I really have to give them credit, too, for writing the entire song in the fictional language of dragons created for the game.

The song has spawned countless covers by fans and professionals alike. From heavy metal to acapella, and just about everything in between – including a couple of surprisingly good rap versions. When so many different people agree that a piece of music is amazing, where else could it belong but at number 1 on this list?
Composer : Jeremy Soule

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Sung first in the movie “The Singing Hill” (1941), the song was covered numerous times by popular artists before Fats Domino recorded the version we are all familiar with. Perhaps the surprising thing is that none of those covers were remembered.

A Motown-style B-side on a record that flopped, it barely survived in Britain’s Northern soul clubs during the ’70s. Jones tried to revive it in 1976 by re-releasing it with a mediocre funk guitar line and a little harsher singing style but that effort failed too, probably because it was worst than the first version. It was saved by obscurity when Soft Cell did their cover which musically fit the early ’80s scene perfectly.

Apparently in the early ’70s, Joe Flaherty of SCTV fame grew some long hair and sideburns and decided to dress all in plaid. He teamed up with a guitar-playing Sparklettes truck and a bass player that looks normal next to those two despite wearing clothes from the 1970s. Despite the fact that they completely don’t look it, they actually rock.

Slade-inspired band Arrows (not The Arrows) had a TV show that ran for two series (seasons in the US) in the 1970s. Besides Joan Jett’s famous cover, the song was also done by Britney Spears and Kristen Wiig. I dare you to listen to those covers all the way through.

Close your eyes and imagine listening to this song. You hear Kim Carnes’ raspy voice and the question is: is she angry or on a three pack a day cigarette habit (or both). What you probably didn’t hear was something straight off of Broadway. Jackie DeShannon was actually a major player in the ’60s rock and roll scene and she barely missed hitting it big with “Put a Little Love in Your Heart” and “What the World Needs Now Is Love.”

Apparently, up to about 30 years ago, everyone knew Hoagy Carmichael did the original song and now everyone thinks it was Ray Charles. Set up as a orchestral piece, the original was done by all-star musicians like Gene Krupa, Tommy Dorsey and Bix Beiderbecke with Carmichael singing. Two pieces of trivia: Georgia On My Mind is the state song of Georgia (you probably knew that) and in Ian Fleming’s James Bond books, he is often said to look like Hoagy Carmichael.

WTF? I’ve never even heard of this song! Exactly. But I guarantee that you’ve heard of the more famous cover “Mickey” by Toni Basil. This song comes from their first (actually only) album Smash and Grab. They broke up and now there are two groups named Racey that you’ve never heard of.

Did you know Bobby McGee was a woman? It’s true. In fact when Fred Foster proposed the song idea to Kristofferson, the idea that Bobby McKee (the original last name) was female was the hook. The song has a certain association with death. The inspiration for the line “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose” was inspired by a death in the movie “La Strada” and Janis Joplin recorded her version just before her death. You may be familiar with Kristofferson’s version of the song but that wasn’t the original (surprise!). It was originally recorded by Roger Miller and covered three times before Kris recorded his version.

It’s our friends from the first list, songwriter Bertholt Brecht and music writer Kurt Weill. This song was written for the movie “The Threepenny Opera.” The lyrics were significantly changed and downplayed the murders and rape when translated for an American audience. In the film, the song is sung by Kurt Gerron but Lili… errr, Lotte Lenya had a part in the song development. She was performing “The Threepenny Opera” on Broadway when Louis Armstrong did his cover. She sat in the studio and Armstrong ad-libbed her name in the list of women admirers.

Any banjo players out there need to know that no banjo player can actually sing. I saw a documentary on it (my son is learning to be a bluegrass fiddler) and not one banjo player could carry a tune. The version by The Byrds was so melodic that this one will be hard to listen to. The notes Pete Seeger sings don’t seem to match the notes he is playing at all. The lyrics themselves are taken from the Bible’s Book of Ecclesiastes but I don’t think King Solomon got songwriting credits.

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Although early jazz artists created short music-film performances of their songs, and Elvis filmed unique settings of his songs that were parts of movies, the Beatles were the pioneers of marrying the two ideas into the concept we now know as the music video – a short, stand-alone film of a musical act presenting a current song that may or not be a live performance. The idea came to the Beatles as a way to ease their ridiculously tight schedule – instead of the band having to make tons of public appearances on TV shows around the world, they could send a video of themselves instead. The first dedicated music video was for the single “Paperback Writer/Rain” in 1966.

Prior to 1966, popular musical acts went into the recording studio in order to create a stack of singles. These singles were first released individually by the record company, and then again in a few months as part of a long-playing album. Typically, the band had no input as to which songs went on the album, which order they were presented, or what was used as the cover art – these were all decisions made independent of the band by the record company. However, with the invaluable guidance of their producer, George Martin, the Beatles released the industry’s first concept album, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” The idea behind “Sgt. Pepper” was that the Beatles were playing the part of another band giving a concert in the park, and all of the songs on the album were part of that outdoor affair. None of the songs on that album were initially released as singles – the first time the public heard any part of “Sgt. Pepper” was when the entire album was released in June, 1967.

Although the Beatles were highly successful in selling out their early concerts in 1963, 1964, and 1965, they were only playing shows booked in auditoriums, theaters, and amphitheaters that seated anywhere between 1000 and 10,000 ticket-holders. When manager Brian Epstein initially booked the Beatles to play a concert in New York’s Shea Stadium in August, 1965, the idea was considered almost too absurd to consider. However, the tickets sold out within hours (priced between $4.50 and $5.75), and over 55,000 berserk, screaming fans (mostly teenage girls) packed Shea Stadium for the first-ever stadium rock concert. The Beatles only played 30 minutes, the fans were not allowed onto the infield where the stage was located, and the stadium’s sound system was atrocious for a musical concert, but the night’s gross was over $300,000, which stood as an industry record for many years.

This was one of those magnificent ideas where everybody learned more from Beatle mistakes than Beatle successes. In 1966, the Beatles’ recording contract with EMI Records expired, and they re-entered into a 9-year contract with EMI in 1967. The next year, the Beatles decided to form their own record company, Apple Records, and discovered that EMI was not willing to release them. In a complicated series of confusing maneuvers, the Beatles remained with EMI, but signed a separate agreement between EMI’s American subsidiary, Capitol Records, and Apple. The result was that American releases contained the Apple label while British releases did not (at first). In addition to this mess, the Beatles legally hired two different business managers (American Allen Klein and Paul’s new father-in-law Lee Eastman) at Apple, and all contracts between Apple, EMI, and Capitol were revised. Hilarity and lawsuits soon followed, and the Beatles painfully set the standard for what NOT to do when forming your own record company.

Although the Beatles did not invent satellite television, they were the highlighted subject of the first ever live global satellite television broadcast in June, 1967. The TV program was called “Our World,” and it featured the contributions of artists and citizens of 19 different nations. Using four different orbiting satellites, the program was able to be broadcast live to anyone interested in receiving the signal anywhere in the world, and the Beatles performed an in-studio live version of “All You Need Is Love,” which was specially written by John for the broadcast, to close out the program.

Although many different musical acts hold variously scattered chart-topping marketing successes, no specific artist has ever come close to the nearly inexplicable global phenomenon the Beatles enjoyed in the Spring of 1964. On March 21, the Beatles held #1, #2, and #3 in Billboard’s Hot 100 (for a total of seven songs in that week’s poll). On March 28, they held #1, #2, #3, and #4 (ten songs in all) in that week’s Billboard Hot 100. On April 4, they staggeringly held #1, #2, #3, #4, AND #5 (for a total of twelve songs) in the Billboard Hot 100. On April 11, the Beatles added two more songs to the Billboard Hot 100 (fourteen in all). During this same time frame, they were also snagging most of the album and singles Top Ten lists in the UK, Canada, and Australia.

