Category: S-Tier Songs

A Perfect Circle – Judith

On By bigbadburchIn S-Tier Songs1 Comment

This post was part of a series that I called S-Tier Songs. I later decided to abandon the series in favor of a simpler Song of the Week format. I am keeping these posts as I wrote them but removing the old page that linked to the list of S-Tier Songs, so that is why these posts might look a bit odd. Enjoy.

Today I visit a song from 2000. Not a hotbed year of music, at least what I and many others who read this listen to. But this band and this song would rise up from the muck and gain widespread notice, becoming a hit single in the mire of post-Woodstock ’99 fatigue and a beacon for the way for alt-metal to go forward. It only helps that the song involves highly charged personal affairs and features the lead singer of alt-metal’s biggest band.

A Perfect Circle – Judith

To begin with, a Cliffnotes version of the formation of A Perfect Circle – guitarist Billy Howerdel had been a guitar tech with Nine Inch Nails and Tool, among others. The latter band is very important, as Tool singer Maynard James Keenan would offer Billy a place to crash in L.A. After Maynard heard Billy’s demos, Maynard offered to sing on them.

Billy Howerdel wanted singer Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins to sing on it originally, but was rebuffed and Maynard sang on the demos. The pair assembled a band and got a record deal, signing with a group apart from Tool’s label so that the band would be taken seriously as its own entity.

Well, no problem there.

A Perfect Circle would hit well on the early millennium, with the debut album Mer De Noms debuing on Billboard at number 4 and hitting platinum before year’s end. The band hit on the charts and also toured extensively, initially opening for Nine Inch Nails in the summer of 2000 – a show I caught and detailed here.

It was fairly quick success for APC, and it wasn’t entirely because the singer of Tool was involved. There was a rich, deep song composition to the band and that was evident on the lead single, which is the song we’re discussing today.

Judith hits with a monster riff that isn’t something that could be easily replicated by a band, rock or metal, that I know of. It’s not “complex” in the vein of Dream Theater or Yngwie, but it’s something not of our usual world and gets set apart. This song, for all its lyrical complexities, is a banger. This throws down and slams, and goes very mainstream in a weird 2000’s world where we’re still trying to define the new rules.

And then there is the lyrical content. This is a highly charged, personal song for Maynard James Keenan. The song bears the name of his mother, Judith Marie Keenan. It is directly influenced by her, but not in a way that would be considered a fitting tribute by many (don’t worry, that’s to come)

Judith Marie Keenan suffered a stroke when Maynard was roughly 11, and would live in a debilitated state until her death in 2003. Her devotion to the church through her life and the backbiting talk of members of her church would inspire Maynard’s lyrics for this song.

And the song is not, in any terms, kind to the Christian institution. While “shock rock” had been played out by 2000 and “shock rapper” Eminem was rising to superstardom at this time, it was a different scene to have such a blasphemous song so blunt and upfront on record. Lyrics like “fuck your god” weren’t reserved for much of rock, beyond a bit Nine Inch Nails used on a secondary track on The Downward Spiral in 1994. But A Perfect Circle would slot right in to a very weird early 2000’s MTV and radio scene and score a big hit that charted well in the US and abroad.

But the song is far more personal than just a rant at religious institutions. Judith was struck down by a stroke, left to linger for 10,000 days in a paralyzed state. The song bearing her name takes aim at the gods she deifies, who Maynard holds responsible for her state. The song is really a question, why are you venerating this deity that left you in this position for damn near 30 years?

The combination of complex riffing and instrumentation, as well as the massively charged personal lyrics, mark this song as a dark highlight of the year 2000. It would be a herald for more to come from the band, as 3 Libras would also chart well and The Hollow would be one of the best songs anyone has heard from whatever scene, ever. APC’s second album would bring The Outsider, another banger and very strong performing track.

But Judith was the lead that brought us to the dance, and its mix of uncategorized banging and personally-fueled lyrics were what put the band on the map in the first place, and also separated the work from Maynard’s main gig in Tool. It was a messed up hit single to have, but it worked in the time and place. It gave fuel to a fire no one really saw coming, that was a mesh of an unheralded talent and a known singer that had something else to say.

Why is this an S-Tier song?

The combined simple, headbanging qualities of the track along with its more complex underpinnings make this a worthwhile endeavor on its own. Combine it with some very, very personal lyrics that transcend the typical fare of rock and metal hit-making, and you have a song that sticks out like sore thumb among the rest of what the hell ever we were doing in 2000.

And, as shitty as it is that it resulted in the death of Judith Marie, we get a spiritual sequel to this song next week. Maynard logged time at his day job to pay homage to his since-departed mother a few years later. He doesn’t like talking about it (understandable), but I’m not going to let that masterpiece of a song go.

Bruce Dickinson – Tears Of The Dragon

On By bigbadburchIn S-Tier Songs2 Comments

This post was part of a series that I called S-Tier Songs. I later decided to abandon the series in favor of a simpler Song of the Week format. I am keeping these posts as I wrote them but removing the old page that linked to the list of S-Tier Songs, so that is why these posts might look a bit odd. Enjoy.

