Ever had one song by a particular artist really, really grab you, while pretty much everything else they do leaves you cold or at best tepid?
I’m listening to Golden Earring rock through Twilight Zone right now. Damn but I love that song! Other than Radar Love, though – not bad but not in TZ’s league – I don’t much care for the band. I downloaded the album those songs are on from iTunes and haven’t bothered to play it after the first hearing.
So, fellow Dopers, have you had the same experience?
I find the Rolling Stones to be pretty bland and uninspiring, except for Beast of Burden, which is one of my favorite songs ever.
I really, really like “Fairies Wear Boots” by Black Sabbath, but I don’t like anything else by them that I’ve ever heard. It’s probably that killer riff. It would have been great by anybody.
I really, really like “Autobahn” by Kraftwerk, and nothing else. I bought all their albums, hoping to find more greatness, but nothing else they’ve released does anything for me at all.
I’ll probably think of more…
Home by Marc Broussard, both the album version and the live one at the Katrina aid concert. First time that came on the radio as I was driving I damn near went off the road lunging for the volume button to crank it up. The album it’s on is not bad, but none of the other songs are anywhere near as powerful.
“Mr. Brownstone” by Guns & Roses. Great guitar hook. I never really cared much for anything else that they did (although their covers of “Live And Let Die” and “Hair Of The Dog” were pretty good).
I never cared for Loggins and Messina–and actively dislike a lot of their stuff–except for the superb “Angry Eyes.”
“Creque Alley” by The Mamas and the Papas. I like the flow and spirit of the song.
I’m not much on Mellencamp but I will rock to the Authority Song…
Na nana na uhhhh…
There is a ballad, by an artist called Keane, that absolutely floors me. (“Somewhere Only We Know”)
O simple thing
Where have you gone?
I’m getting old and I need
Something to rely on
So tell me when
You’re gonna let me in
I’m getting tired and I need
Somewhere to begin… etc
I downloaded the album once… yawn
Hmmm, not even the last or second-to-last song on the album (don’t LOOOOOK away, don’t LIEEEEE to me, you’ll follow me back with the sun in your eyes…)
Granted the rest of the album doesn’t reach the same heights as Somewhere Only We Know but that’s only because it’s the best song in the whole Piano Wimp-Rock genre ever recorded. But the previous song I mentioned is on that same epic level, in fact depending on my mood sometimes I prefer to SOWK.
Now, I feel the same way about Modest Mouse that I feel about Keane. Everything I’ve heard by them is decent but nothing reaches the hooky heights that Float On does.
(As an aside, when I heard Johnny Marr had joined the band it seemed weird, but then I thought of the similarity between the Float On hook and the hook at the end of How Soon is Now, and it made slightly more sense.)
I am aboslutely positive not a Neil Diamond fan, but Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show is one of the best songs in the universe.
I always thought that they were the absolute worst specimen of 9th-generation pop-punk, but Sum 41’s “Fat Lip” is an incredible song about post-high school ennui and identity conflict with an enormous hook.
Currently I cannot listen to Nellie Furtado’s “Say it Right” without getting up and dancing. It’s a shame because I nearly threw out my back last time.
What else did you happen to pick up? I’ll admit that Moontan is one of those albums that goes all over the place, though I still enjoy it. Cut may not have the best songs on it, but you didn’t like The Devil Made me Do it? You might like something else by them, maybe something from NEWS like Mission Impossible, or Clear Night Moonlight.
Now excuse me while I go crank some Golden Earring.
Oh and it happens to me as well, there are some songs that I just like, but the rest of the stuff I just can’t stand, usually it happens with R&B or rap or something like that. Or even one of those teenie boppers. But I’m not going to admit that, ever.
Soulshine by Michael Franti. My hips won’t fricking stand still.
For me it’s her song “Turn Out the Lights”. I’m not that into her more recent work.
You know how a song can really take you back to a particular place? That song reminds me of the bowling alley in my hometown, when I would have been 9 or 10.
I liked the Finger 11 song that was out (“The One Thing”?) but I hated the rest of the album.
Tom Waits I could take or leave, but I enjoy that one about the piano needing a haircut.
“Dust in the Wind” by some otherwise lame band, Kansas, possibly
and
“Don’t Fear the Reaper” by Blue Oyster Cult
They don’t make me dance (obviously) but I really like these two songs (perhaps I should list them as guilty pleasures) and the rest of the work by these two groups leaves me absolutely cold.
Oh man, I LOVE that song with a pure and holy passion.
Re: Keane, possibly there are many good songs on that album. But they are all ballads, and it’s hard for me to sit through a whole record of ballads. The only album of ballads I can actually enjoy without falling asleep is Madonna’s “Something to Remember.”
Agreed. I can’t believe the girl who sang “Explode” also sings that POC “Maneater”.
As for the OP, I find myself strangely attracted to the song “Flood” by Jars of Clay, though I’m not into the rest of their music or even Christian rock in general.