There are 292 posts tagged Top Ten (this is page 26 of 42).
It seems like Zeptember was just the other day, but here we are, in the midst of another theme week. I don’t understand the Led Zeppelin/Who rivalry, or why battle lines where drawn there, but having done this for both bands, I think Zeppelin wins. Narrowly, because while they have more songs I feel strongly about, The Who put out a lot, and a mean a lot, of songs I really like. Plus, you’ve got to admit, they’re the cooler band.
I was a late bloomer when it came to listening to The Who. I didn’t become truly interested in the band until high school but when it hit me it hit me hard and now I’m doing this list. I’d heard most of Who’s Next but my first copy, which was burned from somewhere was always messed up so I was always too frustrated to finish it. To this day whenever I hear the songs “This Song is Over” and “Getting in Tune” I just keep waiting for the tracks to start skipping. So my education of The Who primarily came from two other places. The first was the 1979 rockumentary The Kids Are Alright and the second was the massive Who box set I got for christmas The Who: 30 Years of Maximum R&B. No doubt an unorthodox introduction to the band but it gave me a great deal of respect for the group’s entire body of work. From that box set I heard dozens of Who b-sides and rarities that most people probably aren’t familiar with, so I like to think I have fairly good knowledge of the group’s music library, let’s begin.
You don’t see a lot of “Top Fives” on the blog but I also don’t see many good horror movies these days. Thankfully there’s always a few so I can at least do a this short list. It’s a little complicated to sort out when all these movies actually came out considering most of the best modern horror movies are either foreign or independently released but this is close enough, enjoy if you dare.
More and more I find myself respecting the efforts of independent filmmaker Brad Anderson (The Machinist, Transsiberian) one of the few indie filmmakers today trying to put the story back in horror story. Anderson isn’t about big scares as much he’s about establishing atmosphere and characters we care about. Although most critics weren’t crazy about it I thought Vanishing on 7th Street was a great Twilight Zone-esque tale of twists and turns, this is basically what I wish M. Night Shyamalan still was.
The premise is that of a millions of people that suddenly vanish when a wave darkness hits Detroit. The days begin to grow shorter and the nights longer as darkness starts to engulf people leaving only their clothes behind. The only way to fight it is to make sure you’re near a light source at all times, glow sticks, flashlights, all that stuff, and it leads for a very exciting experience. Hayden “My new powers can save you” Christensen stars alongside a small cast along with Thandie Newton, John Lequizamo, and Jacob Latimore, and the name of the game is survival. Simply put this is a well written piece with a spooky premise that constantly keeps you on the edge of your seat, I liked it.
Of course this had to be here now that the series has become a Halloween tradition. I reviewed this just a few days ago so I wont say much more but it’s a great spook house movie that must be seen in theaters. This is probably the scariest movie on this top five and must be seen by anyone who considers themself a fan of ghost stories.
: Another one that’s tricky to pin down due to it’s independent release, but I just couldn’t do this list without the wackiest horror comedy of the year. Tyler Labine and Alan Tudyk are a fantastic comic pairing in this satire on the “Killbilly” genre. So often we see movies where teens are chased down by gap toothed gold ‘ol boys, so it’s a great twist to see it the other way around.
Tucker and Dale are two peaceful bumpkins on vacation at their newly acquired fixer upper cabin when they cross paths with a group of preppy and inconsiderate college students. Believing Tucker and Dale to be a threat after supposedly kidnapping one of their own (a girl who they actually saved), the college kids wage a very gory war against Tucker and Dale. This results in a bizarre collection of mishaps in which each college kid accidentally gets killed by their own incompetence. It’s an absurd premise but it’s got great some gore and even greater laughs.
It took awhile to see the light of day here in the States but now that it’s here I highly recommend everyone watch Norway’s answer to Cloverfield. Hmm, I think I actually like this better than Cloverfield. The characters are great and the mythology is just so rich and endlessly intriguing, we definitely get a nice little troll education here and there. It’s got laughs and scares and consistently keeps a fun quick pace. It’s movies like this that keep the handheld camera sub-genre alive and flourishing. I don’t know what else to say but it’s the best movie bout trolls I’ve ever seen, though I guess that isn’t saying much.
P.S. It’s on Netflix RIGHT NOW! See it while you still can.
