Great songs with a terrible section

Jay-Z’s rap in “Crazy in Love”

the hilariously out-of-place monster rock drumbeat in Sting’s otherwise light jazzy “Englishman in New York”

I thought it was supposed to be a "hip-hop beat", to underline he's in New York.

My McCartney answer is "My Love" - the bridge/coda ruin it for me.

the hilariously out-of-place monster rock drumbeat in Sting’s otherwise light jazzy “Englishman in New York”

That was the first example that came to mind when thinking of the opposite phenomenon - amazing bits in otherwise okay songs. Tackhead intruding and then leaving and the song acting as though nothing ever happened

Nick Berry's Every Loser Wins is similar in that regard - random huge drums appearing for about 20 seconds near the end and then the song forgetting all about them. Except this time it's an amusing bit in an otherwise awful song.

The radio edit of Just Jack's Starz in Their Eyes works so much better than the album version with the quasi-grime interlude that threatens the momentum/nostalgia completely

“James BROWWWN! James BROWWWN!”

More-so in Stop Making Sense. He STILL is the Godfather of Soul y'all so CHECK-IT-OUT

the rap breakdown in Erasure’s cover of “Take A Chance On Me”

._.

nooo kinky makes it :(

The only Alcest song I enjoy, Tir Nan Og, has a boring and overlong moody guitar interlude that I always skip through

the hilariously out-of-place monster rock drumbeat in Sting’s otherwise light jazzy “Englishman in New York”

its so weird and out of left field that I can't dislike it exactly

Top 2 brief surreal moment from a 1987-88 pop hit along with the waltz bit in When Will I Be Famous

I thought the whole point of alcest was moody overlong guitar bits at least that's the impression I got from a few listens

I don't feel great dismissing the schoolkid stuff on stevie's "black man" considering where it's coming from but I don't love it, it nearly drowns out one of the best grooves on the album, and it hasn't aged as well lyrically as his better songs tackling race (still better than you know the one which is mostly a white man's fault anyway)

reminds me of Adele’s “My Little Love”, which could have been the highlight on last year’s 30, because the musical soundbed is beautiful, but as a song it’s underdeveloped because it’s interspersed with voicenotes of her and her kid instead which no one needs to hear more than once, if it all.

would y'all agree that the more you like an artist, the more the terrible sections are part of the fun because you just kinda "get" them as artists and can kinda get on their level, even if you know something is kinda stupid? (not talking about things that are actually offensive, just things that are artistically cringey and musically distracting?) and that therefore only the truly, really, appallingly terrible sections stand out to you, while the everyday-terrible ones just feel like part of the song?

or is this specific to my feelings about Paul McCartney, who probably has dozens of these as far as the general public is concerned?

I can imagine this applies to Kate Bush for an awful lot of people.

Co-sign on the James Browwwwn bit of Genius Of Love

Propaganda's "Frozen Faces" sounds like two song fragments smushed together. The intro isn't complex enough to work as a separate movement. The second half is much better but it still feels like a fragment of a song. Not so much a great song with a terrible section as a potentially good song that needed more work.

Along similar lines Paul McCartney's "Maybe I'm Amazed" alternates between a fantastic verse and a really perfunctory chorus/bridge. It's as if he wrote the opening lines and then didn't know what to do next, so he just half-assed the rest and recorded it. It's frustrating because it feels like an imposter. It's taking the place of a better song.

But of course the classic answer is Tangerine Dream's "Birth of Liquid Plejades", which has a great opening with cellos and strings and then turns into a thin, underproduced organ solo that isn't a patch on the other three tracks on that album. I usually skip the whole thing.

This doesn't fit the thread at all but it's a crying shame Creedence Clearwater Revival didn't do more with the groove at the beginning of "Ramble Tamble". It's only about fifteen seconds long and as far as I can tell they don't go back to it later in the song. The rest of the song is of course excellent but it would have been more excellent if they had developed that bit.

