Definitely. I’m not sure what slays me more, the solo itself or the bassline… there just seems more to it than during the verses.
The segue into Great Gig in the Sky also gets me every time, that quiet piano…
Crescendo tunes and key-change tunes usually work on me. I’ll refrain from links, but a few specifics are:
Pat Metheny Group’s - Are You Going With Me?
Sinatra’s Nelson Riddle arrangement of I’ve Got You Under My Skin
Frankie Valli - Can’t Take My Eyes Off You
Allman Brothers Band - Stormy Monday from “Fillmore East”
Dizzy Gillespie - On the French Riviera - Chega de Saudade (No More Blues)
And one I will link to because it’s as close to the Miles Davis version on Sketches of Spain Sketches of Spain 10:12 of kick you in the gut magic!
If it sounds familiar otherwise, it was mimicked in the Eastwood/Locke escapade The Gauntlet (1977) when they’re driving the armored bus into town at the climax of the movie.
The entire piece is a total eargasm.
Barber’s Adagio for Strings. Played softly, tenderly, sadly. It’s not until the GP after the long fermata when it starts in softly again that we realize just how forte and intense it got. The first time I heard it I was totally unaware of the gradual build of intensity there was. The GP was like coming out of a dream.
Beethoven’s Piano Concerto #4, second movement – I’ve always viewed this particular piece as a sort of battle between the orchestra and piano. During the climactic piano solo in the middle, I envision some poor bloke in the middle of the ocean, fighting to keep from drowning, and eventually is pulled under and drifts slowly to the bottom. At the end of the piece, the piano is quietly, meekly pulled into the orchestra, which has been sounding pretty sinister in its unison lines and phrasing – and the evil collective triumphs over the individual. Yeah, my imagery is totally wacky and cheesy, but it’s such an evocative piece, I can’t help but experience a story every time I listen 
ETA: I had once read somewhere this movement is widely interpreted as Orpheus taming the Furies, but I’m not sure how that came about.
Reviewing my list, I am apparently completely floored by guitar riffs in rock music.
Chevelle – the first guitar riff in the very beginning of ‘‘Family System’’ just nails me to the wall.
Bush – the opening to ‘‘Machinehead’’ with that crazy sinister riff and the dreamy voice singing, ‘‘Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in…’’
Queen. Two.
#1 - ‘‘The Prophet’s Song’’ – again, at the guitar break (5:52)
#2 - ‘‘Bohemian Rhapsody’’ – that moment where the opera stops, all goes silent, and then the guitar comes screaming in with ‘‘So you think you can stone me and spit in my eyeyeye…’’ Ahhh it’s one of the most perfect moments in the history of rock.
I think I could go on forever. Someone mentioned Weezer upthread. I think I could create an album out of Weezer moments that slay me.
I can’t seem to make a link to youtube, but…Bo Bice,on American Idol a couple years ago, singing “In A Dream” - acapella. No orchestra drowning him out, voice of an angel. One of the best AI performances ever.
Did you hack into my iPod? Wow. These are exactly the two pieces that I was going to add today. Bizarre.
Okay, I’ll list another. I’ve just started rehearsing for a production of Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Yeomen of the Guard. For those not acquainted with the piece, it’s something of a departure from the silliness and lightweight farce of G&S’s more familiar works. In fact, had the exact piece been published under pseudonyms (and, perhaps, sung in Italian), it would likely have found its way into the repertory of many a highbrow opera company. The Act I finale includes a scene where a character, having just been smuggled out of his jail cell scant minutes before his scheduled beheading, appears at the execution site in disguise. There’s a lighthearted moment during which he fails to recognize his “sister”, causing a certain amount of amusement, and the chorus sings along to the joke in a jaunty tune. Suddenly the toll of a nearby church bell announces that the hour of the execution has arrived. In the blink of an eye the music changes to a stately death march that sends chills up my spine each time I hear it.
A lot of Thelonious Monk’s solos contains moments like that. Everything is just exactly right, always balancing on a knife’s edge, and I am spellbound each time. For instance his solo in “All the things you are” from Misterioso - Recorded live on tour. Amazing.
Also: Jan Johansson’s Jazz på svenska. One of the most beautiful piano albums of all time. It is just full of extraordinarily beautiful moments. Listen to Berg-Kirstis polska. for a good example.
Jesus Christ Superstar, ‘I Don’t Know How To Love Him’… The original version is the best. It was also my very first Broadway play!
Modern Bolero.
… because that’s what killed her.
There are certainly others, but what comes to mind right now is Chris Daughtry’s performance of I Walk the Line on American Idol several years ago. It brought tears to my eyes. And I could take or leave the original.
I call these “tingle moments,” because it’s the part of the song that makes me go all tingly when I hear it. I have many, but probably my “tingliest” is from Peter Gabriel’s “Signal to Noise.” About two-thirds of the way through, an instrumental passage starts up that just keeps building and building, louder and more intense, for about a minute and a half until it finally releases in this huge crescendo. This song is absolutely mind-blowing live–the video I linked doesn’t do it justice, even though some of the intensity does come through. The instrumental part starts at about 4:30, and the crescendo is right around 5:45. I know I’ve said it before in other threads, but it’s true: that song is a musical orgasm.
“Ecstasy of Gold” from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Sheer musical genius-only pity is that it doesn’t go on longer. The female voice as the Siren of Desire, the relentless melody, the everything.
Thanks, ZenBeam.
I second Phantom’s “Music of the Night” and add Sinead O’Connor’s cover of Prince’s “Nothing Compares to You.” I get chills every single time, and some days it makes me cry.
On the 4th of July in Manchester, the NHNG brings canon. The fireworks always start at the crecendo of the 1812 overture, a singular moment in music where a peice spends 20 minutes like it’s preparing for something, practicing, each section auditioning for one performance, then there’s this quick, melodic sequence of ever-lower cords and it all comes together, swings uptepo and plays it loud. And the canon play the bass section; there’s fire in the sky and echos bouncing from across the river.
Since we started going when I was maybe 4, that moment has HAD me.
Also, Jeff Buckley’s version of Halleluja. First saw it on The West Wing, the simplicity and raw emotion of the scene and the song together.
Thanks that was great!
I loved this! The music and the skating was incredible. I noticed that the skaters are in love by the way they looked at each other.
About the first 10 seconds of Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys: Wouldn’t It Be Nice
A lot of people think of it as a generic Beach Boys tune, but it was so much more, in context.
Also, David Ruffin’s vocal performance on My Girl. It’s too bad that the song is perhaps the most overplayed tune of all time. Most people will never hear the brilliance of the perfect song being done by the perfect vocalist.