Top 5 coolest things ever

2)
dual guitar solo in "what goes on", VU

3)
pygmy village singing. this would be number one if I were putting these in some kind of relevant order

4)
when janis joplin screams, esp. on "cry" & "down on me"

5)
whatever music I just recorded, a few hours later, listening to a playback that might never again see the light of day (x-post, says the New Messages Alert. everybody loves their own brand)

2/That moment when the bass line stomps in through the fuzz at the beginning of Medicine's 'One More'

3/The false magnanimity in Bobby Dylan's voice singing "whatever makes her happy / I won't stand in the way" in 'If you see her, say hello'

4/The crescendo intro to the Cure's 'Prayers for Rain', with the bass hovering about, dropping and then smothering the landscape in its wake

5/Right at the end of Curve's 'Unspeakable Communication', when a wooly fuzz comes in, sounding exactly like an amplified hoover (but in a nice way!)

this question is really fucking hard, i think everythings cool!

2) Listening to hip hop on headphones on the bus. When else are you actually going to concentrate that hard on music?

3) Bass drops. They're corny, they're a musical dead end. But fuck me, if the system is loud and the bass drops to a crowded floor....

4) Townes van Zandt live cds.

5) mp3s. I still haven't got over how great they are.

2) Listening to "Pacifica" - Appliance on headphones while looking through the window on a moving train, thus replicating the video for that song in real-time.

3) The first concert I went to, Offspring on the Lisbon Coliseum, and the fact that someone emptied a fire extinguisher on the middle of the arena, while we laughed of the situation on the 3rd level.

4) My first listen to Siamese Dream.

5) Looking at my CD collection as one of my greatest life achievements. Crazy, ain't it?

By the way, GRATEST THREAD EVAH

Hey TLML, Allison is still in action, with Hawnay Troof. I took these at Ladyfest Bristol. She's pretty much the ultimate cheerleader.

2. Cee-Lo's voice, whether rapping, singing, or just speaking

3. SNL musical guest. Fishbone. "Sunless Saturday". the acoustic guitar/drummer-playing-pocket-trumpet outro. goosebumps on goosebumps.

4. "take it away nose!" during the nose-flute solo in Roland Kirk's "One Ton"

5. anytime James Brown screams

*anyway*
1- bridge of "Bright Yellow Gun," Throwing Muses
2- packed club in humid 80+ degree weather at a Pavement show in Charlottesville all singing along to "Stop Breathing"
3- "Mind your own business," Delta 5; "Mind your own business," Chicks on Speed.
4- DAFT PUNK and ROBOT DISCO in all its forms
5- despite all the indie rock.. the moment in college when a group of my friends spontaneously sang all of "Livin on a Prayer" from a balcony in the dorm. I don't think it was ironic, exactly. No, not that.

2. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan letting loose with a staccato vocal burst mid-song and the table player doubling him.

3. Leaving the planet with Brian Eno's "Apollo" (launching pad: couch, middle of night, total darkness, headphones).

4. Johnny Rotten spitting out "anar-kyest" in "Anarchy in the UK".

5. Malicorne's "Daniel Mon Fils".

6. Exactly 00:21 into the live version of "Shine On Elizabeth" by Cop Shoot Cop (on the elusive "Room 429" ep), when Tod [A] punctuates the pounding intro with an darkly ecstatic "YAH!", before the moron-simple, guitarless riff kicks in.

7. Joe Strummer as Johnny Elvis in Jim Jarmusch's "Mystery Train". "Hey, let's go for a spin in Earl's Caddy!"

8. The ominous bells in "Red Right Hand" by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds.

9. Woe To You O Earth and Sea, for the Devil Sends the Beast with Wrath......

10. The ping-pong match being played in the background midway through Paul's Boutique by the Beastie Boys.

Although I'm not ready to list my own, this one is truly remarkable. every time I hear it, it reminds me of flinging open a bedroom window in spring. I think it's a throwback to Play School (the '70s UK kids programme), in which you weere encouraged to mime to similar music (before the sax comes in, of course).

2. Smiley Smile

3. The fact that Manowar exist!

4. "Hail To The Thief" didn't suck

5. Giant Steps

1. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan letting loose with a staccato vocal burst mid-song and the table player doubling him. SECONDED WHOLE-HEARTEDLY

2. "Three Days"

3. the flash-back to "Novocaine" into the "cut that shit off...what's wrong with you man, get the other rekkid..." break; Beck, "High Five", Odelay!

