Like A Hurricane: The 100 Most Intense Tracks Of All Time, Pt 2
We here at RBP Towers have selected a ton of the most overwhelming, intoxicating, cathartic tracks ever captured on tape. The criteria for all of them are simple: Does your face scrunch up into hideous contortions when you listen to them? And do they cause you involuntarily to hold your breath for much of their duration? Here are the next 20 selections, from Spiritualized to the Sex Pistols...--Barney Hoskyns, Editorial Director, Rock's Backpages
80 "Electricity": Spiritualized, from Ladies And Gentleman, We Are Floating In Space (Dedicated, 1997): A swirling maelstrom of sound, this is Jason Pierce on a major rush - the single most intoxicating thing on the spaced-out drug epic that is Ladies And Gentlemen...
79 "This Hurt Is Real": O.V. Wright, single (Backbeat, 1968): The Memphis legend sounds as shredded by lovesickness here as he was eventually by narcotics. An agonizing lamentation.
78 "Dazed And Confused": Led Zeppelin, from Led Zeppelin (Atlantic, 1969): Surely the heaviest record ever made: a monstrously dragging blues behemoth that leaves you feeling... well, do we need to spell it out?
77 "Free Bird": Lynyrd Skynyrd, from Pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd (MCA, 1974): Hoary classic-rock staple it may be, but there's nothing quite like the testicles-out three-guitar twiddlathon that brings this lament for the late Duane Allman to its spurting climax. Gibson Les Pauls never sounded so glorious.
76 "Walking On Thin Ice": Yoko Ono, single (Geffen, 1980): Oh yes, Ono! Surely Yoko's greatest moment, an unwitting elegy for the dead Lennon with the latter on febrile guitar. This was J&Y starting over...
75 "The Only Mistake": Joy Division, from Still (Factory, 1981): Churning, relentless, dread-filled: a haunted Ian Curtis carried by waves of guitar and poundingly mechanical drums.
74 "Let Me Down Easy": Bettye Lavette, single (Calla, 1965): The chill of imminent loss, sung by a black Lulu to the accompaniment of a ghostly vibraphone.
73 "Yes": McAlmont & Butler, single (Hut, 1995): Before he so unwisely decided he was a "singer-songwriter," Bernie Butler looked set to become a modern Phil Spector: as warbled by gay falsetto angel David McAlmont, "Yes" was the greatest pop anthem of '95, a gloriously sweeping statement of self-affirmation. Wha'appened, Mr. B?
72 "Doggin' Around": Jackie Wilson, single (Brunswick, 1960): Blithely jumping octaves and gliding through notes like a glistening eel, Jackie turns this bluesy ballad in to an operatic tour de force of tear-choked, high-tenor melisma, triumphing over Nat Tarnopol's sickly arrangement in the process.
71 "Running Up That Hill": Kate Bush, single (EMI, 1985): "Y'yeh yeh yo..." As startling today as it was in 1985, Bush's awed techno-rock hymn virtually redeemed that year as a pop annus horribilis by itself. A masterpiece of tension and proud beauty.
70 "Somewhere": Tom Waits, from Blue Valentine (Asylum, 1978): The West Side Story standard, carried on Bob Alcivar's great string arrangement (which makes time stand still for as long as it takes the song to play out). Recording live to 2-Track in the Hollywood hills, Waits treats the melody reverentially, his slow-burn vocal wreathed in Jack Sheldon's taut trumpet obbligatos. Each verse leads up to that single word, "somewhere," rasped out by Waits--once longingly, once desperately, and finally, in the dying embers of the song, with painful hope.
69 "Rise Above": Black Flag, from Damaged (SST, 1981): Punk's not dead, says early '80s SoCal: the first track on the Flag's mighty LP debut is a furious typhoon of hardcore apoplexy from young Hank Rollins and pals.
68 "Brush With The Blues": Jeff Beck, from Who Else? (Epic, 1999): Who else indeed? Possibly the most heart-stopping six and a half minutes of Jeff Beck's career, vaulting from breezy tremolo whispers to flurried arpeggios to jagged stabs that physically hurt.
67 "She Watch Channel Zero?!": Public Enemy from It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back, (1988): "You're blind, baby... you're blind from the facts of who you are coz you're watchin' that garbage..." A heavy-metallic K.O. of a sermon from PE's greatest album.
66 "Play Dead": Bjork and David Arnold, single (Island, 1993: An ecstatic effusion that gives us the Icelandic sprite/madam at the height of her powers.La Gudmondsdottir's crazed, trilling shriek leaves the competition dancing in the dark.
65 "You're Gonna Miss Me": 13th Floor Elevators, single (International Artists, 1966): Arguably the greatest garage record of them all--the ultimate Nugget--this is Roky Erickson rabid with vengeful reproach, out-Seeding the Seeds and out-Themming Them. Frantic, maddened stuff.
64 "A Spoonful Weighs A Ton": Flaming Lips, from The Soft Bulletin (Warner Brothers, 1999): Just one of several outlandishly great tracks on the Oklahomans' late '90s masterpiece, "Spoonful" starts sweetly enough but then explodes in a kind of sonic earthquake suggestive of Spiritualized colliding with Mercury Rev. Symphonic alt. pop on the grand scale.
63 "Muzzle": Smashing Pumpkins, from Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness (Virgin, 1995): Yes, Billy Corgan is a pompous prat and we can well believe he made Mrs. Osbourne sick. But in the Pumpkins' melloncollie mid-period the bald one could still produce majestic sonic blizzards like "Muzzle". And we should be glad of that.
62 "God Is Wonderful": Rance Allen Group, from Sanctified (Stax, 1974): The single most shattering falsetto performance in all of modern gospel. Allen scales heights of emotion the rest of us can only imagine.
61 "Bodies": Sex Pistols, from Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols (EMI, 1977): The single most belligerent, downright nastiest track on Bollocks, "Bodies" is sonically the album's most thrilling moment: a thrashing, galvanized beast of a song.
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