MusicFury

Iggy Pop: Passanger

in Iggy Pop

“The Passenger” is a song by Iggy Pop and Ricky Gardiner, recorded and released by Iggy Pop on the Lust for Life album in 1977. It was also released as the B-side of the album’s only single, “Success”. In the summer of 2007 alternative rock radio stations around the USA resumed playing the song in accordance with Iggy Pop and The Stooges tour in that country.

The lyrics, written by Iggy Pop allegedly aboard Berlin’s S-Bahn, have been interpreted as embodying the nomadic spirit of the punk outcast. Guitarist Ricky Gardiner composed the music. While it possesses a distinctive riff, “The Passenger” is perhaps most recognizable by its chorus, on which David Bowie sings back-up.

The song has been featured in the movie Radiofreccia, TV spots for the film Waking Life, the television show 30 Days, the film Jarhead and the 2002 video game Mat Hoffman’s Pro BMX 2. More recently, the films Up in the Air and The Weather Man featured the song on its teaser trailer, and is played in a shop early in the film. It can also be heard in Kurt Cobain About a Son, the documentary exploration of the life and influences of the late musician. Scarface: The World Is Yours includes the song on its music selection menu. It was also used in a series of Kohl’s commercials advertising the new “Simply Vera” line of clothing designed by Vera Wang.

Guinness used the song for a television advertisement featuring an airplane flying through a pint-glass-shaped valley with clouds representing the beer’s foamy head. The instrumental lead-in riff of this song is also the intro theme music for the CNN program Anderson Cooper 360. The song is also included in the music/rhythm game Lego Rock Band, complete with a Lego-style avatar of Iggy Pop at vocals. In 2009, New Zealand broadband internet provider Orcon held a promotion where eight fans re-recorded the song via the internet. The recording featured instruments foreign to the original, such as piano and a flute.

The song has been used in various TV commercials around the world such as for the Avensis car in 1998 and Captain Morgan in 2011. It was re-released as a single in the UK in 1998 in the wake of the Toyota Avensis commercial, peaking at #22.It was also included in the book The Pitchfork Media 500: Our Guide to the Greatest Songs from Punk to the Present published in 2008. In 2010 the German mobile phone provider T-Mobile launched their “Welcome Home” flash-mob advert on British television. Amongst the songs performed using only voices was “The Passenger”, sung by local Brighton resident George Ikediashi.

Black Sabbath: Paranoid

in Black Sabbath

Paranoid featured on their second album Paranoid (1970). It is the first single from the album, while the B-side is the song “The Wizard”. It reached number 4 on the UK Singles Chart and number 61 on the Billboard Hot 100. Also, the song topped the German Singles Chart.

“Paranoid” is consistently ranked as one of the greatest heavy metal songs of all time. It is typically associated with both Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath due to its popularity. After Osbourne left the band in 1979 to pursue a solo career, he continued to perform this track normally at the end of the set. Various different live versions have been recorded with Osbourne. This is due to the changes in band lineup since the original Blizzard of Ozz in 1980. Popular live versions featuring various guitarists including Randy Rhoads, Brad Gillis, Jake E. Lee and Zakk Wylde were all recorded and later released.

It was ranked #34 on VH1′s 40 Greatest Metal Songs. In March 2005, Q magazine placed it at number 11 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks. Rolling Stone ranked it number 250 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time and called the song, “a two-minute blast of protopunk”. In 2009, it was named the 4^th greatest hard rock song of all time by VH1.

The original Black Sabbath recording has been used numerous times in various films and television shows including Sid & Nancy, Dazed and Confused, The Stoned Age, Any Given Sunday, Almost Famous, and We Are Marshall.

In Finland, Paranoid has the same status as Free Bird in the United States, Raul Seixas in Brazil or Stairway to Heaven in the United Kingdom as a song the audience finds great humour to request during a concert. So regardless of the band or the style of music they’re playing “Soittakaa Paranoid!” (“Play Paranoid!”) can usually be heard at least once during any gig

AC/DC: Back In Black

in AC/DC

Back in Black” is a song by AC/DC, appearing as the first track on side two of their 1980 album, Back in Black. Known for its opening guitar riff, the song was AC/DC’s tribute to their former singer Bon Scott. His replacement Brian Johnson recalled to Mojo magazine in 2009 that when the band asked him to write a lyric for this song, “they said, ‘it can’t be morbid – it has to be for Bon and it has to be a celebration.’” He added: “I thought, ‘Well no pressure there, then’ (laughs). I just wrote what came into my head, which at the time seemed like mumbo, jumbo. ‘Nine lives. Cats eyes. Abusing every one of them and running wild.’ The boys got it though. They saw Bon’s life in that lyric.” It peaked in the U.S. at No. 37 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1981 and was No. 51 on Billboard’s Top Tracks chart, which debuted in March 1981. “Back in Black” received the RIAA’s Master Ringtone Sales Award (Gold and Platinum) in 2006 and reached 2x Platinum status in 2007.