This item could almost be a separate list in and of itself. The Beatles (and their recording engineers) either pioneered or popularized Artificial Double Tracking (ADT), back masking, tuned feedback, spliced audio loops, distortion, equalization, stereo effects, multi-tracking (overdubbing), compression, phase shifting, and innovative “microphoning.” Although the Beatles are not credited with the invention of most of these studio tricks, they were responsible for directly inspiring countless musical acts that were desperate to copy their unique sounds.

The first pop album to feature actual printed lyrics on the album was the Beatles’ 1967 epic release “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” Soon, it would be considered non-standard to not do so.

The typical music industry standard recording contract of the 1960s required a band to record and release enough singles for a company to release at least one album per year, and the Beatles went way above and beyond the call of duty (they released two albums per year in every year with EMI Records except 1966). Another aspect of the standard recording contract required a band to give a prescribed number of public concerts as a highly effective means to promote and sell the band’s singles and albums. However, in August, 1966, at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, the Beatles played their last public concert after over six years of extended touring. The decision for the Beatles (or any band, for that matter) to end touring was a breathtakingly landmark decision, and theirs was based on multiple factors, such as exhaustion, inability to perform newest songs in a live format, inability to hear themselves onstage, wandering musical focus, safety concerns following death threats and boycotts, and boredom. The Beatles would only make one more public musical appearance, and it would come in January, 1969 in the form of an impromptu semi-private concert on the rooftop of their London studios.

By 1968, the American radio dial preferred to have music on AM and talk radio on FM, and most AM stations played music in a three-minute single format. This meant that any singles significantly longer or shorter than three minutes were ignored by AM stations, because it would wreck their repetitive hourly format to play it. When the Beatles released “Hey Jude” as a single in August, 1968, it was nearly 7 1/2 minutes long, and AM stations simply chopped off the song at the 3:00 mark, which denied listeners the chance to hear their favorite part – “Na na na nanananaaa.” At KSAN-FM in San Francisco, radio pioneer Tom Donahue used the promise of a whole “Hey Jude” single coupled with other innovative ideas (commercial-free blocks of music, playing whole album sides at a time, etc.) as a means to lure listeners away from local AM stations to his uniquely programmed FM station, and the idea eventually snowballed across the country. Within ten years, American radio stations had almost completely switched places, and put music on FM and talk radio on AM.

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The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has a list of “500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll” and some of the artists that are not in the hall have recordings on that list which makes their exclusion from the hall even more inexplicable. I have listed the most glaring omissions first. There are many artists who could have been included, so if your favorite isn’t here (and they’re not in the H.O.F.) be sure and leave a note in the comments section along with why you think they belong.

Chubby Checker’s recording of Hank Ballard’s “The Twist” is the number one record on Billboard magazine’s “All-time Hot 100 top songs” list. (Ballard is in the hall.) It went to #1 on the charts twice, once in 1960, and later in 1962. “The Twist” came along at a time when many of the early pioneers of rock and roll (Chuck Berry and Little Richard) had faded from the charts, or, like Elvis Presley, were singing formula ballads. Make no mistake, early rock and roll was all about dancing, and Checker’s recording had both teenagers and their parents taking to the dance floor in numbers that wouldn’t be seen again until the disco days of the seventies. The recording is included in the H.O.F. “500 songs” but Checker is not in the hall. The record spawned many other “Twist” records, the most popular being “Twist and Shout” (a hit for the Isley brothers and The Beatles) and “Twistin’ the Night Away” by Sam Cooke. Checker had other hit records such as “The Pony Time,” “Limbo Rock,” “Slow Twisting,” and the 1961 Grammy Award winner for Best Rock and Roll Solo Vocal Performance and number one record of 1961, “Let’s Twist Again.” Chubby Checker’s exclusion from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is an injustice. More importantly, Checker (real name Ernest Evans) still performs to this day and people all over the world still dance “The Twist.” When rock and roll’s flame was diminishing, Checker turned up the heat.

In 1942, Billboard magazine columnist Maurie Orodenker had begun using the term “rock and roll” in descriptions of recordings such as “Rock Me” and “This Train” by Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Her recording of ”This Train” is in the HOF “500 songs” but Sister Rosetta is not a member of the hall. While not all of her gospel recordings would be considered rock and roll, when she performed up-tempo, blues-based gospel music with her electric guitar it was music that Little Richard has acknowledged was one of his main influences and Bob Dylan has acknowledged her as well. Why she isn’t in the hall is a total mystery. Tharpe passed away in 1973. You can find film of Sister Rosetta’s performances on YouTube as well as a couple of excellent documentaries.

She started as a country-folk singer but eventually mastered many other genres of music and became the best-selling female artist of the 1970s. She brought the music of Buddy Holly to a generation that had either forgotten or never heard of him. She helped popularize country-rock in the 1970s along with H.O.F. members The Eagles, who met while backing Ronstadt on her self-titled third album. She has too many Grammy awards for me to list here, and has more true rock and roll hit records than many of the artists already in the hall. Her recordings also influenced many of the current hard-rocking country artists you hear today. As a vocalist, she has few equals and her voice is instantly recognizable no matter what she is singing. She helped popularize many songwriters such as Warren Zevon and Wendy Waldman and brought attention to overlooked genres of music. She still performs occasionally and her exclusion is one of the most serious oversights of the hall of fame.

“Born To Be Wild” is one of the 500 most influential songs, but the John Kay led Steppenwolf is nowhere to be found. Written by Mars Bonfire (aka Dennis Edmonton) who was the brother of Steppenwolf’s original drummer, it was the first use of the phrase “heavy metal,” as in “heavy metal thunder” and these guys were heavy when the Beatles were still being cute. They had other big hits as well such as “Magic Carpet Ride” and the late night F.M. favorite, “The Pusher.” There were many membership changes over the years, but John Kay has been a constant, and he’s still performing today, though the original members have passed on or retired. Let’s give the German-born Kay and his band credit and induct them into the hall.

Just when it seemed like the British had totally taken over the music charts, along comes New York City-born Johnny Rivers and his hit record “Secret Agent Man.” Many of Rivers’ other big hits were remakes of other artists’ hits such as Chuck Berry’s “Memphis,” but he put his own personal style into them and many sold more copies than the originals. He sang the title song to the late night music program “The Midnight Special” and had million-selling records into the 1970s with “Rockin’ Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu” and “Swayin’ to the Music (Slow Dancing).” A true rocker, Johnny Rivers is still performing today and he has earned a place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Originally named The Chicago Transit Authority their early recordings contained rock, jazz and classical music. When they rocked, they really rocked – such as their massive hit, “25 or 6 to 4.” (The song is about how it was written at 25 or 26 to four in the morning and what the writer, Robert Lamm, was going through while he wrote it.) They later produced less rocking, more ballad driven records, but that shouldn’t take away the fact that the band could, and in concert still does, rock as hard as the best of them. Their early albums were staples of the more serious, no top-forty F.M. rock stations. According to Billboard magazine, the only artists with more charting recordings (singles plus albums) than Chicago are The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Beach Boys. This is as grievous an omission as Ms. Ronstadt.

They modeled themselves on the other brothers with two drummers, The Allman Brothers Band. As commercial as a band can get, these guys produced songs that almost demanded they be played on your car stereo while you were “Rocking Down The Highway.” Look up “seventies rock” in the dictionary and there’s a picture of the Doobie Brothers. They produced a stream of radio ready, play air guitar, sing along and dance with ‘em hits. From the classic rocker “Long Train Runnin” to the Michael McDonald/Kenny Loggins penned “What a Fool Believes” they were just plain fun…and that’s what rock and roll is all about. They had great vocals, harmonies, pristine guitar work and great drumming. Why aren’t these guys in the hall?