Bruce Dickinson – Tears Of The Dragon

Today’s song is from Bruce’s second solo album Balls To Picasso. It was also Bruce’s first album after his infamous exit from Iron Maiden in 1993. Bruce had made a few attempts to start the record with other bands and producers, but he scrapped those efforts and hooked up with Roy Z and Tribe Of Gypsies. That band would back Bruce on this effort and the partnership with Roy Z would yield great results over the ensuing years.

Tears Of The Dragon is generally viewed as the best song from Balls To Picasso. The song has over 40 million streams on Spotify, which basically obliterates the totals from any other Dickinson solo tune. While none of the solo catalog did massive numbers sales-wise and The Chemical Wedding is widely hailed as a masterpiece, it is Tears Of The Dragon that is the first song recalled when talking about Bruce’s solo career.

Our song today is not a blazing metal scorcher. It would fit quasi-ballad territory – the song opens with soft, somber verses that build to a powerful chorus suiting The Human Air Raid Siren’s voice. It is replete with the standard fare you’ll find in any good hard rock/metal song, including a fast-paced solo and also a jazzy sort of interlude that, well, I guess you don’t find in every hard rock or metal song. And yeah, the very first time I heard the song I was really thrown off, but I’ve gotten used to the bit and now I can’t imagine the song without it.

Lyrically the song deals with the idea of overcoming one’s fears to “throw myself into the sea” and see what happens. The song revolves around Bruce’s decision to leave Iron Maiden and throw himself into the sea, to experience what else might be out there that he was missing. I can’t readily access the source material for this, but Bruce gave the info in an interview with Rolling Stone when he was promoting his biography in 2017. It was a huge gamble to cast off from Iron Maiden and go at it alone. And while it might not have been a lucrative prospect, in the end Bruce does have an acclaimed solo catalog from his endeavors.

And the song’s greatest strength is that it wasn’t specifically couched in the terms of him leaving Maiden – it was a song for anyone who was unsure about a course in life, who needed that push to go ahead and jump into the sea of doubt. I think music in general will grab people at places and times, be the right song in the right place for someone. That much doesn’t consider genre or form – people have benefited from a song bringing the right message at the right time.

But I think we know rock and metal have long been the refuge of the loner, the doubter, the unsure of foot. And Tears Of The Dragon is a call to anyone feeling those kind of emotions – metal is often at its best when it appeals to the outcasts, and this is a song for those on the margins that need a push for that motivation to succeed and overcome when the odds aren’t good or even known.

It’s the overriding reason why many of us chose this kind of music as our own. We didn’t fit, we didn’t like the same things as those around us, or whatever it was, we faced life with doubt and trepidation. It was shit like this that got many of us over the hump, just as this song did when I was just before the age of 17 in 1994.

While life wasn’t exactly great for Iron Maiden-Bruce Dickinson-hard rock and heavy metal fans in 1994, we still found our own way. And a fair bit of that had to do with the mainstays like Bruce offering viable product, updating with the times yet still staying the course. It would only come to pass years later that staying the course was the true line to walk, even in the turmoil of the early 90’s, and the greater turmoil of the years beyond.

Why is this an S-Tier song?

Tears Of The Dragon is a magnificent ballad of conquering self-doubt that offered its artist an early signature hit in a period of great uncertainty. While charts and sales figures weren’t entirely kind to Bruce’s solo efforts, the talk of the time and also the retrospective analysis paints his work away from Maiden in a fantastic light, and Tears is one of the main calling cards for his time in the 1990’s wilderness. It’s a song about conquering fears and embracing the unknown, which Bruce did by word and deed in a period where many thought rock and metal as we knew it was lost forever. Yet, by simply executing what he knew, we would be led back to a new legacy we couldn’t even begin to imagine.

You might recognize the guitarist here

Motörhead – Ace Of Spades (the song)

On By bigbadburchIn S-Tier Songs4 Comments

This post was part of a series that I called S-Tier Songs. I later decided to abandon the series in favor of a simpler Song of the Week format. I am keeping these posts as I wrote them but removing the old page that linked to the list of S-Tier Songs, so that is why these posts might look a bit odd. Enjoy.

Motörhead – Ace Of Spades

This homage to gambling would not just serve as a band’s hit, it would become the signature song associated with one of heavy metal’s most influential acts. Motörhead would not find massive commercial success, but after decades of recording and tearing up the pavement all the world over, they would become a stud in the crown of metal music.

Ace Of Spades was a single release a month ahead of the band’s fourth album of the same name. The song got noticed and hung out on the UK charts for a few months, it would also receive a UK gold certification for sales in excess of 400,000. The album Ace Of Spades would chart modestly well throughout Europe and also go gold in the United Kingdom for sales over 100,000.

And those fairly modest sales figures would be one of the biggest commercial successes of the band’s 28-year career. Motörhead were never a super popular or financially successful act, yet they endure as one of the heavyweights of the metal genre. Bassist and vocalist Lemmy Kilmister, praised in many circles as God, would make far more money writing songs for Ozzy Osbourne than for his own band.

Yet, when all comes due, it is Lemmy’s vehicle Motörhead that remains as a bastion of heavy music.

And even among the “great unwashed” who aren’t radically familiar with the music of Motörhead, it’s a damn safe bet that a lot of people have heard this song. It’s known far and wide as one of heavy metal’s greatest tunes.