Lol there's really several McCartney tunes that apply here. Doctor Casino otm. Him being so musically omnivorous makes him want to tackle genres and styles out of his comfort zone with varying degrees of success, usually resulting in some very unfortunate sections in between great songs.

I think Paul Simon also registers for me in that same space. I love him when he's doing contemplative, melancholic verses as in '50 ways to leave your lover' but when he suddenly changes the tone into a sesame street sing-a-long he loses me completely.

Along similar lines Paul McCartney's "Maybe I'm Amazed" alternates between a fantastic verse and a really perfunctory chorus/bridge. It's as if he wrote the opening lines and then didn't know what to do next, so he just half-assed the rest and recorded it. It's frustrating because it feels like an imposter. It's taking the place of a better song.

I'm amazed at this assessment.

Yes to Paul Simon. He often manages to pull it off and rarely reaches the full-on flopitude of say, The Capeman but still.

Can't agree with this take on Paul Simon at all! (Then again, you won't ever hear me say anything negative about The Capeman either.) If there might be anything of his which I might bring up in this thread, it's his son's backing vocals in 'Father and Daughter'.

I was thinking of Genesis' 'Anything She Does' here. I do think the vocals and overall melody of the verses and choruses are pretty alright, but I quite dislike the in-your-face main brass & bass riff.
I also have no idea why Phil Collins always did whatever he did before and after 'Throwing it All Away' whenever they performed it live.

Jarring live renditions of songs might be another topic altogether. I'm a huge Echo & the Bunnymen fan, but after having seen time live multiple times over the past 25 years I almost can't hear them do 'Nothing Lasts Forever' anymore as Ian McCulloch always makes it transition into a Walk On The Wild Side cover and back again, and it was fine for one time but otherwise it really doesn't add anything to the song other than taking time.

But of course the classic answer is Tangerine Dream's "Birth of Liquid Plejades"

I won't argue with your taste, but have you really encountered this opinion elsewhere? The microtonal cello quartet is a brilliant opening, but I think that all the sections of this music are beautifully proportioned.

Altrockchick otm

Um Girassol Da Cor De Seu Cabelo” (“A Sunflower the Color of Your Hair”): I have mixed feelings about this piece, though I think the song itself is quite lovely, both melodically and lyrically. Here’s what lyricist Mârcio Borges had to say about the song’s origins:

(the song is) the fanciful narrative of a bus trip I made with my girlfriend, whom I would one day marry. It was the first time we traveled together. I rested my head on her lap, looking closely at the details of her blue jeans dress. Through the window the radiant sun filled the bright blue sky. And I lay there declaring eternal love. Sunflower was my favorite flower, and it all made sense.

Grasse, Jonathon. Milton Nascimento and Lô Borges’s The Corner Club (33 1/3 Brazil) . Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.

What he is describing is a sweet and gentle moment between two lovers in the nascent stages of a relationship. The music captures that loveliness through the first verse and chorus with Lô Borges singing the simple melody in a soft voice as he plays piano with a light touch. When his supporting cast enters (Rubinho on drums, Beto on bass, Tavito and Nelson Angelo on guitar), they do so subtly and quietly, so as not to disturb the tender moment.

The first sign of trouble comes at the start of the next verse when arranger Eumir Deodato introduces “silvery strings” that create a sound that is either a high-pitched violin filled with air or an extremely poor example of flute technique. The sound is terribly grating, so much so that I lose all connection to the flow. My suspicions concerning Deodato’s questionable choices are confirmed by the jarring appearance of what Grasse calls “an orchestral interlude of expressionistic, cinematic proportions, smearing those silvery background strings into an angst-ridden cloud dissonantly answering the lover’s question, ‘ou será que é tarde demais?’ (‘or will it be too late?’).” Talk about an overreaction to a simple question! Grasse goes gaga over the arrangement (he has a tendency to go gaga with annoying frequency); I would describe it as a classic example of the arranger absconding with the song. The up-tempo coda that follows might have worked had it not been for the orchestral intrusion; as it is, it feels like a failed rescue attempt. Deodato arranged some of the other pieces on the album but none are as obviously out of sync with a song’s content as this one.

yeah you didn't play my link apparently

― link.exposing.politically (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Monday, September 5, 2022 12:11 AM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah, sorry. your joke was better but in truth i hate the whole fuckin song, even the curtis amy part

"Our Lips Are Sealed" – the bridge is a total whiff!