I’ve put these two together as the H.O.F should induct Canadians Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings for their body of work. Bachman played in both bands and Cummings was only in The Guess Who but co-wrote and sang lead on their hits. Here are some of The Guess Who’s hits; “American Woman,” “No Sugar Tonight,” “Undone,” “These Eyes,” “Laughing,” Share The Land,” “No Time” and “Hand Me Down World” and “Clap For The Wolfman.” You couldn’t turn on top forty rock radio in the early seventies without hearing them, and the F.M. hipster stations played them alongside The Grateful Dead. When Randy Bachman left The Guess Who he formed Bachman Turner Overdrive and the hits kept on coming with “Takin’ Care Of Business” “Let It Ride” and “You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet.” Burton Cummings and Randy Bachman both deserve to be in the hall. They’re the Canadian version of Lennon and McCartney. They still perform together occasionally as “The Bachman-Cummings Band” and perform hits from both The Guess Who and B.T.O.

Billboard magazine ranks Hall and Oates at number 15 on their 100 greatest artists of all time. They’ve had six #1 records and dozens of others that charted but didn’t go to the top. Their up-tempo tunes are dance classics and their ballads are original and timeless. Their monster hit “I Can’t Go for That (No Can Do)” has been sampled dozens of times and songs they’ve written have been covered by other artists who have had hits with them as well. They have been snubbed by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (the Grammy Awards) as well as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. These two may be the best purveyors of blue-eyed soul that rock and roll has witnessed and yet they are not in the hall.

I couldn’t decide on a number ten… there were many to choose from including Deep Purple, Joe Cocker, KISS, The Electric Light Orchestra, The Moody Blues, Jethro Tull, Rush, Heart, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, The Zombies, The B-52’s, Cheap Trick, Peter Frampton, Bon Jovi, Chaka Khan, Todd Rundgren, Bad Company, Yes, The Cars, Heart, Kool and the Gang, John Mayall, Procol Harum, K.C. and The Sunshine Band, and many others I’m sure will get mentioned in the comments!

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It can be difficult to sort out fact from fiction when dealing with the turbulent history of famous rock stars as the stories are often falsified. This article will discuss ten of the most famous true rock stories. All of the entries are based around events that actually occurred. However, some have still been embellished by certain people.

In late August of 1964, The Beatles started their first official U.S. tour. The group began at Cow Palace in San Francisco and finished at the Paramount Theatre in New York. On August 28-29 The Beatles played at Forest Hills Stadium in New York and were befriended by Bob Dylan. The two parties were introduced by the writer Al Aronowitz at New York’s Delmonico Hotel.

After a brief chat with The Beatles, Bob Dylan asked John, Paul, Ringo, George, and Brian Epstein if they wanted to smoke a joint. Epstein looked apprehensive and said that the band hadn’t tried marijuana for years. Dylan was immediately surprised because he had been under the impression that they smoked weed because of the song I Want to Hold Your Hand. He mistook the lyrics “I can’t hide” with “I get high.”

The Beatles were never one to back down from a new experience and agreed. Lennon took the joint and passed it to Ringo whom he called his “royal taster.” Ringo smoked the entire thing, not knowing the tradition of sharing the joint between people. In response, Dylan rolled a joint for each of The Beatles and they smoked. During the event it was reported that Epstein said “I’m so high I’m on the ceiling. I’m up on the ceiling.” McCartney got more philosophical and asked Mal Evans to write down everything he was saying.

Ozzy Osbourne is one of the most controversial figures in the history of music. He has sold over 100 million albums and helped popularize the genre of heavy metal. Ozzy has been addicted to drugs for most of his life and experimented with a wide variety of substances. During his career, Osbourne has been involved with two separate incidents in which he bit the head of an animal. In 1981, after signing his first solo record deal, Osbourne bit the head off a dove. In 1982, he bit the head off a bat that he thought was plastic while performing in Des Moines, Iowa. After decapitating the bat Ozzy had to be treated for rabies.

In 1982, Ozzy Osbourne got drunk and urinated on a cenotaph erected in honor of those who died at the Alamo in Texas. He was arrested for the act and banned from the city of San Antonio for a decade. In 1984, Ozzy joined Mötley Crüe on the road and the tour has been called one of the “craziest drug- and alcohol-fueled tours in the history of rock and roll.” During their time in hotel rooms, Ozzy and Nikki Sixx of Mötley Crüe underwent a competition to see who could be the most extreme. After Sixx set himself on fire, Osbourne responded by snorting a line of ants off the pavement. After he snorted them up, some of the ants came out his mouth. The event was highlighted in a book written by Sharon Osbourne. Many accounts say that the ants were fire ants, but this is not confirmed.

David Bowie is an innovative English musician that has sold over 140 million albums. He is an extremely popular singer and has done a lot of work to help fight important world issues. In 1972, Bowie became one of the first popular singers to reveal to the public that he was bisexual. Bowie gave an interview that was broadcast around the world. Since that time he has bounced back and forth on the issue and remains married to Somali-American model Iman.

In 1970, David Bowie was married to a woman named Angela and the couple divorced in 1980. In 1990, after a ten-year gag order ended, Angela Bowie appeared on The Joan Rivers Show and gave some controversial details about her time with David. She is quoted: “I caught him in bed with men several times. In fact the best time I caught him in bed was with Mick Jagger.” At this point, Howard Stern, who was involved with the interview, asked Angela if Jagger and Bowie had their clothes off. She said: “They certainly did.” The accusation became international news and Jagger released a statement that dismissed the claim.

A week after the interview, Angela Bowie went on television and said that although she had seen Mick Jagger and Bowie naked, it didn’t necessarily mean they weren’t sleeping. She clarified: “I certainly didn’t catch anyone in the act.” Some people have linked the event to the 1973 Rolling Stones hit song Angie. However, David Bowie said it best: “About 15 or 16 years ago, I really got pretty tired of fending off questions about what I used to do with my penis in the early ’70s. My suggestion for people with a prurient interest is to go through the 30 or 40 bios on me and pick out the rumor of their choice.”

Keith Richards is one of the most talented guitarists in history. In 1962, he helped form The Rolling Stones and since that time the band has sold over 200 million records. Interestingly, Keith Richards regards the acoustic guitar as the basis for his playing, once saying that he felt the electric guitar would cause him to “lose that touch.” Richards is also a talented lyricist. The songwriting partnership of Jagger/Richards has been responsible for the majority of the catalog of The Rolling Stones.

In the 1970s, music journalist Nick Kent described the personality of Keith Richards as “mad, bad, and dangerous to know.” In 1994, Keith said that his image was “like a long shadow,” implying that people don’t know much about the real man, but instead focus on the things written in articles. Richards has a long history of drug abuse and has been tried for drug-related charges five times.

In April of 2006, Keith Richards made headlines when he fell out of a tree in Fiji and suffered a bad head injury. The event caused a delay in The Rolling Stones tour, but Richards made a full recovery. The following year Keith made international headlines after he was asked by a journalist what the strangest thing he ever snorted was. Keith responded: “My father. I snorted my father. He was cremated and I couldn’t resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn’t have cared. It went down pretty well, and I’m still alive.”

The comment shocked the journalist and the story instantly became a media sensation. Keith’s manager responded with the statement that the anecdote had been a joke, but many feel the story is true. In the same interview Keith was asked about his most life-threatening drug experience and mentioned an event in which “Someone put strychnine (pesticide) in my dope. It was in Switzerland. I was totally comatose, but I was totally awake. I could listen to everyone, and they were like, he’s dead, he’s dead, waving their fingers and pushing me about. I was thinking I’m not dead.” Richards remembers: “I was number one on the Who’s list of people who were likely to die for 10 years. I mean, I was really disappointed when I fell off the list.”

One of the most notorious party animals of the 1980s was Mötley Crüe’s bassist Nikki Sixx. In 1981, Sixx founded Mötley Crüe with drummer Tommy Lee. To date Mötley Crüe has sold over 80 million records. In the 1980s, the band gained a reputation for drugs, loud music, sex, and wild parties. The group was known for backstage antics, groupies, outrageous clothing, extreme high-heeled boots, and heavily applied make-up. All the members of Mötley Crüe suffered from alcoholism and long addictions to drugs, but Sixx was the only one that abused heroin. Nikki Sixx has estimated that he overdosed on heroin “about half a dozen times.”