The song is pretty simple in its premise – it is a buzzsaw, but with enough subtlety to distinguish it from the later-to-come death and black metal. It embodies rock, punk, speed and thrash, the latter two terms not even yet existing when it was released in 1980. Motörhead were already an edgy gambit in the few years leading up to this release – this song would cement a young legacy.

The tale of the song’s construction is fairly simple, and told in great detail in this 2017 article by Louder Sound. Drummer Phil “Philthy Animal” Taylor and guitarist “Fast” Eddie Clark were jacking around in the studio with producer Vic Maile, who was familiar with Lemmy from the latter’s time in Hawkwind. A series of riffs had been thrown around and the band worked them up while Lemmy was out on the prowl.

The lyrics would come from Lemmy later – he truly just slammed a bunch of gambling references together. It might have been in the back of a van while speeding along a freeway as he recalls, or it might have been on the shitter, as Phil Taylor would guess. Either way, the band had their title track down.

And in the wake, one of heavy metal’s immortal songs was born. Again, there is no mentioning Motörhead without Ace Of Spades. And there isn’t a lot of what we call heavy metal without Motörhead – everyone was influenced by the speedy, punkish outfit. This blend of nasty, noisy rock would give way to thrash in just a few year’s time, and by the end of the 1980’s, extreme metal was well on its way to being more than just a footnote in history. And much of all this noise owes its presence to Motörhead and principally Ace Of Spades.

It’s fair to say that this is Motörhead’s most famous song. Hell, their second most famous song is probably a pro wrestler’s theme song that the band didn’t even write. The group never really “got their due” in terms of huge success, yet they are almost without exception mentioned as a forefront influence on the music that has come from the decades since 1980. And while the band have a hefty catalog with several worthy albums and songs to choose from, there is little doubt that Ace Of Spades is the calling card that rallies all points home. When anyone mentions Motörhead, no doubt it is this gnarly riff and Lemmy’s gruff vocal delivery about losing your ass at cards that first enters one’s mind.

Why is this an S-Tier song?

Ace Of Spades is the banner by which Motörhead flew under for decades. It is a barnstormer of a song that both used and defied the music of the time to offer a new construct upon which much of the heaviest music of the ensuing years would be based off of. Everyone knows that Lemmy and Motörhead kicked ass, and everyone knows that Ace Of Spades is the signpost for the ass kickings.

Black Sabbath – Black Sabbath (the song)

On By bigbadburchIn S-Tier Songs2 Comments

This post was part of a series that I called S-Tier Songs. I later decided to abandon the series in favor of a simpler Song of the Week format. I am keeping these posts as I wrote them but removing the old page that linked to the list of S-Tier Songs, so that is why these posts might look a bit odd. Enjoy.

Today it’s really simple – the first song on the first album from heavy metal’s first band. In the spirit of convenience, the group chose to name their band, song and album all the same thing.

Black Sabbath – Black Sabbath

Let’s just lead with this thought – imagine hearing this for the first time in 1970 when it came out.

Seriously – I know the 1960’s were a golden age of music and had divergent offerings from all around, but think about hearing this in 1970 for the first time.

The bells, the thunderstorm, then that RIFF. No matter what else Black Sabbath had, it has always been the riffs of Tony Iommi, the absolute god of heavy metal guitar, that made this band what it was. And the riffs in this song were the noted birth of heavy metal in general and specifically doom metal.

This was just other-worldly and I can’t imagine what it would have been like to hear it without context upon release. People can always point to Cream as a boarding ramp for Sabbath and heavy metal, but Cream didn’t tread this ground. And any other precursor to heavy metal – Hendrix, Mountain, Steppenwolf, whoever else – wasn’t here.

And I didn’t hear this until 1990. I was 13 and got a home stereo system for Christmas, I snagged this and several other classic albums on cassette to break in my system. Hell, I’d heard Ozzy solo but I hadn’t really dug into Black Sabbath. Even hearing it as a dumb kid 20 years after it first hit was a mind-altering experience. I knew Sabbath were regarded as the founders and masters of the metal I was getting die-hard into, but I didn’t know it was like this.

Everything is just so ominous – the opening riffs, the barely-there presence of Bill Ward’s drums and Geezer Butler’s bass, and Ozzy Osbourne’s haunting vocals. In lockstep with the lyrics that paint this dark and dismal picture, it is just something straight from Hell.

This dirge goes on for over four minutes, then things kick into high gear. Iommi offers a higher tempo riff, Bill and Geezer join in at full volume, and Ozzy wails away through the descent into Hell. The last minute lets Iommi head out on a solo and the band slamming along in a dissonant yet perfectly coherent mess. Heavy metal was born.

It can be said that the song, and by extension the band, was blues music mutated into a volatile concoction. Black Sabbath were a blues band named Earth before changing gears, and blues music has influenced every notable Western music movement around. It would only stand to reason that there’s a pretty direct line from the blues to this godawful, Satanic wailing. And, as Sabbath would showcase on the rest of their debut album, it was a very direct line without much padding inbetween.