In 1984 the Beastie Boys sampled “Back in Black” without permission for their song “Rock Hard”. In 1999, when they wished to include it on an upcoming CD compilation release, they sought permission but AC/DC refused. Mike D of the Beastie Boys quoted Malcolm Young’s reason for refusing as: ”‘Nothing against you guys, but we just don’t endorse sampling.’”

Despite this, it has been sampled by several other musicians without issue.^{[citation needed]}

Art Brut usually began their song “Formed a Band” with the intro to “Back in Black” when they played it live. A recorded version of this can be found on their 2006 Nag Nag Nag Nag EP. Eminemreleased a version of his hit, “My Name Is”, with “Back in Black” as the bassline. The song was also heavily sampled to by the Evolution Control Committee in creating the song “Rocked by Rape”. In 2010, Limp Bizkit samples the song during live performances of “My Way.”

Nightwish: Ghost Love Score

in Nightwish

Ghost Love Score is a song by Finnish symphonic metal band Nightwish, from the album “Once”. The song has become one of the most popular songs on ytmnd.

The song spawned from a “summons” site called “Bowser Summons Boulder Spirits”, which showed a clip of the final boss battle from the video game “Yoshi’s Island: Super Mario World 2″. In 2005, the excerpt was used for the short-lived Tennis Man fad. After the fad died, the song was used for various ytmnds.

In 2006, the excerpt was used in the Epic Maneuver fad and is now represented by the song. However, the overuse of the song has annoyed others as of recently.

The portion of the song used is an instrumental excerpt that begins at 5:17 into the song (the total length of the song is 9:59)

Deep Purple: Child in Time

in Deep Purple

“Child in Time” is a song by British hard rock band Deep Purple. Featured on their 1970 album Deep Purple in Rock, the song is 10 minutes and 18 seconds long. It is a protest song to Vietnam War

It is said by Ian Gillan to have been inspired by a riff featured in a song by the Psychedelic band It’s a Beautiful Day, called “Bombay Calling”. It’s a Beautiful Day in return borrowed Purple’s “Wring That Neck” and turned it into “Don And Dewey” on their second album Marrying Maiden (1970). As Ian Gillan put it in a 2002 interview, “There are two sides to that song – the musical side and the lyrical side. On the musical side, there used to be this song ‘Bombay Calling’ by a band called It’s A Beautiful Day. It was fresh and original, when Jon was one day playing it on his keyboard. It sounded good, and we thought we’d play around with it, change it a bit and do something new keeping that as a base. But then, I had never heard the original ‘Bombay Calling’. So we created this song using the Cold War as the theme, and wrote the lines ‘Sweet child in time, you’ll see the line.’ That’s how the lyrical side came in. Then, Jon had the keyboard parts ready and Ritchie had the guitar parts ready. The song basically reflected the mood of the moment, and that’s why it became so popular.”

Kiss: I was made for loving you

in Kiss

“I Was Made for Lovin’ You” is a song by American hard rock band Kiss, originally released on their 1979 album Dynasty. It was released as the A-side of their first single from the album. It was the band’s second Platinum single, selling over 1 million copies. The single was certified Platinum in the US on August 16, 1979, and in Canada on August 1, 1979. The B-side of the single is the album track “Hard Times”, which was written by Ace Frehley. The single reached #11 on the US Billboard singles chart. The song also became a massive hit in Australia reaching #1 on theARIA charts in 1979. The song also charted in Western Europe, it became a top 20 hit in Sweden, a top 10 hit in Norway, made it to the number 2 position in France, Germany, Switzerland, andAustria, and in The Netherlands it was a #1.

The song was one of the band’s few singles to chart in the UK in the 1970s, though only peaking at No. 51, where a 7 min 54 sec version was released on 12″ single in addition to the shorter 7″ version.

The song draws heavily from the disco style that was popular in the United States in the late 1970s. Kiss guitarist and vocalist Paul Stanley, who co-wrote the song with Desmond Child and Vini Poncia, has stated that “I Was Made For Lovin’ You” was a conscious effort on his part to prove how easy it was to write and record a hit disco song.