In 1986, Nikki Sixx overdosed on heroin at a drug dealer’s house in London. The dealer reportedly tried to beat the life back into Sixx with a bat, but was unsuccessful so he dumped the body in a nearby dumpster. Sixx eventually woke up in the trash. The event was the inspiration behind the lyric “Valentine’s in London, found me in the trash” from the Mötley Crüe song Dancing on Glass.
In 1987, Mötley Crüe was part of the Guns N’ Roses Appetite for Destruction Tour. During the tour, Guns N’ Roses was the opening act for a number of poplar bands including Mötley Crüe. On the night of December 23, 1987, Nikki Sixx was doing heroin in guitarist Slash’s hotel room when he suffered a drug overdose. Slash was not in the room at the time, but his girlfriend called the authorities. When the paramedics arrived Sixx was hardly breathing.

During the ride to the hospital Sixx stopped breathing and was declared dead for two minutes. The paramedics continued to apply care to Sixx until he was eventually revived. Nikki claims to have had an out of body experience during the event. When he woke up in the hospital, Sixx ripped the tubes out of his nose and escaped into the parking lot. He hitched a ride to his house wearing just a pair of leather pants. He then continued to shoot up heroin and was found sleeping with the syringe still in his arm. Soon after the story made international news Mötley Crüe entered rehab. In 1989, the band released the hit single Kickstart My Heart, which was inspired by the infamous overdose.

Frank Zappa was an American musician that had a large impact on musical freedom. His father was Francesco Vincente Zappa who was an extremely intelligent chemist and mathematician who worked with the United States defense program. Zappa grew up near the Aberdeen Proving Ground and was regularly sick as child. He suffered from extreme asthma, earaches, and sinus problems caused by mustard gas exposure. Zappa’s upbringing gave him a negative stance on the use of chemical weapons. He often wrote references of germs, germ warfare, and the U.S. defense industry in his lyrics.

Frank Zappa was a great performer and his musical message was important, but deemed bizarre and strange by the media. His band’s debut album featured a song that asked Who Are the Brain Police? and in 1968 Zappa satirized the hippie culture as a motivation for money and profit. He was a charismatic personality and Zappa’s music was extremely popular in some European countries. He was also highly monitored by the U.S. government.

On December 4, 1971, Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention were performing a concert at the Montreux Casino when a member of the audience decided to fire a flare gun into the rattan covered ceiling. The casino quickly caught fire and burned to the ground. All of Zappa’s equipment was lost, but he survived the fire. The event was the inspiration for the song Smoke on the Water by English rock band Deep Purple.

A week after the casino fire, Frank Zappa and The Mothers played at the Rainbow Theatre, London, with rented gear. During the encore of the show, an audience member rushed the stage and pushed Zappa into the concrete-floored orchestra pit. It was a long fall and Zappa was nearly killed. He suffered serious fractures, head trauma, and injuries to his back, legs, and neck. He crushed his larynx, which caused his voice to drop a third after healing. Zappa was lucky to survive the event and was forced to use a wheelchair for an extended period. The assailant was a man named Trevor Howell who told reporters that he believed Zappa was eying his girlfriend.

The two events had an emotional impact on Frank Zappa and he was concerned that someone was trying to murder him. After making a recovery, Zappa went on to have a successful career, but was regularly bashed by the U.S. media for his edgy lyrics. Frank Zappa is quoted: “What do you make of a society that is so primitive that it clings to the belief that certain words in its language are so powerful that they could corrupt you the moment you hear them?”

In 1990, Frank Zappa was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer and the disease killed him in 1993. For some reason he was buried in an unmarked grave in Los Angeles. Many people have wondered why Zappa was not given a gravestone for identification. Some theories suggest a family request or evidence of mustard gas exposure Zappa experienced as a child.

Iggy Pop is one of the most flamboyant performers in the history of music. He has an incredible stage presence and has given credit to Jim Morrison for introducing him to a free attitude and wild stage antics. Iggy Pop is credited with being the first performer to do a stage-dive. Some of his more descriptive exploits include rolling around in broken glass, exposing himself to the crowd, and vomiting on stage. He has been known to spark riots and has the ability to whip the crowd into frenzy.

On February 9, 1974 The Stooges performed at Detroit’s Michigan Palace. It was the band’s last show together before they broke up for three decades. Before the 1974 concert, Pop gave a radio interview in which he challenged a Detroit motorbike gang (the Scorpions) to a fight. He called them all a bunch of cats. In response, the gang attended the show and pelted the band with broken glass, beer jugs, urine, eggs, ice, jelly beans, and shovels. Despite the hostility, Iggy continued to taunt the crowd and said: “You pricks can throw everything in the world… your girlfriend will still love me.”

The Stooges fed off the crowd’s anger and continued to perform. During the show Iggy finally told the bikers: “All right you assholes, want to hear Louie, Louie, we’ll give it to you.” The Stooges continued to play a forty-five-minute version of Louie Louie, which included improvised lyrics by Pop. During the song he continued to yell and verbally assault the gang.

The concert finally ended after Iggy Pop focused his attention on one particular heckler and said: “Listen, asshole, you heckle me one more time and I’m gonna come down there and kick your ass.” The biker told Pop to come over, so Iggy jumped off the stage and confronted him. The biker continued to beat the crap out of Iggy, which ended the event. Luckily, the concert was captured on a reel-to-reel tape machine and recorded live. In 1976, The Stooges released the recording in an album titled Metallic K.O. It is the only rock album where you can hear beer bottles breaking against guitar strings. The album remains a favorite among Iggy Pop fans.

Jim Morrison was one of the most charismatic singers in the history of rock music. He was a smart man and had a genius-level I.Q. of 149. Morrison was a great poet and was known for using spoken word poetry passages during his live performances. Jim would sing and then talk with the crowd. He was a social rebel that suffered from severe drug and alcohol abuse. Morrison had the ability to spark riots and shifted the behavior of a crowd with his intense emotional sound. For this reason, Jim became a target for music censorship and was closely monitored by the U.S. government. He was accompanied by police on stage during many venues.

Jim Morrison was known for making wild and outrageous remarks during shows. One of the most infamous cases occurred on December 9, 1967, while The Doors performed at the New Haven Arena in Connecticut. During the concert Morrison was arrested by local police and became the first rock star to be taken off stage during a live performance. On the day in question, Morrison was discovered kissing a fan in the shower before the concert. A police officer found the couple and told them to separate, so Morrison responded “Eat it.” The policeman warned Morrison with mace saying “Last chance” to which he replied, “Last chance to eat it.” In response, the officer sprayed Jim Morrison in the face with the mace.

The New Haven concert was delayed for an hour so Jim could recover, but the event made him extremely angry. During The Doors first set Morrison suddenly broke into an obscenity-laced tirade to the audience and explained what had happened backstage. He verbally abused the New Haven police, so they arrested him. After Morrison was taken off stage the crowd began to riot. The violence spilled from the gates of the New Haven Arena into the streets.

Over the next couple years the behavior of Jim Morrison became more erratic and unpredictable. On March 1, 1969, The Doors gave their most controversial performance at the Dinner Key Auditorium in Miami. During the show Morrison began to preach messages of peace and hate. He taunted the crowd by screaming “You’re all a bunch of idiots. What are you gonna do about it?” Then he said: “Let’s see a little skin, let’s get naked.” In response, people began to take off their clothing, including Morrison. Jim was later convicted of indecent exposure. He turned down a plea bargain from the Miami police who agreed to drop the charges if The Doors performed a free concert.