But, this isn’t the blues. This is not the music of the Mississippi Delta – this is the cacophony of life in industrial hell, aka Birmingham, England in the postwar 20th Century. Heavy metal was born there and would continue to flow out of there for decades beyond.

The lyrics behind Black Sabbath are dark and occult-based. The tale behind the lyrics is both stark and amusing. It has been told both by Ozzy Osbourne and Geezer Butler in various places, by Geezer in the liner notes to Sabbath’s 1998 live album Reunion and Ozzy’s 2010 biography I Am Ozzy. The gist is that Geezer had an occult phase and decked his apartment out in all black and with spooky decorations. Ozzy, a noted thief at this point in life, lifted a book about the occult and gave it to Geezer. Geezer woke up from a nightmare and saw a figure in black pointing at him. Geezer went to throw the book away but it had vanished. He swore off the occult and relayed the tale to Ozzy, who penned the lyrics to the song. Combine it and the legendary Iommi riffs, and a whole new thing was born.

Sabbath would go on to further and refine the heavy metal template the same year with Paranoid. But the song Black Sabbath especially would also lead to a new subset of metal down the road. Bands like Saint Vitus, Candlemass, Pentagram, Witchfinder General and Trouble would take what Sabbath established and make some memorable (and depressing) metal. Crushing dread via riff and vocal would be its own subgenre.

Why is this an S-Tier song?

Purely on its own, Black Sabbath is a crushing, haunting work that communicates dread and despair in a way not heard before its time. It is also the beginning of an entire movement in music that happens to be my favorite and is a highlight in a long catalog produced by the world’s most important and influential heavy metal band.

A demo version of the song released by Ozzy in 1997

Sonata Arctica – Don’t Say A Word

On By bigbadburchIn S-Tier Songs9 Comments

This post was part of a series that I called S-Tier Songs. I later decided to abandon the series in favor of a simpler Song of the Week format. I am keeping these posts as I wrote them but removing the old page that linked to the list of S-Tier Songs, so that is why these posts might look a bit odd. Enjoy.

Today I’m going to delve into the world of power metal, though this pick is from an act that broke out of that categorization. The song on it’s own is a gruesome tale of lovelorn heartbreak and just how far a person can go in that desperate mindset. As we’ll see, the song isn’t in isolation and is part of a long-running story told in several songs across the band’s career.

Sonata Arctica – Don’t Say A Word

Note – the video is an edit that cuts a spoken word portion from the song. The full album version is posted at the end of this post from Spotify.

Our song today hails from Sonata Arctica’s fourth album Reckoning Night, released in September 2004. Don’t Say A Word was given advanced release as an EP the month prior to the full-length.

Sonata Arctica had made a name for themselves in the early 2000’s power metal scene but also had quickly showcased that there was more to their songwriting chops than the typical fare found in the genre. Though replete with guitar and keyboard riffs as well as soaring vocals, the band exercised a higher form of songwriting on tracks like Fullmoon and The End Of This Chapter that separated them from the pack. On Reckoning Night they began the process of departing the usual power metal scene altogether – still incorporating its structure but also bringing in new influences and stylistic departures to liven things up. It would be a prelude to the next phase of their career, where the group would pursue different directions than the power metal they’d come up on.

While the album has a share of standout songs, none ring quite as true or hard as Don’t Say A Word. It is a lively track despite its dark content. Both guitars and keyboards ring with melody through an uptempo affair. Singer and band mainman Tony Kakko’s voice soars in some parts and goes hauntingly quiet in others, doing well to tell this messed up story. The track does a great job of keeping a balance between flowing music and darker, heavier parts. Sonata Arctica didn’t abandon their calling cards on this track or album, they simply repurposed and refined them.

The lyrical matter is very dark and disturbing – it is from the perspective of a scorned lover seeking the ultimate retribution for their pain. There is no room for ambiguity – the subject intends to end the life of his former mistress. The message is communicated in very eloquent fashion through the lyrics, this certainly isn’t a Cannibal Corpse song.

The song paints a terrible picture of the subject’s suffering – the love that’s meant to fade away, I tolerate your hate as long as you’re afraid, all I wanted was to be with you and suffer everyday. These are heavy and desperate thoughts, far beyond the stock thoughts often communicated in typical “break-up” songs. Obviously this work is removed from that, though the same general sentiments remain.

Purely taken on its own, Don’t Say A Word weaves a dark tale of a jilted lover who sets out to murder his fallen object of desire. It is a great song despite its treacherous story. And, as luck would have it, there is a lot more story to the principal actors in the song than what’s in this lone tune.

In 2006 Sonata Arctica released the album Unia and on it was a track named Caleb. That song serves as a prequel to Don’t Say A Word and also the aforementioned The End Of This Chapter. Caleb the song gives background on Caleb the man, the dark subject of today’s song. Caleb had a pretty bad childhood, wound up in and then out of a relationship with a woman who he then sets out to smite in Don’t Say A Word. The background provided from the song Caleb helps explain Don’t Say A Word’s chorus, where Caleb refers back to things his mother said.

The saga has been added to occasionally over the years, the song Juliet finally giving a name to the woman and seeing her enact (seemingly) cold revenge on Caleb. The band performed the entire saga live in the 2010’s, just before adding to it again in 2019 with The Last Of The Lambs, which is possibly an alternate ending to Juliet’s grim conclusion.

