What songs name-heck anything referring to a different school of music?

Cafe Society
1

Well, I was just watching the music video to Gazebo’s song, " I Like Chopin"[suB]1 [/suB] and it occurred to me that maybe I should make a thread about contemporary songs that mention classical musicians, either to praise them or too scorn them. While I would still like to hear examples, that thread is far too narrow. The more replies, the better. Thus, I would like to ask people for examples of rock stars name-checking classical musicians/rap singers talking about rock stars/ classical music composers name-hecking the band “Wyld Stallions”, and so on.

This doesn’t have to only include the specific name of the band, but also can include any clear reference, such as a reference to the singer’s nickname or description. Also, sampling another artist in the middle of a song, or playing a riff from that artist.

But remember, I am not looking for examples of, let’s say, Weezer mentioning KISS, but rather something along the lines of a rap singer mentioning Queen.

  1. No, I am not going to link to the site. However you can easily find the link at Retrocrush.com/
2

Probably the most famous example of a rocker mentioning the classics: Chuck Berry’s “Roll Over Beethoven” (and tell Tchaikovsky the news)

3

Travel by The Gathering is a song about Mozart.

4

“Rock Me Amadeus” by Falco (who, like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, was Austrian)

“Rockaria” by Electric Light Orchestra mentions several opera composers

Stevie Wonder’s “Rocket Love” mentions “symphonies by Bach or Brahms” (which always bothered me a little: does Stevie know that the most famous Bach (Johann Sebastian) never wrote any symphonies? But I can’t think of a famous symphonist whose name would work with the scansion in that line.)