The Doors gave there last public performance with Jim Morrison at The Warehouse in New Orleans on December 12, 1970. During the show, Morrison experienced a breakdown on stage and slammed the microphone numerous times into the floor until the platform beneath was destroyed. He then sat down on the ground and refused to perform for the remainder of the show. The event caused The Doors to end their live acts, citing their mutual agreement that Morrison was ready to retire from performing.

When Keith Moon was 17 years-old he joined The Who and replaced drummer Doug Sandom. He immediately impacted the band’s sound and became known for his innovative drumming style. Along with Roger Daltrey, Pete Townshend, and John Entwistle, Moon would help The Who become one of the most popular bands of the 1960s and 1970s. The group was known for explosive concerts and destructive behavior. The first such performance occurred in 1964 at the Railway Tavern in Harrow and Wealdstone, London, when Townshend accidentally broke the head of his guitar through the ceiling, so he continued to smash it on stage and the crowd loved it. More people came back the next night wanting the band to smash and break something.

Keith Moon had no problem fitting in with the lifestyle of a rock star. He had an erratic personality and gained the nickname “Moon the Loon.” In one famous performance Moon filled his clear acrylic drums with water and goldfish, and dressed like a cat. He was a jokester and Moon’s ability to make his bandmates laugh around the vocal microphone led to him being banished from the studio when albums were being recorded. In response, Moon would sneak into the studio and join in the singing. He can be heard on several tracks, including Bell Boy, Bucket T, and Barbara Ann. He is the high backing vocals on Pictures of Lily.

Keith Moon was known to demolish hotel rooms and was incredibly destructive. He would often throw furniture from high buildings and set objects on fire. However, his favorite hobby was blowing up toilets with explosives. The blasts would destroy the toilet and often times disrupt plumbing to the hotel. It has been estimated that Moon’s destruction of toilets and plumbing ran as high as UK£300,000 (US$500,000). Moon was banned from several hotel chains including all Holiday Inn, all Sheraton, all Hilton Hotels, and the Waldorf Astoria.

According to Tony Fletcher’s biography, Moon was quoted: “All that porcelain flying through the air was quite unforgettable.” Fletcher wrote: “no toilet in a hotel or changing room was safe,” until Moon had detonated his supply of explosives. In one case, hotel management asked Moon to turn down his cassette player. In response, he asked the manager up to his room and blew up the toilet right in front of him. Moon then turned the cassette player back up and said: “This is The Who.”

In 1967, Keith Moon allegedly drove a Cadillac or Lincoln Continental into a Holiday Inn pool. In 1973, The Who was performing at the Cow Palace in San Francisco and Moon passed out during the show. Townshend noticed that he was sleeping and asked the audience, “Can anyone play the drums? I mean somebody good.” An audience member named Scot Halpin stepped up and finished the concert for Moon.

Ringo Starr once told Keith Moon that his lifestyle would eventually kill him. Moon simply replied “Yeah, I know.” Keith Moon died on September 7, 1978 (age 32) after he ingested 32 tablets of clomethiazole (Heminevrin). The digestion of six pills was sufficient to cause his death. The other 26 were found undissolved in his stomach. This caused some to speculate that Moon’s death might have been on purpose. Officially it was ruled a drug overdose.

The Edgewater is a hotel in Seattle, Washington that is located on a pier over Elliott Bay. It is currently the only hotel in Seattle that sits over-water. In the 1960s the Edgewater became a popular destination for famous rock stars. Some of the bands to visit the hotel include the Beatles in 1964, the Rolling Stones, Frank Zappa, and Led Zeppelin. The Edgewater is unique because in the past it allowed customers to fish from their rooms on the north elevation.

On July 27, 1969, Led Zeppelin performed at the Seattle Pop Festival and stayed at the Edgewater. The band was known to have wild parties and was often joined by groupies. According to Zeppelin’s road manager Richard Cole, during one incident, things between a fish and a sexy red head got a bit intimate. On the day in question, Cole was in his room fishing with drummer John Bonham when they were joined by some women. Cole and Bonham had caught a large collection of sharks, at least two dozen, stuck coat hangers through the gills and then left them in the closet. The hotel room was also scattered with various types of smaller fish.

As parties go, one thing led to another and people began to lose their clothing. One particular woman in the crowd with red hair found herself with Cole. She made a unique request, so he decided to reach for a fish and the shark episode was born. Cole was later quoted: “Let’s see how your red snapper likes this red snapper. It was the nose of the fish and the girl liked it. There was nothing malicious or harmful and Mark Stein of Vanilla Fudge filmed the whole thing. After the story was published by the media a large collection of rumors began to circulate, but many were exaggerated. The band received bad press so they stopped talking about the event.

In 1973, Led Zeppelin returned to the Edgewater and the band was officially banned from the hotel after it was discovered that they had caught some 30 mudsharks and left them under beds, in closets, elevators, hallways, bathtubs, and all over their rooms. They threw stuff out the windows into Elliott Bay, including beds, TVs, mattresses, lamps, drapes, and glassware. Since that time Robert Plant has been welcomed back to the Edgewater. The mudshark incident remains one of the most popular rock stories from the 1960s.

I have a difficult time including Courtney Love in the presence of these rock stars, but I don’t have a problem calling her crazy. Courtney Love is a musician that gained notoriety in the late 1980s with her band Hole. She was married to Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain until he passed away in 1994. Love is known for extreme and erratic behavior. She has been implemented by a private investigator named Tom Grant in the possible murder of Cobain.

In the weeks prior to Kurt Cobain’s suicide Love hired Tom Grant to find her husband. After Kurt was discovered dead, Green said that he found strange activity on Cobain’s credit card. He believed that Kurt’s suicide note was actually a note written that was announcing his desire to end his marriage to Courtney Love. Green also cited Cobain’s unusual bloodstream heroin levels and the fact that no fingerprints were found on the trigger of the shotgun he used to kill himself as clues of foul play.

In 2009, the daughter of Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love, Frances Bean Cobain was granted a restraining order against her mother who was harassing her. Frances claimed that Courtney was a violent drug addict and compulsive hoarder. She was freighted for her safety and hoped to have her mother removed from her life.

In April of 2012, Courtney Love took to Twitter and provided a rant of crazy remarks. She attacked her daughter and Dave Grohl, the Foo Fighters frontman and former Nirvana bandmate. Love implied that Grohl had intended to have a sexual relationship with Frances and called him “sexually obsessed” with Kurt Cobain. She even voiced her opinion about the upcoming U.S. presidential election and attacked Mitt Romney with some unprovoked and strange accusations.

Courtney threatened to shoot and kill Grohl on two separate occasions. The rant was unprovoked and completely false. Frances is currently engaged to a man named Isaiah Silva. After the comments, Frances responded and said that the social networking website should ban her mother. Grohl said: “Unfortunately Courtney is on another hateful Twitter rant. These new accusations are upsetting, offensive, and absolutely untrue.”

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Ted Turner’s labor of love bombed at the box office, probably because no one likes him, but the film is actually very good and very accurate. Edelman’s score is, by far, the greatest thing about it. They toned down the violence but still show tons of people getting blown up and shot down. The real theme of the film is intended to be the glory of the Union holding off the Confederacy, and the gentlemanly manner in which the sides fought (not true).

Aside from the single worst Southern accent in cinematic history courtesy of Martin Sheen as Robert E. Lee (this lister is Southern and knows what he’s talking about), the film’s got a bucket-load of infantry charges, men against men, men against cannon, men against horses, horses against cannon, and all are glorified in Edelman’s majestic music. The sounds of tragedy aren’t really heard until Pickett’s Charge, an extended centerpiece of Rebels getting cut down and obliterated with every cut of the camera. Edelman’s score is filled with long, sweeping lyrical melodies, a comparative rarity in film.

The part of this score everyone remembers is the shrieking violins in the shower scene, and that might lead some to say the score didn’t deserve an Oscar nod, but the rest of the score is equally creepy, suspenseful, and just right for one of Hitchcock’s finest achievements. The main theme is not for the lead character, played by Janet Leigh, but for the crime she’s committing: larceny. She steals a wad of cash from her boss and takes to the road.