I’ll admit that I’m not very well-read on the Caleb Saga as a whole, a lot of fan theories tend to cloud the truth. It may be something I dive into on a future post, but as it stands and through piecing together interview fragments with Tony Kakko over the years, it would seem that the saga has six songs currently. And while most of them do tell a fairly coherent story, there might be more than one ending as I mentioned above. Either way, Don’t Say A Word plays an integral role in the story and is immediately after The End Of This Chapter in chronology.

Why is this an S-Tier song?

Don’t Say A Word is a fantastic melodic metal tune that stands out well in a band’s catalog already somewhat crowded with signature songs. It tells a harrowing, pained story that would later be expanded on in a rare lore-building exercise. It’s not every day we get that in music, especially spaced out across several albums and years. But even on its own the lyrics deliver a gripping tale beyond the conventions of a lot of popular music.

Van Halen – Runnin’ With The Devil

On By bigbadburchIn S-Tier Songs5 Comments

This post was part of a series that I called S-Tier Songs. I later decided to abandon the series in favor of a simpler Song of the Week format. I am keeping these posts as I wrote them but removing the old page that linked to the list of S-Tier Songs, so that is why these posts might look a bit odd. Enjoy.

Today it’s finally time to touch greatness. It’s a famous cut from one of the best debut albums ever recorded and from rock music’s most important and influential bands. The song is heavy, thunderous, totally absurd and completely amazing.

Van Halen – Runnin’ With The Devil

Our song today is the opening track from the self-titled debut that would set the music world on fire and reinvent rock for a new decade. Van Halen would conquer stage and charts for a very long time and they did not dawdle around on their first album.

Runnin’ With The Devil opens the illustrious Van Halen career with a slower-paced affair that riffs along and pounds its message home through one of music’s tightest rhythm sections and the signature vocals of one David Lee Roth. It is a party song and headbanger rolled into one and it truly gets the party started on one of rock’s ultimate albums.

Everything that would come to define Van Halen is present on Runnin’ With The Devil. Of course there is Eddie Van Halen, six-string extraordinaire and on the Mount Rushmore of guitar. Eddie keeps most of his work to rhythm here, noodling around a bit during the verses then slamming home the point on the chorus. Of course the song features an EVH solo, what Van Halen song doesn’t? It is the first official notes of the guy widely considered to be (at least) the next most-important player to Jimi Hendrix.

But the band Van Halen was never just about Eddie, even if discussions about EVH could last from now until the end of humanity without treading worn ground. Another signpost of the Van Halen sound was the interplay between bassist Michael Anthony and drummer Alex Van Halen. Alex brought the pain to the drums, completely evident on this track. And Michael Anthony pinned down the rhythm with the bass.

Of course, on Runnin’ With The Devil, the bass part doesn’t get any simpler. You could take a person who has never played an instrument and have them playing this part of the song in 15 minutes, no problem. But that isn’t the point. When Michael’s bass gets going with Alex’s drums and also Eddie’s rhythm playing, it generates this fucking unreal heaviness and drive that bands have been trying and largely failing to replicate ever since. It is present on many Van Halen works over the years, yes even the Sammy Hagar records, but is in abundance on our song today.

And all of that, a trademark of Van Halen’s rock dominance for nearly two decades, takes a back seat to the star of this tune. It is David Lee Roth who sings and scats his way to an all-time classic performance. The verses go by without anything to get carried away by, but then the band takes up the chorus proper while Dave lets loose on whatever the hell he feels like doing. On the first chorus he adds his own thing in his soaring voice. On the second chorus he goes to another planet and pulls out a rant that has nothing to do with anything but just fits the song perfectly. His diatribe has led to circulation of the isolated vocal track for the song and it lives on in rock fame and infamy.

And Dave fills the song with various shrieks in whatever places he feels they should go. It’s something not just any singer could do, but Dave just fooled around in the studio and threw them in wherever he pleased. It’s one of several points of comparison between DLR and Michael Jackson, who was a huge fan of Van Halen and Roth. People the world over sought to play guitar like Eddie Van Halen with varying degrees of success, but there isn’t a long list of singers who could touch what David Lee Roth was doing in his prime. It took no less than the King of Pop to perform on par to Roth.

And as with any song, the words have their meaning. Well, except this one. No one really knows what the hell Roth is singing about and no one really cares. It might be about choosing to live that nomadic lifestyle as a rock star out on the road all the time as opposed to choosing a “stable” at-home life, but who knows? I don’t.

Why is this an S-Tier Song?

Runnin’ With The Devil is an assembly of talent and performance without peer, both in 1978 and even to this day. It lays the groundwork for a decades-long sound executed by the brothers Van Halen and Michael Anthony. And it features the nonsensical, over the top yet fantastic vocal stylings of David Lee Roth. It is one of many songs from the group that would go on to inform and influence the Los Angeles rock scene into the early 1980’s and define the music for the decade. Van Halen would cause the world to rock out with them, but the group stood alone in terms of talent and execution.

