So incredibly rarely, because I absolutely hate most music. Like, go tense and grit my teeth and close my eyes and cover my ears hate it. 99.9% of it. Wish someone would throw a grenade at the source of the noise hate it. So yeah, being that impressed with any music is incredibly rare for me.
The first piece of music that ever struck me that way was part of Mozart’s Requiem, the Dies Irae. It was a life changing event, a piece of music that didn’t make me want to claw my ears off! Just a shame about the venue: I heard it in the cinema, as background music for a scene in X-Men 2.
There have been a few. I remember actually buying Pink’s “F-cking Perfect” inside of an hour from when I first heard it played (some of that time included the drive back to the house).
Not exactly literal jaw-dropping, but “New Routine” by Fountains of Wayne had me laughing and then amazed that I had never heard of a group that could record a song that good.
“Jaw-droppage” for me usually occurs when I hear something that’s “pop song” enough to instantly grab me, but lyrically or musically complex enough that I know I’ll have to listen to it a million more times in order to “get” it. Two recent-ish examples would be “Fireworks” by Animal Collective and “Good Intentions Paving Company” by Joanna Newsom.
Straight-up beautiful songs do the same. Bowie’s “Life on Mars?” or Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ “Maps”, for example.
My answer here is the same as there… Amy Winehouse’s “Rehab” which I heard when Terri Hemmert played it for the first time on WXRT, still a few months before she really broke through big in the States. I had already parked the car when it came on but I couldn’t turn it off until the entire song had finished. I was blown away.
As a kid I’d only ever heard the single, edited, 3 minute version of The Doors “Light My Fire” on top 40 AM radio." When I was on vacation with my parents and siblings one year, probably around 1977 or or so, I was laying on a beach in St. Petersburg, FL, and I heard the full what, 8 minute version on a stereo FM boombox. I was mesmerized.
In 1989 while driving down highway 401 in Toronto I heard Neil Young’s newest release “Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World” and was absolutely thrilled that Neil was back in the game after something like 10 years of experimental crap.
I’m pretty sure I had a similar response to Deep Purple’s “Knockin’ at Your Back Door” but can’t quite remember where I was at the time.
For me, rarely. When I was in college, I took a class called “History of Rock and Roll,” so after having my mind blown about the historical significance of say the Beatles, Chuck Berry, and The Beach Boys’ Good Vibrations, it’s tough for me to get really blown away by the latest top 40 song without learning about the song’s historical significance.
Once in a while though, I get blown away by the use of Auto-Tune, such as the Home Intruder Song. I think this is really the wave of the future, where current events coincide with popular music.
My jaw didn’t drop but just recently I saw Blues Traveler live. I was about 20 feet from John Popper. He is so astoundingly good on harmonica I had to start laughing. He is so great at his instrument it is ridiculous.
The last song I had this reaction to, of all things, was R.E.M.'s cover of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” I heard it for the first time about a week ago and it’s amazingly vibrant and beautiful. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and my mouth may have been hanging open.
Kate Bush’s Sat In Your Lap was a shock, completely audacious. I have no idea what it would be like for someone who never heard it before to hear it today. I would like to think that it is such a unique sound that it wouldn’t sound particularly old.
Others that hit me nearly that hard? Siouxsie and the Banshees - Spellbound. I don’t use drugs, but I don’t think the song could have had more impact if I had been tripping.
Akiko Yano - Rose Garden. Absolutely perfect pop, even though I haven’t a clue what it’s about, but it thrilled and delighted me right from the first time I hear it.
Noe Venable - Juniper. I knew I had discovered another genius songwriter from the first moment I heard it.
It’s a different category, but there have been songs that I wasn’t knocked out by on record, but when I heard it live…
Todd Rundgren - Hawking. No link, because I don’t think I could find the exact performance that moved me to tears at Memorial Hall in Kansas City, KS. And every time I hear it now, that live performance resonates.
There are others like that, but “Best single live vocal performance you ever heard” deserves it’s own thread.
What can I say? I’m a sucker for sentiment (in my old age), and most of this music can still draw a very strong emotional reaction out of me. Unfortunately, I have burned out on some of them.