So unlike the demure law-abiding lady she appears to be, beneath it all we all have criminal tendencies, especially when gazing at cash. Herrmann’s music captures this, as well as Leigh’s growing dread that she’s about to be caught. Actually, no character in this film has his or her own theme, except perhaps if the shrieking violins are taken as the mental state of Perkins’ Norman Bates.

You might not remember the score, only Kong fighting the biplanes atop the Empire State Building, but that’s because Steiner was a master at doing just what film scores were always intended to do: blend in with the film and enhance the drama. Steiner studied music in Vienna with Johannes Brahms and Gustav Mahler. So when he came to Hollywood, he had more than sufficient education to get the job done. His most famous score is Gone With the Wind (which should have beaten that of The Wizard of Oz).

Steiner, today, is nicknamed “the father of film music,” as one of the first to write primarily for films, but really, Richard Wagner deserves that epithet more. You can set many films to Wagner’s music, and actually improve them over the original scores. Steiner continued the Wagnerian tradition through Mahler.

As such, his score for Kong is classic in every way, and even today, when giant monster movies are made, the scores always pay homage to Steiner’s themes: the terrifying, bombastic bass theme for the monster; the lush, sultry baritone brass and strings for the jungle scenes; and of course, an overriding drive of tympani for the island natives. It’s possible that Hollywood simply didn’t know what to do with this, the first film of its kind. They didn’t have a category for special effects back then, and it failed to receive a single nomination for anything at all.

One of the greatest – and least known in the West – films ever made. Sergei Eisenstein’s two-part epic about one of the vilest rulers is fairly middle-of-the-road in terms of judgment for and against Ivan, but does not shy away from what happened. Every scene is mesmerizing. Add to this some of the finest music in all of film, from one of history’s greatest composers, and you’re in for some powerful drama.

Prokofiev’s music is some of his best work, so good in fact, that after his death in 1953, his music was rearranged into an oratorio, and then in to concert incidental music. Prokofiev scored both parts, and they are Opus 116 of his canon. Whereas, most film scores showcase three of four themes at most, and simply orchestrate these differently to suit various scenes, this is scarcely the style of a classically trained composer. His score for Ivan is perhaps the closest movies have ever gotten to genuine opera (along with John Williams’ E.T. The Extraterrestrial).

That’s right, everyone’s favorite whistling tune didn’t even get a nod. Neither did any other aspect of the film. It’s the quintessential quick-draw, stare-down music, parodied in hundreds of films after it. Morricone got the two-note motif in his head when he heard a coyote make the same sound on location in Spain. He thought it sounded as barren as the desert. Leone decided to use this idea: in the very first scene of the film after the credits, there is windy silence, and then a coyote bays the theme.

Then there’s the whirling Ecstasy of Gold near the end, when Eli Wallach, the ugly, is frantically searching for Arch Stanton’s grave, in which $200,000 in gold are waiting. Wallach, as Tuco, knows that Eastwood’s Man with No Name is hot on his trail, having just shot a cannon at him, and runs around the cemetery, reading the gravestones while the music whirls and rises euphorically, faster and faster to keep pace with him.

And who can forget the classic Mexican standoff – the one according to which all others are judged? It’s maybe the greatest Western ever made. Quentin Tarantino thinks so. When Lee Van Cleef joins the pair, Eastwood reveals that Stanton’s is the wrong grave, so they have to have a three-way shootout. The survivor gets the gold. While they stand still, famously glaring at one another, the music becomes unbearably intense, and that’s precisely what a film score was always supposed to do: enhance the drama in question. Who’s going to shoot whom? No one can be sure. That’s what the Mariachi-style music expresses, complete with Mexican guitar and gunfire.

One of the most exciting action epics ever, still able to hold its own against today’s modern, computer-enhanced masterpieces, and Bernstein’s score does it justice in every way. A strong, heroic march complete with snare drums to start things off, followed by some halfway playful determination that magnificently captures the Allied POWs devil-may-care attitude about escaping. The opening march instills an abiding sense of dread behind the story.

The point throughout the film is that they are not escaping for their freedom, but rather to cause the Nazis as many headaches as they can, hindering the Wehrmacht however possible: this true story is quite accurate, and based on the escape of 76 POWs from Stalag Luft III, in the Middle of Absolutely Nowhere, Germany. Many of these men attempted to escape from every prison they were sent to, up to 20 times for some, and the prisons treated them rather well as soldiers (compared to the Jews at other camps). Nevertheless, they considered their attempts to escape a matter of duty, and Bernstein’s score reflects this.

One of the very finest Western scores ever composed. It’s light, almost humorous, and rustic, with the main theme announced by an easy, solo clarinet. The bass line is a bouncy, horse-clopping tuba, almost like a slow march, and then the banjo plucks in. It’s such a perfect Western score that it could be used for any Western there is. Star Tom Selleck is 6’4″, just like John Wayne, so that tuba in the bass suits them both. The banjo would work great in any Jimmy Stewart picture, who sounds a little like a banjo.

The music for the villains is simple strings in unison, rising, pure intensity, that can be punctuated just right by that massive Quigley rifle. This film deserves better than its critics gave it. Some of them said it was sorely missing John Wayne, but this lister frankly thinks Wayne ruins most of the films he’s in. At least Selleck doesn’t know everything or walk with a borderline zombie swagger. And because the critics were unmerciful on it, everyone seems to have forgotten Poledouris’s music. He nailed everything, and of special importance are the Aborigines, who are the only real reminder that this Western doesn’t take place in the West, but in the Australian outback. Poledouris uses flutes to give them an ethereal, spirit-of-nature simplicity.

The most Wagnerian of this list’s entries. Film composers will always be quick to tell you how indebted their colleagues are to Richard Wagner, who pushed the theory of leitmotifs to its pinnacle. Every character, every emotion, setting, even weapon, gets its own little melody, themes that can be spliced together in all sorts of combinations to express what goes on on stage or screen.

Bernstein stuck to the classic ideals everyone seems to have about God and Moses and biblical scenes. God’s theme is powerful, bass, a little frightening or at least respectable. Heston, as Moses, gets the hero’s theme, and then, of course, there is the driving, frantic music for the Israelites’ flight before Pharaoh Yul Brynner’s army. Not only should this film have flat out won the Best Picture Oscar, the only Oscar it won was for special effects, and that was just for the Red Sea Crossing. All the music has a decidedly Jewish flair about it. Bernstein pulled out all the stops, using the whole brass section as the Red Sea closes on the Egyptian army.

Horner actually composed the original version of this score for Star Trek II: the Wrath of Khan, and when he finished it, he was offered the scoring of Krull, with a promised release date of spring 1983, in time with Return of the Jedi. But post-production of Krull stretched into development hell, and Horner did not get a rough cut of the film to work with until there were only 7 weeks left before its release on July 29.

Not one to turn down a pay check early in his career, he simply reworked his Star Trek score to fit the rough cut, which in various places was especially easy given the screen depictions of outer space, with Freddie Jones’ weighty narration, “…and their son shall rule the galaxy.” The score is incredibly exhilarating. The driving dactylic beat gives you no choice but to think of a hero riding a galloping horse, which is how the main character makes his entrance. Cue the French horns. Music appreciation 101: French horns always equal the hero. The villain has to make do with the lowest instruments. For seven weeks worth of labor, this one is astounding. And it’s the only part of the film anyone really remembers anymore. The story is obviously meant for the younger crowd. Don’t look for the potholes or you’ll find them.

One of the most unfairly under-appreciated films ever made. It’s not Casablanca, but it’s entertaining. The sword fights aren’t as brilliantly choreographed as those of The Mark of Zorro, The Last Samurai, or The Lord of the Rings, but somehow, they work better in their own way. They’re incredibly brutal, and all power, with little finesse, as they should be given the gigantic size of the actors. When Arnold slashes someone across the gut, blood goes everywhere. He cuts James Earl Jones’ head off with two hacks, not just a clean slice. It’s raw, gory, and still original.