Blur – Song 2

On By bigbadburchIn S-Tier Songs5 Comments

This post was part of a series that I called S-Tier Songs. I later decided to abandon the series in favor of a simpler Song of the Week format. I am keeping these posts as I wrote them but removing the old page that linked to the list of S-Tier Songs, so that is why these posts might look a bit odd. Enjoy.

Today’s song is very well-known, in many cases it’s the band’s only known song in America. Many people know the song without knowing who the group is at all. It’s only two minutes long, it’s the second song off the album and my only blogging regret is not making it the second entry in this series.

Blur – Song 2

Blur entered 1997 in a curious position. They’d been crowned kings of Britpop in 1994 after their triumphant Parklife record and tour. In 1995 they seemed poised to build momentum with The Great Escape and their initial single Country House, but then the British press went mad for Oasis and left Blur in the dust, even going so far as to change reviews of the album. Oasis went on to become the biggest band in the world for awhile as Blur sat at home wondering what happened.

By 1997 Blur were ready to get back at it, and this time they were leaving behind the Britpop elements they had previously worked so hard to be known for. The group convened around more lo-fi and grunge sensibilities and released their self-titled album to a new world that was about to move on from the Britpop scene.

While Blur would become internationally celebrated for the self-titled album as a whole, it was Song 2 that would take on a life of its own and become the band’s most recognizable hit. And, of course, as the story goes with many of these hit songs, the whole thing was a joke and an accident.

The above video outlines the origin story of Song 2 as told by Blur guitarist Graham Coxon. The song began as an acoustic piece on Damon Albarn’s guitar, featuring whistling in place of the song’s now-immortal “woo hoo” bit. Coxon suggested adding a bunch of noise to the tune and actually playing it for the record company as a gag. Albarn obliged and the band turned in the fully-formed, distorted as all hell Song 2 to the record company. Instead of being met with a sour reaction, the label execs loved the tune and Blur were off the to the post-Britpop races.

Song 2 was a well-received hit in Blur’s native UK and it also did something the band had been previously unable to do – it broke in the rest of the world. Song 2 charted on the higher end in many countries and became a staple of college and modern rock radio in the United States. Britpop as a whole hadn’t fared massively well on American shores, save for Elastica and Oasis. But now Blur arrived with a grunged-up tune just in time for the post-grunge era to truly take over rock radio. The song has been a part of sporting events, video games and other media ever since its release 25 years ago.

Background and reception are all well and good, but what really is Song 2 on about? Well, it’s a two minute song full of lyrical nonsense. The most noteworthy lyric is “woo hoo,” it’s the signature part of the song and the one many folks know the tune by. A fair few people couldn’t tell you who Blur is or the name of the song but they know “the woo-hoo song” by heart. And nobody, including the people who wrote it, can tell you what any of it means.

And that’s the beauty of music – not everything has to have a pinned-down, easy to digest meaning. Song 2 is a total lark through the English language and its only memorable words aren’t even really words. The whole thing from lyrics to instruments is just noise being made and it all works splendidly together. That’s not to say no thought went into it – as Graham Coxon outlines in the interview video, he was looking for specific sounds. And he got far more than he bargained for, with the song often cited as his greatest work.

Why is this an S-Tier song?

Song 2 is a monument to absurdity and noise and it tackles its premise extremely well. The song was a huge hit for a band reeling in an identity crisis after the events of 1995. Their response was to shrug off the sounds of their given genre and explore new areas, which led to a new legacy for the group that would far outshine the Britpop movement. It’s a simple song with no comprehensible theme and it’s just a bunch of noise, but it captured the attention of people all across the world.

Bloodbath – Eaten

On By bigbadburchIn S-Tier Songs4 Comments

This post was part of a series that I called S-Tier Songs. I later decided to abandon the series in favor of a simpler Song of the Week format. I am keeping these posts as I wrote them but removing the old page that linked to the list of S-Tier Songs, so that is why these posts might look a bit odd. Enjoy.

Today it’s high time I included an extreme metal tune in the mix. Rock is great and all but there have been some gems come from the underground. Today’s pick is widely considered one of, if not the, catchiest death metal songs recorded. And it was recorded by a group of guys who wanted to form a side project just to mess around with some old school death metal. It’s also the case of a song where it can be argued that a live version outshines the original studio recording.

Bloodbath – Eaten

Eaten was originally released on Bloodbath’s second album, 2004’s Nightmares Made Flesh. While the group originally featured Opeth mainman Mikael Åkerfeldt, he would leave the project after their first recording. To complete the second album, joining the supergroup of Dan Swanö (Edge Of Sanity), Anders Nyström and Jonas Renske (Katatonia), and Martin Axenrot (Opeth) was Peter Tägtgren of Hypocrisy fame.

For those unfamiliar with the various ends of extreme metal – this is a who’s who of performers. Opeth was a juggernaut by 2004. Dan Swano was a mainstay of many forms of extreme metal since the early 1990’s. And Katatonia are one of doom’s main purveyors. Adding in the mainman of Hypocrisy, an early forerunner of melodic Swedish death metal and a guy responsible for producing many metal albums through the 90’s and 2000’s, is just icing on the cake.