Not only was this my favorite horror movie of 2011 but also my favorite sci-fi, action, and comedy film. Attack the Block is a high adrenaline genre smorgasbord with more laughs and excitement than anything you saw last summer. The debut film from writer/director Joe Cornish I haven’t enjoyed a British comedy like this since the last Simon Pegg/Edgar Wright collaboration. So it’s not much of a surprise to find out that Edgar Wright was one of the film’s producers and Nick Frost is one of the very colorful cast members.
When an army of giant gorilla-like aliens invade South London it’s up to a gang of rambunctious young hoodlums to defend their block. That premise alone sold me and from then on out I couldn’t get enough of this sharp and surprisingly smart alien massacre movie. The dialogue, all though coated in a thick London accent is full of gems. My favorite line is probably when one of the kids only has one text left to send and says, “I’ve got one text left, this is too much madness to explain in one text!” I also like how the kids call the aliens “Big Gorilla Wolf Motherfuckers.” You wouldn’t think you could sympathize for a bunch of rude street toughs but somehow you start to develop a soft spot. I only pray this is never remade, check it out!
Honorable Mention
Insidious – The Guys behind Saw make their best movies since… Actually this is better than any of the Saw movies. It’s just a gold old haunted house movie that was a joy to watch.
Man, this post required a lot of listening time. As you’ve probably gathered, in response to Sean’s post last week of his favorite short songs, these are my favorite songs that push the 10-minute mark. My criteria was basically that they all be rock songs, and I decided finally to include live songs, but they had to be the definitive version of the song, so sorry live version of “Freebird”. I could’ve done the inverse of Sean’s writing style by writing multiple paragraphs for each song, but does anyone really want that? I don’t.
When Neil Young gets together with Crazy Horse, these kind of long hazy jams just tend to happen. It’s kind of cool how Young melds this sweet little love song with his murky guitar antics, which I’m usually game for. Man, it’s been a while since I’ve listened to Neil Young.
Speaking of artists I haven’t listened to in a while, here’s San Francisco’s premier band of jam-centric hippies. This song is interesting because it’s sort of this half-live/half-studio production, complemented by this jazzy percussion breakdown in the middle. Plus, it’s got maybe the greatest use of kazoo in any rock song ever.
I know Sean’s a big fan of this song, so I figured I’d give it some love. At over 25 minutes, and dozens of changes in tempo and mood, this song is really quite a journey. It’s so damn complex and layered that I’m not even sure how one would go about writing a song like this, but really it’s all about the “Boy We Can Do Much More Together” section. That part is pretty sweet.
I was fairly predisposed to not including lenghty instrumentals on this list, but “Maggot Brain” is different. This is the sound of Eddie Hazel playing an electric guitar with about as much heartwrenching emotion as I’ve ever heard in a guitar solo. Supposedly George Clinton told Hazel to play the solo as if his mama had just died, and I hate to say it, but there’s definitely a mournful quality to his playing.
I tried to keep meddlies off this list, but I think “Funeral For A Friend” is such an integral build-up to “Love Lies Bleeding” that it’s hard to separate the two. This is probably one of my favorite Elton John songs, and it’s a pretty brilliant example of the man’s ear for melody, all punched up with a synthy arena rock sound.
This song was supposedly written about former Pink Floyd frontman Syd Barrett, which I guess isn’t that surprising since it seems like half of Pink Floyd’s songs are about Syd Barrett. When I hear this song it reminds me of another man that seemed to be bordering on insanity, my 8th grade science teacher, Mr. Dodge. He used to always play this song in his class, and as far as I can remember, that was my first exposure to this wonderful 13 minute prog-rock odyssey.
I can’t really say I’ve ever been that into Sigur Ros, but something about this song really does it for me. And like much of Sigur Ros’s best material, it’s hard to exactly put into words what exactly is so great about it. It’s just a really fucking beautiful song that sounds otherworldly, and that’s about all I can say.
Even though this is a live version, it’s nonetheless the definitive version of “Whipping Post”. I mean the At Fillmore East version was featured on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs, not an easy feat for something so epic. I remember mine and Nancy’s short-lived band Jack Be Quick covered this song live once, and we were exhausted after playing it for about 5 minutes. Somehow the Allman’s are able to keep it up for 20, and all of those minutes are about as intense as blues rock jamming gets.
As you’ve probably noticed, most of these songs rely on lengthy jam sections, but not this one. “Desolation Row” is pretty much wall-to-wall lyrics, and Dylan uses basically all of the song’s 11 minutes to paint this very detailed picture of all these different characters and bizarre events that are unfolding. It’s just an unbelievable document of Dylan’s incredible peak of creativity in the mid-sixties, and personally it’s up there as one of my favorite Dylan song.