Thus, it needed equally full-force music, and got everything just right from Poledouris. One of the most vibrant, fearless, unflinching fantasy scores ever. The famous horseback charge against the good guys near the end is accompanied by music just as powerful as that of Howard Shore in the Lord of the Rings. It takes the swords and sorcery seriously.

Sidenote: If ever there were a film in which an actor managed to look the part of a comic book character with over-the-top muscles, this is it. Schwarzenegger decided to get in shape for the film by training for yet another Mr. Olympia competition, this one in 1980, which he won, and took a few months off training to be in the film, which explains his freakishly superhuman physique.

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This song is best (only?) known as being the first video on Mtv. An argument can be made that this and the version by The Buggles are the same exact song since Bruce wrote it with Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes who would later form The Buggles. However, since this was released first and has Thomas Dolby on keyboards, I’m crediting it as the original.

A moderate hit for Hawkins and released just as what would eventually be Creedence Clearwater Revival was in its infacy, it became the first hit for CCR eleven years later as their first single of their first album. CCR reworked the song specifically for airplay on KMPX, an alternative radio station in San Francisco.

I’ve always thought that The Doors’ song Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar) didn’t sound like their regular work and I’ve found out why. The song was written in 1925 by Bertolt Brecht and set to music in 1927 by Kurt Weill who was probably not on drugs when it was written. The song was written in English for the German operetta Mahagonny and was sung by his wife Lotte Lenya (who sounds a lot like Lili von Schtupp). The song was later used in the full opera Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny being the only non-German song. That’s right, despite being written by a German for German musical theater, it is supposed to be sung in English and makes an almost perfect drinking song.

An absolutely perfect song for its circumstances. Named for the movie that it appeared in, it could not be sung by anyone else other than Boy George (If you haven’t seen the movie I won’t spoil it for you). The plaintive singing sets up perfectly the mood of the film as key plot points play out. At least this is what a lot of people think but the song was around for almost 30 years before the movie was named after the song and not the other way around. While emotional in its own way, I’m sure you’ll agree it has a very different feel that the more well-know 1992 version.

Let’s be perfectly honest here. In the 50’s and 60’s there were many little known R&B songs that were quickly redone in another style by a different singer that became more mainstream. You can attribute that to American society and racial views at that time or you can use it to show the influence R&B has had on American music development. Either way, here is a song that was fairly popular on the R&B charts but became a classic when Janis Joplin sang it a year later with her band Big Brother and the Holding Company.

With many of these songs, the unknown original and the famous cover sound very similar and are easily identifiable as the same song. The original Twist and Shout by Top Notes sounds nothing like the cover done by The Beatles. The interesting things is that many people think they have heard the original song by the Isley Brothers which sounds like the Beatles’ version but nope, that was a reworking of the Top Notes song as produced by Phil Spector in one of his first assignments as a record producer. The songwriter Burt Berns hated what Spector did with the song and gave it to the Isley Brothers to redo.

We all know that Elvis did not write his own music and that also in the 1950’s a lot of singers would sing the same songs so it should be no surprise that he was not the first to sing Hound Dog. The song was originally done by Big Mama Thornton and reached number one on the R&B charts with Elvis’ version coming out four years later. I would be natural to think that Elvis did a cover of Thornton’s song but that’s not exactly true. Notice how some of the lyrics are different between Thornton’s and Elvis’ and that some of the more famous lines seem to be missing from Thornton’s version? That’s because Elvis did a cover of the Freddie Bell version done in Las Vegas where Bell changed a few of the lyrics.

One argument about music that everyone can take a side on is whether or not Lauryn Hill’s cover of Killing Me Softly was better than the original version from Roberta Flack. Flack’s song reached number one on the charts and took home three Grammy Awards – two for Flack and one for the song itself and this version of the song was later inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Lauren Hill’s cover won a Grammy for her group The Fugees and helped the album The Score win a Grammy as well. It reached number two in the US and number one in the UK.

But this is not the only controversy associated with the song. Lori Lieberman claims to have inspired the song based on a poem she wrote about Don McLean but lyricist Norman Gimbel and music writer Charles Fox disagree and say that Lori talked about the song and Don McLean after they had written it.

Wait! Who?

Lori Lieberman, a Jennifer Aniston lookalike, sang the original version of the song a year before Roberta Flack catapulted it into the national consciousness. While Flack’s version is soul, Lieberman’s is pure early 70’s folk music.

Besides being a music polymath, Prince is probably best know for forming bands and making pancakes. Besides his more famous girl bands, Prince (well OK, really his bassist) formed the R&B boy-band Mazarati. If you’re one of the four people that have ever heard of them, then you are familiar with their one hit 100 MPH. That’s because there was another song that they wrote based on a short demo Prince gave them. They expanded the lyrics and wrote the music and it was such a great song that Prince decided he wanted to do the song so he took the song and songwriting credit and as a result, Mazarati did not release the number one and Grammy Award winning song “Kiss” on their album, although to be fair, the Grammy was for Prince’s performance and not the song itself.

OK, I’ll be honest with you. You are not going to hear the famous line “The lion sleeps tonight.” What you will hear is the song done under the original title “Mbube” with the famous style of singing that was actually named for this song that was recorded in 1939 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Starting with Pete Seeger, the song was repeatedly covered and redone. The value of the royalties alone were around $15 million. The song wasn’t copyrighted because back then (unlike today) you had to actively copyright your work – but it wasn’t public domain either and to make things worse, Gallo Records was not interested in protecting Linda’s interests. Pete Campbell – in reality an alias for a team of producers associated with Pete Seeger and the Weavers but not Seeger himself who always supported Linda’s rights – was in the business of claiming the copyright for older songs as his own. He did the same with the now renamed “Wimoweh” and the publishers made a mint while Linda made a pittance (even counting the 10 shillings he sold the song for to Gallo), dying broke in 1962. However under British law, all of the ownership rights went back to Linda’s estate in 1987 – in time to cash in (after a lawsuit of course) on its use in The Lion King.

The post Top 10 Famous Songs With Unknown Originals appeared first on Listverse.

Yes, as a matter of fact, Pachelbel wrote more than one Canon in D Major. He wrote over two hundred pieces for the organ, his instrument, and hundreds of pieces for all other instrumentation and voices. He was one of Bach’s major idols, and Bach studied his works voraciously. Consequently, a lot of Bach’s fugues sound similar in construction and methods.

This fugue is the lister’s favorite of those that YouTube has to offer, but he could find no opus number for it, and Pachelbel is sure to have written dozens of fugues over the years in C Major, as well as all the other keys. This is a light, fun one, with repeated notes in the melody.

Shostakovich was a close student of Bach’s work, as any self-respecting musician of any kind of music ought to be (heavy metal musicians routinely praise Bach), and as such, this fugue bears a few striking similarities to the high Baroque style. The theme is deceptively simple but promises many elaborations, and the whole piece is superbly logical, with a steady build in polyphonic complexity. Yet, the “mood” of the piece, for lack of a better word, places it squarely in the late Romantic era, being distant, slightly sad, perhaps a little expressive of the Russian countryside in a bleak rain.

As is the case of all music, but especially post-Romantic, 20th Century music, describing this one is almost impossible. The entire piece, in four movements, is written without key signature, but, while it is strictly atonal, the strictness of its adherence to the Baroque traditions of a fugue make it intensely arresting, and not difficult to follow. If you were to describe an impression the music gives you, you might say it sounds like some hideous monster sneaking up on you slowly, ever patiently, until about two-thirds of the way through, you, the audience, turn and see the monster, and have to decide what to do next. In the end, you cautiously back away from it. Of course, that’s only this lister’s impression. Its almost unbearable intensity, however, cannot be ignored.