The album was consumed rabidly by the metal fanbase. A centerpiece of the record was the song Eaten. While a lot of death metal’s buzzsaw guitars and psycho-paced drumming fly by many listeners, plenty of people caught on to the hooks in the song that reeled listeners in. Instead of playing at a breakneck pace, the group turned the speed dial down and stomped out a massive riff that pulled in a captive audience. It’s still very headbangable but also capable of being digested by people not as accustomed to death metal.

Any good death metal song needs the proper savage lyrics to accompany it, and Eaten delivered in spades. Peter Tägtgren spewed forth a fierce account of a person wishing to be eaten by a cannibal. Nothing totally unusual in death metal, though the twist of portraying the “victim” rather than the cannibal was interesting. One other interesting note?

It was a true story.

Eaten is based on the tale of German cannibal killer Armin Meiwes. Apparently Meiwes advertised for a willing victim in a cannibal fetish website section and found a volunteer in Bernd Brandes, who headed to Meiwes’ place and … well, here’s the Wikipedia page if you want to know more. The sensational murder has been used as a song, movie and TV prop since it first hit headlines.

Bloodbath had some issues maintaining a stable line-up due to everyone’s day jobs in well-known bands. Tägtgren would exit the group in early 2005 due to commitments with Hypocrisy and other projects. The rest of the band had a gig, to that date their first, planned for the 2005 edition of the famed Wacken Open Air Festival. Of course they would need a replacement singer to helm the vocals for the gig.

Re-enter Mikael Åkerfeldt . Opeth’s leader decided to front Bloodbath again for the show and would wind up staying with the group for several more years. The festival performance was later released on DVD and CD as The Wacken Carnage. Ending the set was the band’s rendition of Eaten, a performance often celebrated as superior to it studio recording.

There is something just extra savage in Åkerfeldt’s delivery of the Eaten lyrics that night, as well as the band’s frantic performance that outpaces the original. It’s not that there was fault with Tägtgren’s studio recording, it’s just that Bloodbath got into the moment at the Wacken gig and blew the figurative roof off on that day. Many fans express their opinion that the live version is the song’s definitive offering.

No telling if this stays up but it’s been lingering awhile so I’ll go with it

Why is this an S-Tier song?

Eaten is a masterwork of death metal songwriting, offered by a group of pros who mostly weren’t even involved otherwise in death metal at the time. The song is easily one of the catchiest death metal songs recorded and that’s something of a rare feat to combine hooky songwriting in a genre known for savagery and technical proficiency. Eaten made old school death metal cool again in a time when metal was going in many different directions and taking itself very seriously.

Note – Those name accents are pains in the ass.

As a bonus, here is a more recent performance from present-day Bloodbath singer Nick Holmes (Paradise Lost)

Type O Negative – Black No. 1

On By bigbadburchIn S-Tier Songs1 Comment

This post was part of a series that I called S-Tier Songs. I later decided to abandon the series in favor of a simpler Song of the Week format. I am keeping these posts as I wrote them but removing the old page that linked to the list of S-Tier Songs, so that is why these posts might look a bit odd. Enjoy.

Today I’m going to time hop back to 1993 and revisit a song that became a standard of alt-culture at the time. The tune was largely responsible for breaking the band and they would go on to great success for the next 17 years. Even today the song holds as a well-loved staple and a special treat around the Halloween season.

Type O Negative – Black No.1 (Little Miss Scare-All)

The unedited song

The song was released on Bloody Kisses, Type O’s breakthrough third album that catapulted the group to platinum-selling status and mainstream stars, albeit reluctantly. The group were previously a sludgy, underground entity that suddenly found themselves on MTV and airwaves with their twisted take on doom and gothic metal.

The original album take of the song clocks in at a meaty 11:15. A much-truncated version runs a hair under 5 minutes, this includes the video cut found at the bottom of this post. I don’t have ready stats about radio edits for songs but losing over 6 minutes carves out quite a bit of this tune. It’s probably not a radio edit record considering songs like Freebird and that one by Iron Butterfly, but it’s a pretty noteworthy edit. I’ll be discussing the full song for purposes of this examination, though it’s fair to say many people came to find the band through the video cut and the song’s shorter form.

The song itself exemplifies the duality of its creators – both deadly serious and full of shit. The song can be taken as, and often is, celebrated as a beacon of dark culture, but the truth is that frontman Peter Steele wrote the song to slag off a goth ex-girlfriend of his. The words and imagery were meant sarcastically, as outlined in this Revolver magazine retrospective on Bloody Kisses. And to further the irony, Peter was literally waiting in line to dump a truck full of shit as part of his job when he came up with the song.

The song’s silly-yet-serious presentation would define the tune and the group. The whole thing had the feel of a giant joke but came off with deadly execution and passed for totally serious dialog. All of the hokey goth references, everything from Lily Munster to wolfskin boots sound goofy on the surface but did truly define a valid subculture. And Black No. 1 would go on to draw more people into that subculture, one that previously wasn’t as friendly with heavy metal as many might think. This was a convergence of two different circles rather than an eye cast toward one.

The song, for all its girth, is divided into 3 movements. The first part opens in creepy fashion, introducing the song’s villainess and painting a specific vision of her gothiness. The lyrics reference everything from Halloween to makeup, clove cigarettes and the namesake black hair dye. It’s the kitchen sink of goth talking points. The song builds into a heavy chorus featuring Peter Steele’s distinct low-register chant of the title and a smooth-yet-dirty guitar tone that stood out from the pack in 1993.

