Now that you’ve probably heard them dozens or hundreds of times since that first time, this may be a tough task. Give it a try, though, if you can.
What intros, breaks, riffs, or other varieties of “hooks” have you heard that instantly grabbed you and haven’t turned you loose yet?
Some of mine:
Pink Floyd’s Money intro and bass line
intro to Metallica’s Enter Sandman
Mancini’s Peter Gunn riff
intro to The Hollies’ Long Cool Woman
intro to The Beatles’ Day Tripper
The Benny Hill end credits theme Yakkety Sax
The Futurama theme
Pipeline
Many Black Sabbath riffs - Sweet Leaf, Iron Man, The Wizard, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, and others.
Back in Black by AC/DC.
Plenty more, I’m sure…
Joe
Pretty much any good hook or riff that’s I’ve heard. Seriously. I’d need a lot more to go on before I could narrow it down to only a few. The riff is a central part of popular music, whether it’s Da-Da-Da-DUM from Beethoven’s 5th or the iconic riff from Satisfaction. Pick a genre and a timeframe and there are riffs that stand out.
Queens of the Stone Age!! “Regular John” and “Mexicola” being the two that have me by the throat, forever. Also “Do It Again” and “Little Sister”. Just unbelievable.
In other news: “Shake Some Action”, Flamin’ Groovies.
“Pay To Cum”, Bad Brains.
“Little Bit of Sympathy”, Robin Trower
“Screaming Skull”, Sonic Youth.
Zeldar, are you a musician? And, I’ve been meaning to ask you, if I may…where did you get your name? I love it! Kinda sounds like a rad scifi villain.
“Barracuda” Heart
“Number of the Beast” Iron Maiden
“Do You Want to Touch Me” Gary Glitter (oh the shame!)
“Edge of Seventeen” Stevie Nicks
“Ace of Spades” Motorhead
“Bad Reputation” Joan Jett
“Baba O’Riley” The Who
“Army of Me” Bjork
“More Human Than Human” White Zombie (more shame)
“Summer Holiday vs. Punk Routine” Refused
“Heartbreaker” Pat Benatar
“TKO” Le Tigre
“This is Love” PJ Harvey
“You’re No Rock N Roll Fun” and “Jumpers” Sleater-Kinney
There are probably more, but these are guaranteed to get me all antsy in the pantsy ever single time.
“Money for Nothing” - Dire Straits
Secret Agent Man - Johnnie Rivers
Sorry for the double post.
Satisfaction - Rolling Stones
Smoke on the Water - Deep Purple
Hot Rod Lincoln - Commander Cody
(Just listened to Bill Kirchen’s live version, where he does some soloing on famous riffs by bands that ‘let him by’)
::contemplates [del]Dantz[/del] EMC Retrospect doing its backups in response to a specified lick or chop::
(hmm maybe not)
OK, some of the ones that linger…deliberately omitting those already receiving callouts as of the time I started this post…
Carry On My Wayward Son (the a capella lead-in)
Fumbling Towards Ecstasy (that syncopated & first vocal line)
You’re So Vain (rumbly drums & init sultry vocals)
In My Time of Dying (those stretchy bendy wails)
Time (the clocks, and then the deep ominous thrumming chords with the clipclop beats)
One of These Days (the wind & that insistent 6/8 driving it)
Empty Spaces (auditory desolation… ugly metal & wrenching vocals in an empty land)
DOA (the creepy ambulance sounds)
Procession (the evolution of sound from cavemen to rock, thrown off casually)
Melancholy Man (the descending chromatics)
Light My Fire (that introductory keyboard that won’t let you go)
Dr Tarr and Professor Fether (AP just keeps adding layers and it still keeps on rockin’)
For What It’s Worth (that introductory measure hooks ya every time)
Great intros:
I, Robot by The Alan Parsons Project
Get Together by The Youngbloods
Teach Your Children by CSNY
Walk of Life by Dire Straits
You Can’t Always Get What You Want by The Stones
How could I possibly forget:
Baker Street by Gerry Rafferty
I like all of these but the one that hits me in the gut every time is Just One Fix by Ministry, right up there with Sabbath for me.
I agree with some already mentioned, like Enter Sandman and Carry On My Wayward Son.
Some of the best hooks are found in TERRIBLE songs though, like Highway to the Danger Zone. Nobody can deny that there was a strong vocal hook in the chorus there.
The music I understand the least is stuff that people praise for being provacative and skillful and poetic, but it lacks any attention grabbing element. A great example of this wandering, meandering style of music is Radiohead. An example of the exact opposite (and a band I’m sure to be laughed at for loving) is Disturbed.
Disturbed has a great instrumental hook in the lead up to the chorus in the title track of the 10,000 Fists album, and I either haven’t listened to it enough or it’s good enough that I still love it.
Also, A Perfect Circle did a song that I think a lot of people overlooked, called Passive. It was buried in an album of anti-war cover tracks, but it’s an impressive song with crisscrossing instrumental, vocal, and arrangement hooks all over the place.
As for the musician part, I own a guitar and used to own a drum set. I have tried to learn music theory by reading about it and I took music lessons in piano, violin and guitar, none of which got me over the beginner phase. So, the sort answer is no.
I have done web searches on “zeldar” and have found all sorts of cool hits (including misspellings of “zelda”) but in my case it’s a name I made up for a story I wrote on an old BBS. It was fun to say and write so when I wasn’t able to use “One Person” for a handle when I signed on here, I just went with Zeldar. The closest association I can conjure up is the Conehead character Dan Aykroyd played on the old SNL: Beldar, was it?
It’s not surprising that someone who went with the brouhaha pun for a username would be aware of other efforts to jazz up the way one is referred to here.
The organ music from *A Whiter Shade of Pale * is a great hook.
Blues Traveler has a song called The Hook, which is my favorite Blues Traveler song and the lyrics are just amazing.
[ul]
[li]Black Hole Sun- Soundgarden[/li][li]Don’t Fear the Reaper- Blue Oyster Cult[/li][li]Karn Evil 9- Emerson, Lake and Palmer[/li][li]Looks That Kill- Motley Crue[/li][li]One- Metallica[/li][li]Shout at the Devil- Motley Crue[/li][li]Smells Like Teen Spirit- Nirvana[/li][li]Still of the Night- Whitesnake[/li][/ul]
“Layyyy – la!”
Ooh, and also Hymn to Fortuna!
I’m old…
Then check out J.S. Bach’s Air on G String sometime.