I’m not sure how many hours I’ve spent listening to “Marquee Moon”, but it’s got to be quite a few. Television came out of that late ’70s New York punk scene where solos and jamming seemed to be blasphemous, so naturally Television’s first album has this 10-minute opus as it’s center piece. Of course this isn’t just your typical blues-based classic rock solo, this is a song that incorporates jazz scales and complex key changes. Basically the punch line is that you can accomplish a lot in ten minutes, and this song manages to sound unlike any other guitar jam I’ve ever heard.
Just something I was thinking about. I’ll be brief, because these songs sure are… Less than 90 seconds to be exact.
You’ve got to admit, this song moves.
This is what it would be like if the Stone Roses were more like Simon and Garfunkel. I wanted to include a Bob Dylan song, but I couldn’t find a YouTube of the one I was looking for, so… substitution.
An auspicious start to what is probably their best album.
What a way to end an album. Demon heads!
This is the first time in my life I wished “Fell in Love with a Girl” was shorter.
Sorry about posting Tommy spoilers. It’s not even Whovember yet.
Hurr durr herp derp Coldplay.
This song is featured in both The Life Aquatic and one of the Futurama movies.
The original hidden track? I very much doubt it. But it’s fun to wildly speculate.
In conclusion, 90 seconds was a pretty arbitrary limit that stopped me from listing many great songs that are shorter than two minutes. I guess the lesson here is you don’t have to spend a lot of time to make something great.
Let me begin by stating that anyone who reads this post most likely knows more about Led Zeppelin than I do. That being said, apparently, no one in the band is actually called Led Zeppelin. Just some cool name for a band. Same concept used in Steely Dan, Fleetwood Mac, Kalvin Klein, and Helly Hanson. Even though I listen to a fair amount of music in the same time that Zeppelin reigned, this band doesn’t receive regular visits from me. To prepare, I listened to all the albums this band published (ever) over the course of last week, and am glad to say I found a few songs I really enjoyed and several that I recognized. Though this band didn’t win a place in my top favorite bands, I do greatly respect the bands method of naming albums with band name followed by number in chronological order, making organizing, remembering, and sorting very easy. Now let it begin, my top 10 Zeppelin’s!
10. Rock and Roll
This song wonderfully represents those that call the genre by the same name home. The beats, fading of sounds and lyrics all bring me back to a time when music was about enjoying life. Not today’s garbage that swears and complains about the man holding us down.
9. Stairway to Heaven
Great song, just have heard it way too many times. Having this song so high up on the list has done enough damage, I will refrain from analyzing it any further.
8. Immigrant Song
Whenever listening to this song I am thinking about Jack Black singing it in “School of Rock,” not sure why because I have heard it in many different settings other than a C movie. Right when the needle hits the vinyl, I am hooked in. No stalling or building up just goes straight to full throttle. Also, has to be one of the coolest chorus’ in a song.
7. All My Love
Not the usual love song, but, the lyrics do indicate some sort of emotion from whoever is the lead singer in this band. The noises make the song for me; in fact, an instrumental version of this song would probably put it up a few more spots on the list.
6. Misty Mountain Hop
“Packing my bags for the misty mountains where the spirits fly.” Sounds awesome, count me in! I have found a new song to listen to when headed up skiing.
5. Ramble On
The starting really reminds me of “Life Less Ordinary,” by Carbon Leaf. Compared to other Zeppelin songs, this one seems a little mellower, which provides a nice break when only listening to Zeppelin for a week. Ramble on…
4. D’yer Mak’er
Not much to say other than it works for me.
3. Kashmir
Remember that scene in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” when Kashmir is played in the guy’s car? This song has its own class regarding how to start a song: slow, gradual, hard, Kashmir. I just love those first 30 seconds and can listen it over and over and over.
2. Fool in the Rain
The rediscovery of “Fool in the Rain,” I would describe as the best outcome from Zeptember. For those that do not know, I keep a running list on my phone of songs I like that I hear when out and about. I try to include lyrics, but, mostly it just has words to describe the song, making it difficult to find the name later on. “Fool in the Rain” has been on the list for a while, and it was nice to stumble upon it Wednesday night. It doesn’t sound like a Zeppelin song to me, but, it certainly is my favorite.
