"Fuck me!" moments when well-known music suddenly knocks your fucking block off

[alan nagsworth]

For some reason The Kinks are one of those bands that for the most part I've really enjoyed but kind of overlooked, you know, like in terms of how goddamn phenomenal those little pop tunes are? And then I took a step back recently and I had a moment where I suddenly realised their chops. Their MASSIVE chops. Huge fucking muttons like a goddamned farmer. It wasn't their entire oeuvre or even one particular album, it was just one song. And it wasn't even their version that hit me, it was someone else's. But that's sort of the point of this thread. New perspectives that help you understand the depth. Having someone else take your hand and guide you through it and you come out the other side and you're fucking crying or some shit, and you turn to the person and you say "thank you SO MUCH" and they give a humble smile and they nod.

Well, the person that held my hand through "Waterloo Sunset" is Elliott Smith and I can't thank him because he's dead and also it felt kind of weird holding his smelly old dead hand but hey I did it anyway. Here he is then, strung out on drugs and strumming it out, fucking beautiful human being that he was, a shimmering light once on earth and now in heaven, and when I heard this it washed over me like the ocean and I wept. The Kinks' version is a sort of jaunty number that somewhat belies the content in a way that meant I'd really just glanced past it all these years, but the frailty of Elliott's voice and his captivatingly unassuming presence stopped me dead in my tracks. Fuck me! That song is absolutely goddamn beautiful. Solitude, comfort in loneliness, the simplicity of life in such a bustling and overwhelming environment. It's perfection. Thank you, Elliott. I never feel alone when you're singing to me.

okay now you do one

[bgmnts]

Living on a Thin Line - The Kinks

[another Mr. Lizard]

I always adored 'Rock Your Baby' by George McCrae, loved hearing it during its 1974 spell at number one when it genuinely did feel like a major shift in music (though 11-year-old me wasn't exactly versed in classic soul, Motown etc by way of comparison, though inevitably much of that filtered into every radio listener's consciousness). Some years later, in the wake of Joy Division, PiL etc, the teenage post-punk me begins dabbling in Krautrock and drone stuff. One day in the mid-80s, 'Rock Your Baby' pops up on the radio - and it occurs to me for the first time that, as well as McCrae's sensational vocal range and the expert musicianship of Harry Casey and band, there is this endless, unbroken, Kraut-like tone drifting all the way through the entire bloody record, adding immensely to its already considerable groove. By this point our generation had already been fed the "I Feel Love is where disco meets Euro-experimentation" line, which I promptly discarded.

[Pearly-Dewdrops Drops]

I get this out of nowhere sometimes with major radio hits that have become dull and familiar from having been listened to far too many times in far too many contexts, thereby obscuring the brilliance of the underlying song that (on occasion at least) contributed to it becoming a megahit in the first place. It's fun to step back and make a concerted effort to listen to the song as if hearing it for the first time.

Most recently, "Losing My Religion" by R.E.M. Surely one of the most overplayed songs of the 90s, but if you really listen to it the song is fucking incredible. Perfectly crafted and so yearning/cathartic, including some expert vocal work by Michael Stipe.

[DrGreggles]

I always adored 'Rock Your Baby' by George McCrae, loved hearing it during its 1974 spell at number one when it genuinely did feel like a major shift in music (though 11-year-old me wasn't exactly versed in classic soul, Motown etc by way of comparison, though inevitably much of that filtered into every radio listener's consciousness). Some years later, in the wake of Joy Division, PiL etc, the teenage post-punk me begins dabbling in Krautrock and drone stuff. One day in the mid-80s, 'Rock Your Baby' pops up on the radio - and it occurs to me for the first time that, as well as McCrae's sensational vocal range and the expert musicianship of Harry Casey and band, there is this endless, unbroken, Kraut-like tone drifting all the way through the entire bloody record, adding immensely to its already considerable groove. By this point our generation had already been fed the "I Feel Love is where disco meets Euro-experimentation" line, which I promptly discarded.

Someone (Pricey?) on Chart Music put it forward as being the greatest pop single of all time.
Obviously that's an accolade that is completely subjective and could never be resolved, but it's a bloody decent shout.