Although Peter Criss appeared in the video and on the album cover, he did not actually play on the track. As with most of the Dynasty album, session drummer Anton Fig took the place of Peter Criss, who had been deemed unfit to play by producer Vini Poncia. There is a bootleg audio recording of the writing sessions for the song in which Paul Stanley mentions Peter’s name a couple of times, indicating he was present during the arranging of the song

Queen: Under Pressure

in Qeen

“Under Pressure” is a 1981 song recorded by Queen and David Bowie. It marked Bowie’s first released collaboration with another recording artist as a performer, and is featured on Queen’s 1982 album Hot Space. The song reached #1 on the UK Singles Chart. It was also number 31 on VH1′s 100 Greatest Songs of the ’80s. It would be Queen’s last number one single in the United Kingdom until the success of “Innuendo” almost ten years later.

Queen had been working on the song under the title “Feel Like” but were not yet satisfied with the result. Bowie had originally come to Mountain Studios in order to sing backing vocals on another Queen song, “Cool Cat”, which would end up being edited out since he was not satisfied with it. Once he got there, they worked together for a while and wrote the song. The final version that became “Under Pressure” evolved from a jam session the band had with Bowie at his studio in Montreux, Switzerland; therefore it was credited as co-written by the five musicians. The scat singing that dominates much of the song is evidence of (more…)

The White Stripes: Seven Nation Army

in The White Stripes

“Seven Nation Army” was released as a single in 2003. Seven Nation Army reached #1 on theModern Rock Tracks for three weeks and won 2004′s Grammy Award for Best Rock Song. The song is known for its underlying riff, which plays throughout most of the song. Although it sounds like a bass guitar (an instrument the group had famously never previously used), the sound is actually created by running Jack White’s semi-acoustic guitar (a 1950s style Kay Hollowbody) through aDigitech Whammy pedal set down an octave. The riff was composed at a sound check before a show at the Corner Hotel in Melbourne, Australia, according to the set notes in the booklet which accompanied the Under Blackpool Lights DVD. This riff was inspired by the main theme of Anton Bruckner’s Fifth symphony.

According to White, “Seven Nation Army” is what he used to call the Salvation Army as a child. The song ranked #1 on UpVenue’s 10 best The White Stripes songs.

The video, directed by Alex and Martin, consists of one seemingly continuous shot through a kaleidoscopic tunnel of mirrored black, white and red triangles, touching on Jack’s love of the number three. Some triangle slides contain images of Jack or Meg playing, and at some points marching skeletons and an elephant can be seen, referring to the name of the album “Seven Nation Army” appeared on. (more…)

MIKA: Grace Kelly

in Mika

“Grace Kelly” is a song by English singer, Mika, released for download on January 9, 2007. It also appears on Mika’s 2007 album Life in Cartoon Motion. Produced and mixed by Greg Wells, the song entered the UK Singles Chart at number three (#3) and the UK Official Download Chart at number one (#1). One week later, it jumped to the top of the UK Singles Chart, despite still being available on downloads only.

The track was number one in the UK Singles Chart for five weeks, and ended 2007 as the year’s third biggest-selling single in that country. In the U.S., “Grace Kelly” was made available for digital download on January 16, 2007. This song was also #89 on MTV Asia‘s list of Top 100 Hits of 2007. It was designed to be a mocking satire of musicians who try to reinvent themselves to be popular. It is titled after Grace Kelly, an Academy Award-winning American film and stage actress, and Princess of Monaco. (more…)

Eric Clapton: Layla

in Eric Clapton

“Layla” is a song by blues-rock band Derek and the Dominos and the thirteenth track from their album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, originally released in December 1970. It is considered one of rock music’s definitive love songs, featuring an unmistakable guitar figure, played by Eric Clapton and Duane Allman, and a piano coda that comprises the second half of the song. Its famously contrasting movements were composed separately by Clapton and Jim Gordon.

Inspired by Clapton’s then unrequited love for Pattie Boyd, the wife of his friend and fellow musician George Harrison, “Layla” was unsuccessful on its initial release. The song has since experienced great critical and popular acclaim. It is often hailed as being among the greatest rock songs of all time. Two versions have achieved chart success, first in 1972 and again twenty years later as an acoustic “Unplugged” performance. In 2004, it was ranked #27 on Rolling Stone‘s list of “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time”, and the acoustic version won the 1993 Grammy Award for Best Rock Song. (more…)