1. LZ 129 Hindenburg (Luftschiff Zeppelin #129)
This beauty was a true Zeppelin, and had the name way before the band ripped it off. Born on March 4th, 1936, this 800 foot dirigible could take 150 people across the Atlantic at a cruising speed around 90 mph. She was like nothing else ever built, and remains one of the largest things that ever flew. Although hydrogen gas is the lightest element on the periodic table, it’s really explosive. Filling an 800 foot long balloon with explosive gas proved to be a bad idea. The craft blew up in a spectacular 37 seconds a little over a year after it made its first flight. Maybe someday these luxury liners of the sky will return, just make sure they are filled with helium.
Honestly I was never THAT into Zeppelin. I had a little phase in junior high like every kid that likes rock and roll does, but it mostly consisted of my playing my burnt Zeppelin live album that “the Paine” gave me over and over and over and over again. In those few months, I was ALL about Led Zeppelin. I remember this one specific instance where we were taking my brother to the airport at like eight in the morning and I stuck that CD in the car stereo and everybody was like, “Do we have to listen to this?” I was just really confused why no one wanted to rock. It rocks!
My Zeppelin collection is pretty sparse, consisting now of only I, III and IV, so these are just the top 10 that I’ve enjoyed listening back to over the last week.
10. I Can’t Quit On You Baby
One thing that really came back to me listening to all these songs again was just how much I miss jamming. More specifically how I miss just playing the drums. This song just grooves like I could never groove. By the time I was done playing this song we’d be be playing 260 BPM. Plant’s lyrical rhythms also really add to that as well. Each line is delivered just a little bit later, and that latency just has you sitting on the edge of your seat.
9. Rock & Roll
I’m not going to try to pick obscure songs to be cool, so this is just one of the great songs that I loved growing up. Since I’ve been doing a lot of research on recording and how to become a better engineer etc., one of the things I noticed about these recordings is that a lot of the songs are spaced very openly. You can tell it’s just drums/bass/guitar/ vocals. Except this one. Just a wall of rock.
8. Communication Breakdown
I have a soft spot for the ones we performed obviously. This is one that I was always just exhausted after. My right leg would just be burning by the end of the song because of the constant kick drum, not to mention it was the end of the set usually, so I was just going as nuts as I could possibly go. John Bonham must have calves the size of my waist.
7. Four Sticks
I don’t even know what John Bonham’s doing here. Like I sit down and listen to it over and over again. I’m pretty sure it’s more than just him playing percussion, but then I tell myself it’s John Bonham, stop trying to figure out what he’s doing. It’s impossible. Just listen.
6. Black Dog
I never struggled more playing the drums than whenever “the Paine” broke out into a jam with this song. I couldn’t wrap my head around how Bonham played that slow, subdivided groove to a riff with so many notes. Maybe he couldn’t figure out how to play a faster groove so he just played a “fuckin’ money beat”. Maybe he was being teased from another band who had “label interest.” Who knows.
5. Misty Mountain Hop
So Plant saw a bunch of hippies in a park, he didn’t know what time it was, so he stayed a while. Then it got dark. So some homeless guys told him to get in a line. This line was for tea and fun. Then the homeless people told Plant to go in to a deep self-examination. Then he warns people that if they go in the streets, they better open their eyes. Or they might be hit by a car or something. This song is weird. But it rocks.
4. Out on the Tiles
I love unison bass/guitar riffs. Especially when they span odd measures. This is also an example of something Bonham does that I could never do no matter how much I practiced. I had to buy a double bass pedal to be able to play triplets. Bonham just gets drunk and plays them all day long. Maybe I should have been drinking.
3. Immigrant Song
This song was always really disappointing to me, because of how much I didn’t really enjoy III that much. I started listening to it and was like, “Yeah this rocks!” But only to be disappointed by the next 40 minutes and 33 seconds of my life. I’ve grown to appreciate the album more, but I still am a little disappointed every time I hear it.
2. Good Times Bad Times
Dun Dun. Dun Dun. Dun Dun. Dun Dun. Is there really anything else to say. This is really the epitome of Zeppelin. Rockin’ guitar solo, sweet bass fills, in your face and technically intricate drums, and Plant being, well, Plant. One thing I love about this song is the harmonies on the verses. I wish they did more of that.
1. Stairway to Heaven
You know what? Fuck it. I’m putting it as my number one because it is. One of my proudest memories of the Defenestrators is how we practiced the shit out of this song for what seemed like months. I loved playing the keyboard flute, and I loved even more coming in with that simple, yet powerful, tom fill (biggest regret is missing that cue, but I couldn’t hear anything! I swear!) It’s a shame it’s so over played, but at the same time that just reiterates how great of a song it really is.
I can’t wait for “Who knows?” tomorrow!