[grassbath]

I get this out of nowhere sometimes with major radio hits that have become dull and familiar from having been listened to far too many times in far too many contexts, thereby obscuring the brilliance of the underlying song that (on occasion at least) contributed to it becoming a megahit in the first place. It's fun to step back and make a concerted effort to listen to the song as if hearing it for the first time.

Most recently, "Losing My Religion" by R.E.M. Surely one of the most overplayed songs of the 90s, but if you really listen to it the song is fucking incredible. Perfectly crafted and so yearning/cathartic, including some expert vocal work by Michael Stipe.

Yeah. 'Born to Run' recently underwent such a transformation for me. I was visiting my mum and it was on the radio and I asked her, what do you think of this? as I've never been a huge Boss fan. And she said, fairly offhandedly while doing the dishes or something - 'I'll always listen to it properly if it's on.' Interesting, I thought, and despite having heard the song hundreds of times, to see what she meant I focused right in on it.

And as it played in my mum's kitchen I suddenly realised something that would have been obvious in 1975, has been obvious to many people since, really should be obvious to anyone, but somehow had never been obvious to me - that 'Born to Run' by Bruce Springsteen is fucking AWESOME.

Suddenly it was like I was hearing the maxed up full clarity 4D surround sound version. Just the frigging SOUND of the thing, so huge and yet so organic, the fuckton of instruments in the mix complementing each other so well that it exceeds all of them - you can hardly picture a band in a room playing it. That key phrase that kicks it off, so short and simple but fucking Morricone-esque in its triumph and sadness. The sweet falling bells that wind round the melody like flowers on 'sprung from cages on highway nine.' The near-rage in his voice as it rises up on 'strap your hands 'cross my ENGINES' and the shrill organ that cuts in to pave the way for it. The way the second half of the bridge kicks up a gear, almost imperceptibly, felt but not heard. And of course, best of all, '............1 2 3 4! The highway's packed with broken heroes...' Every 'drop' ever deployed in pop music aspires to the impact of that one. And lyrics that I had previously thought mere machismo, serviceable but tending toward the overblown, took on Dylan levels of eloquence as each line was pounded out. 'I want to know if love is wild, babe I want to know if love is real.' It's not just epic - anyone can make something sound big. It's fucking heroic, in a way that doesn't necessarily imply winning, with a grand scope that never loses sight of the question mark, of sacrifice, of loss.

So thanks mum. I still think most of his other stuff is meh though.

[sevendaughters]

I had a bit of a moment back in winter when I was listening to Vivaldi outside of the context of being on hold where I was just like "this guy just gets it". Same with 'Air on a G string' by Bach. He's building houses there, it's everything we hold dear in pop music in this deceptive little chamber piece he probably tossed off between breakfast and lunch. Absolute genius.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

That's a beautiful post, grassbath.

[Delete Delete Delete]

Watching The Dire Straits Alchmey blu Ray with my parents with my dads new Projecter. Suddenly seeing how fantatic the live version of Sultans Of Swing is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Pa9x9fZBtY The Solo is amazing how the notes get higher and the intesity rises. great seeign theb and playing something there really in the moment of.

[jobotic]

I feel that way about Tunnel of Love. It makes me teary with nostalgia for something that doesn't exist. I remember listening to my step-dad's copy of the album when I was about 12 but I was fucking miserable at the time.

The reference to The Spanish City made it sound exotic too, and even though I know now that it's in Whitley Bay (how would I have known that, growing up in Kent?) it still does.

Listen to it, it's brilliant.

This is relevant because I didn't listen to shit like Dire Straits in my twenties and thirties but when I decided to have another listen...wow.

[non capisco]

Loved that post, grassbath.

_{(His other stuff isn't all meh though.)}

[Sebastian Cobb]

It's overplayed deffo, but the way everything gets overloaded on Cash's cover of Hurt as it builds up still gets me.

[Delete Delete Delete]

There is something magical about almost all of The American Reordings era of Cash. His broken voice, the stripped down sound and the song selections.

[Bazooka]

Animal Collective, one day Alan, you will thank me for it.

[Ferris]

Fleetwood Mac are a good shout for this. I thought of them as middle of the road radio dross for old people, but actually they're fucking great. Tusk is a modern classic.

[Noodle Lizard]

The key change at the end of The Toys' Lovers Concerto sends honest-to-god shivers down my spine.  Bach never managed that!