The song moves into its second portion, where Steele spends several minutes singing “loving you was like loving the dead” over and over again. On the surface it sounds boring but the music provides enough variety through the passage to keep things fresh. The ultimate “gotcha” wasn’t that Peter was able to insult his ex this way, it was that he was able to make interesting and a huge hit. Of course the full-length version of the song builds to slight lyrical change that radio and MTV did not carry. The song’s final movement calms things down a bit and lets the guitar riff for a moment before the chorus/title leads everyone out into the night to either find or be their own haughty goth chick.

Black No. 1 would lead the way for Type O Negative’s charge onto the shelves of music collectors. The band blew up on MTV and began selling copies of Bloody Kisses at a breakneck pace. Peter Steele was very reluctant to take the band on tour, fearful of giving up his job and life. His feet-dragging cost the group their drummer, Sal Abruscato, who left to join Life Of Agony. Eventually Type O would hit the road and cash in on their success, becoming a mainstay on the touring circuit and selling plenty more albums until Peter Steele’s untimely death in 2010.

Why is this an S-Tier song?

Black No. 1 is a monolith of a tune that put a band on the map and kicked off a celebration of darker subcultures that endures to this day. The song itself is equal parts plodding doom and campy jeers at goths yet somehow invests the listener on its 11 minute runtime. It gave shape to Type O Negative’s direction moving forward, which would largely explore the same “droopy doom” tunes and shed any pretense of past thrash metal influence.

Even greater than the contribution to the band’s fortunes is its long-lasting impact on culture. Not a Halloween passes anymore without this song being posted all over social media. It cast a light on goth subculture, perhaps not something anyone was asking for but it happened anyway and the song went a long way to putting that scene out there for the world to see. It was a lasting influence, seen in makeup and fashion all these years later. I’m sure some people would take exception to pointing to this as the moment goth culture entered the main timeline, but I don’t know of a more telling spot where that happened.

Type O Negative struck the sonic equivalent of oil with Black No. 1. The song marked their arrival on the early 90’s alt-metal scene that they would help shape and would mostly outlast. While most of that music of the time was a brief movement that didn’t make it past 1996, Type O would go on in stride until 2010 in much the same vein as their signature hit.

I wonder what happened to the girl…

The much-edited music video version

Skid Row – Wasted Time

On By bigbadburchIn S-Tier Songs2 Comments

This post was part of a series that I called S-Tier Songs. I later decided to abandon the series in favor of a simpler Song of the Week format. I am keeping these posts as I wrote them but removing the old page that linked to the list of S-Tier Songs, so that is why these posts might look a bit odd. Enjoy.

I’m going back to 1991 and the tail end of popularity for hair metal. While much of that scene began to sputter out in the summer before grunge put the final nail in the coffin that fall, one band released a genre-defying masterpiece that transcended the scene and is often remarked on as a master class in rock and metal. Skid Row’s Slave To The Grind would hit number 1 on the US Billboard charts and would see the band ride a wave of success for a few years while many peers fell by the wayside.

Skid Row – Wasted Time

Wasted Time was the third single released from Slave To The Grind. The song did not break the US Top 40 but did perform respectably well in international markets and would be their final “hit” in terms of charting in multiple countries.

The song transcends its middling single status by being an oft-cited highlight from the record and often mentioned among the best ballads ever recorded. The album as a whole has been revisited by many as a landmark moment in hard rock and metal, and much of that revisiting holds Wasted Time as the chief exhibit.

The song musically is a well-written and played power ballad that ditches the well-worn “hair metal ballad” formula. It isn’t just a slow song – its melodies and hooks are well-crafted and in abundant supply. The guitar solo is perfectly done, in keeping with the song rather than being a showcase of how fast a guitar can be played.

Skid Row really were on another level from their peers, both on their debut and this second effort. Much of what they did, both in sentimental songs like this or in blazing hard rockers, stands head and shoulders above the other offerings of the day. When they were on, very few acts could hope to touch what they were doing.

While the song’s instruments are very well done, it’s of special note to discuss the star of the song – the vocal performance of Sebastian Bach. His work on Wasted Time is the stuff of legend. There are very, very few singers walking the planet, from any genre, who could touch what he did on this song. His high notes are just beyond the reach of most humanity, and he uses his considerable range effectively to communicate the dark, swinging moods of the song.

Lyrically the song is about losing a friend to the throes of drug addiction. The lyrics had a specific muse – former Guns N Roses drummer Steven Adler, who had been fired from GnR a year prior and who would go on to have a well-chronicled series of problems with addiction. Wasted Time depicts that harrowing experience in grand form. It’s a song that cuts through a thorny issue that many have sadly had to deal with.

Why is this an S-Tier song?

Wasted Time is a magnificent showcase of the strengths of hard rock at the turn of the decade into the 90’s. It is songwriting on a level not many can touch and Sebastian Bach’s singing is something in a league all his own. The song is a fitting conclusion to perhaps an entire era of music and was a powerful final statement on an album that defied categorization and exceeded many’s expectations.