Faust - Jennifer; the old timey saloon piano at the end.

I did a song when I was 19 where I ripped that bit off under the auspices of an Andy Partridge 'gear change'

I mean there's almost nothing it can do that won't be an anticlimax after the song proper, so why not, it has bathos at least

It's fantastic, weirdly poignant

Captain Sensible - Glad It's All Over. Absolutely gorgeous sounding but on some listens the stupid lyrics get in the way a bit too much

That too xp

Bee Gees "I Close My Eyes", a perfectly lovely piece of 1967 pop-psych with a bizarre piercingly-annoying wordless vocal hook at the end of each chorus

Faust - Jennifer; the old timey saloon piano at the end.

― Chris L, Thursday, September 8, 2022 7:45 PM (five days ago) bookmarkflaglink

awww I like that bit. though I don't really consider it part of the proper tune

the Faust one that comes to mind for me is that squeaky backwards organ feedback at the end of "Miss Fortune" - always have to turn it down because it really does hurt my ears

Elvis Costello once wrote that at one time, any song of his that had any potential for sweetness needed to be given the harshest possible treatment. I think he was talking about "Deportee."

Anyway I have never felt that it was necessary to have "Man Out of Time" begin and end with the double-time distorted outtake spliced in. Your opinion may differ. The song would have been fine.

"Captain Sensible - Glad It's All Over. Absolutely gorgeous sounding but on some listens the stupid lyrics get in the way a bit too much"

Literally every single King Crimson song with lyrics would be much better without lyrics. I would love that band if they had never had a singer ever. Or if the lyrics were sung in Sigur Ros' Hopelandic. Or Magma's kobaian. Or if they were whistled.

For that matter ELP's oeuvre is ruined for me by Keith Emerson's keyboard playing and Greg Lake's singing and guitar and whatever other instruments he played e.g. harmonica or banjo or whatever. If someone remastered their albums so that they were just Calm Palmer drumming and nothing else they would be fantastic.

check out "Tank" on the 1st ELP album, might be your jam

I’m not…. super crazy about the slow spooky horror music of “children of the grave”, but I accept I’m wrong

horror music SECTION I mean, with the organ or whatever

Half-inclined to add the “Wot’s ‘e like?” in “Buffalo Stance.”

Outro to Queen's "Seven Seas of Rhye" where they go into a rendition of "Oh I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside". I know it's a segue into the intro of the first track on the following album, which is a pretty good trick, but it's still crap.

Literally every single King Crimson song with lyrics would be much better without lyrics.

Agree with this 100% (and I really like Greg Lake's voice, but KC's lyrics were jabbering nonsense at best, jabbering sexist, homophobic nonsense at worst).

Runnin Blue by the Doors would maybe be my favorite Doors tune if weren't for Krieger's cod hillbilly chorus break down barf

Great example

I think Jimmy Buffett's "Come Monday" is a great song, except for the "I can't help it honey..." bridge which is so completely nails on a chalkboard to me that I'll pull my earbuds out and just skip that part of the song altogether.

I could really do without the spoken word poetry break in the Doors' "Peace Frog." Way to kill a groove. Only 16 seconds long but I want to snip it out so bad.

"Ducks On a Pond" by the Incredible String Band is actually three songs in a row: one great, one fine, one terrible. I understand the thematic relation between the parts, but most of their "good-timey" stuff falls flat for me.

I almost mentioned that song earlier. I also hate the "Keep the home fires burning" part of their song "Darling Belle" which, otherwise, is one of the best and most affecting things they ever did.

I opened this thread and immediate hit ctrl+F to search for "Eyes Without A Face". The 'rocking out' is less of an issue than the rapping.