As is typical of Wagner’s operas, he employed all the polyphonic music he could manage, in order to add layer on layer of complexity to the titanic music that his epic stories required. The end of Act 1 of Lohengrin is another fine example of his grandiose, Romantic polyphony. But he outdid himself with Die Meistersinger. In scene 6 of Act 2, Beckmesser, a mastersinger, attempts to serenade Eva at her window, but is interrupted by Hans Sachs, another mastersinger, who strikes the soles of a pair of shoes with a hammer each time Beckmesser makes a mistake. By the time Beckmesser finishes his song (to Magdalena, disguised as Eva), Sachs has finished repairing the shoes.

Their ruckus wakes up David, who jealously attacks Beckmesser, which wakes up the entire neighborhood and nearly starts a riot. All this chaos on stage is held together magnificently by the fugue Wagner has the characters sing and the orchestra play.

One of Mozart’s finest efforts, and an obvious show of skill in composing complex polyphonic music. This movement is a double fugue, combining both the Kyrie Eleison and the Christe Eleison into one piece of music. These two texts have almost always been separate, because the Greek/Latin text reads, “Kyrie elision. Christe elision. Kyrie elision.”

The tones of these texts are popularly interpreted as “foreboding/scary” for the Kyrie and “plaintive” for the Christe. The idea is that the Kyrie invokes God the Father, who will destroy all sinners in the last days, while the Christe invokes Christ, who pleads for all sinners to convert. Mozart’s version is, more or less, no exception. The movement begins with a strong statement from the bass voices, “Lord, have mercy!” immediately answered by the altos, “Christ, have mercy!” in a desperately rising staccato, as if time is short.

The fugue is not particularly long, but it demonstrates a mastery of the polyphonic techniques in which you must be fluent in order to maintain the theme and development in a fugue. Double fugues are much more difficult to compose than single fugues, and because Bach wrote several, the most notable of which are in his monumental Art of the Fugue, many later composers have felt the pressure to prove themselves. Verdi practically failed, writing a technically accurate, but very academic double fugue for the Sanctus of his Requiem. Mozart, however, is able to toy with the intricacies, which is necessary for the proper exploration of the subjects.

Buxtehude was Bach’s most direct idol. He found in Buxtehude’s work that divine complexity Baroque music always sought, and finally found in Bach. If Bach can be said to be the culmination, the pinnacle, of the Baroque, then Buxtehude laid most of the foundation for Bach’s pedestal.

As such, Buxtehude’s music is not nearly as heavy or robust as Bach’s, but this fugue, especially, possesses a cheery lightness that he elaborates into a rainbow of polyphonic textures and colors, and it was perfectly suited to his intent: a refreshing break from a monotonous sermon during a four-hour church service. It is not very long, compared to many others on this list, but Buxtedhude got in, said all he needed to say, and got out. A slender, fair-haired dance of a fugue.

This list would be grossly incomplete without mentioning Handel. He was Bach’s greatest contemporary, and Beethoven and Haydn both considered him the greatest composer of all time (they only had a fraction of Bach’s manuscripts at their disposal in their times). Handel’s most famous work, the titanic oratorio, Messiah, ends with a suitably titanic fugue on the single word, “Amen.”

Handel was the second greatest master of the Baroque fugue, and that’s especially impressive since fugues were a central theme of Baroque music, more so than of Classical or Romantic music. He was by far more well known throughout Europe than Bach, and very wealthy, as he was employed by King George II of England. Bach had no such luck, being employed exclusively by churches, which could barely afford everything besides music. Bach’s income was supplemented by trusses of firewood and bags of corn. He couldn’t even raise the money to take a solo trip to England to meet his greatest contemporary.

Handel’s “Amen” has to wrap up “the greatest story ever told,” as it were, and to this end, he scores the entrance of the trumpets for a marvelous, bombastic fanfare, a final storming of Heaven, as some have said. The complexity of the fugue is on par with some by Bach, leading some musicologists to argue that the “Amen” chorus is an even higher achievement than the “Hallelujah” Chorus.

Beethoven loathed writing counterpoint. Contrapuntal music did not come naturally to him, but given his never-give-up attitude toward just about everything, he refused to yield to the fugue’s enormous technical difficulties. After an arduous career of writing a lot of human history’s almightiest music, along with a number of fugues and fugal sections to larger works, he cemented his place among the finest contrapuntal composers with his fugal finale to this sonata.

It is notoriously difficult for many classical pianists because it so huge a movement, with three voices in triple meter, lasting 12 solid minutes. It is no easy feat to memorize it. The whole sonata was, for most of the 1800s, the longest solo piano work. Three voices, not four, comprise the fugue, on a theme concerned with the exploration of dissonance, a very modern, even heretical, idea at the time. Beethoven, though, was never one to be afraid of what people thought of his work.

Like most of Beethoven’s piano work, this one employs extensive trilling. Sviatoslav Richter likened its composition to Noah’s construction of the Ark: there was only one man on Earth who could build the Ark. And God called him to do it. It begins simply, methodically laying a foundation, then reflecting on how to proceed, before finally hitting on the idea of raising the rounded walls of the ship.

Mozart wrote this entire symphony in about a month, in the summer of 1788, at the same time as he worked on Symphonies 39 and 40, his last three, along with dozens of other large and small works. The last movement is classic Mozart, cheerful, ebullient, full of laughter and euphoria.

This lister thinks he might have cheated a bit in including it, because in the strict sense of the other entries, this one is “fugato,” not a fugue. A fugato piece is written in the style of a fugue but makes so many moderations here and there it becomes too loose a piece to be a fugue. Usually, it turns into multiple fugues, one after another, rapid-fire, with a lot of intertwining. That is what Mozart does with the four-note theme of this one. It can be said to have five voices, each of which alters the theme in a different way, and each of these mariations is treated throughout the orchestra to its own development, until the coda brings all five voices together for a big finish. It is supremely scientific, but you have to study it on paper to get the full effect of what Mozart achieved.

Beethoven was, at the time of this composition’s public debut, still not universally accepted as a titan of contrapuntal music. Today, we know better. His “grand fugue,” originally published as the final movement of his gigantic String Quartet, Op. 130 in B-flat Major, was not as well received as he would have liked, because no one understood it. He based the theme on dissonance, like #3, which to the mainstream was still a very new and strange concept at the time. But he wrote it like he heard it in his head, and was never afraid to try anything. If it sounded good, he kept working with it.

He withdrew it from the quartet and substituted a movement easier to get along with, but published the fugue by itself. It was debuted by the Schuppanzigh Quartet, led by Ignaz Schuppanzigh himself, one of the finest violinists ever. Afterward, Schuppanzigh mentioned to another member of the quartet that he did not have the slightest understanding of the fugue, but didn’t dare question “the Generalissimo.”

It is a double fugue, with four voices developing two subjects simultaneously. Beethoven, like Mozart, Haydn, et al., had a number of Bach’s fugal works to draw from, but painfully few. He studied the fugue primarily from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. It is especially impressive that Beethoven was able to take the next leap from the Baroque, since the best, most thorough treatise on fugal composition, Bach’s “The Art of the Fugue,” was unknown to anyone until Felix Mendelssohn rediscovered it in 1829.

If you ever take a class in music appreciation or music history, you will study or at least learn an overview of the fugue, its history, its most famous composers, and at least an elementary comprehension of how one is written, and every single music book on the subject will use Bach’s “little” fugue in g minor. It is so nicknamed because he wrote a fugue about twice as long, BWV 542, also in g minor, which is equally legendary. The little fugue is, and likely will ever remain, the most concise, technically and musically expert fugue of human history. This does not deem it necessarily Bach’s best, which would be an impossible decision. But all fugal composition after Bach refers, whether deliberately or not, to the techniques that culminated in him, and this fugue is the most clear-cut, straightforward example of them.

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