4. the transition from the ass-bustin' insanity of "Pumpin' 4 the Man" to the romantic & sublime "Sarah" on Ween's Pure Guava

5. all the crazy hella-voices-working-together stuff on Remain in Light

In no order, really:

The whispery roiling beat that starts "Soon" -- big surprise, I know.

Dave Fielding's solo on "Return of the Roughnecks" -- the sky breaks open and the beyond shines down

Maynard James Keenan's final "PIIIIIIIINE AWAYYYYYYYYYYYYY" on "Reflection" -- a prayer, a sigh, beauty and sorrow and hope

Any point in a Timbaland song where you sense the echo and the depth no matter what else might be happening in the mix -- dub without being dub, and I can't select just one moment in particular so I won't.

The shift on "Sons of the Silent Age" by Bowie between verse and chorus -- "They never die, they just go to sleep one day BABY BABY I WON'T EVER LET YA GO!"

Bonus live moment - Pulp, Glastonbury, 1995, "She just smiled and TOOK MY HAND!" and the band explodes.

2. The way the first two St Etienne albums open

3. The way Israelites 'revs up' after the intro

4. The chorus in Wonderful Land

5. The overlapping middle-eight in Move Over Darling

1) the drum intro to talking heads "warning sign"
2) the gtr solo from "cinnamon girl"
3) ian mackaye singing "what the fuck have YOU done?" from "in my eyes"
4) when dean and gene start to laugh during ween's "black jack/black betty" from GODWEENSATAN
5) the intro to iron maiden's "run to the hills"

2.) MBV - Glider

3.) Brothers in Arms (yes Dire Straits) over the final episode of the 2nd series of the West Wing when the President shouts at God

3.) God Speed You Black Emporer at the Union Chapel a couple of years back - Shivers down the spine

4.) Any Super Furry Animals gig

5.) Somewhere Over the Rainbow

I'm sure I could easily come up with 10-20 more.....

7) James Hetfield screaming "I was born for dying!" in Back to the Front

8) A panting violin scraping up towards its highest note

9) Playing an open e power chord through a huge amp on my silver guitar

10) The bass not at the end of Soundgarden's Jesus Christ Pose

2. The awesome hook that comes in midway through Technologique Park by Orbital. One day... ONE DAY I will hear this in a club and I will be going insane.

3. The splashing noises that accompany that woozy little melody at the beginning of Fer by Plaid... like a small child throwing stones into a pond and oddly emotive.

4. "Dizzee run tings like Idi Amin". The fact that this line wasn't worked into the first verse of Hold Ya Mouf is colossal wasted opportunity.

5. The looped ragga sample that comes in at the end of Capital Rocka by Medicine8.

7. The nostalgic piano solo in PP Arnold's Everything's Gonna Be Alright

8. Vehicle sounds used to add excitement: e.g. the underground train in Tubestation

9. The racket at the beginning of See My Baby Jive

10. Hearing your own first studio recording

11. Listening to the Cocteau Twins on a Walkman on a brilliantly sunny Autumn day.

12. Watching the entirety of the spikey, bedraggled, leather-clad, beer-swigging crowd of die-hard punks race to the front of the room at the sound of the opening chords of "Give Me Fire" by GBH at an appearance at the New Ritz on 54th Street in the early 90's.

13. "ERRR - OOOOO - TIC JEEE - ZUSSSSSSSS!"

14. The opening frantic strumming of "Kennedy" by the Wedding Present

15. The final verse of "Marian (Version)" by the Sisters of Mercy, barked out in caustic, cryptic perfect German.

*************Bonus********************
6. Radar Brothers Live at Aquarius Records SF
7. Lightning Bolt Live in an Alley in Brooklyn
8. Thin Lizzy
9. Violent Ramp
10. Kim Deal

Buddy Holly's Glasses.

Sterling Morrison, in the years before going on (his last) tour with Moe Tucker, worked as a tugboat captain.

Doc Watson at age 75 said that the only thing he noticed about getting on in years was that he could no longer hear the flapping of butterfly wings.

For years the Violent Femmes played their music on street corners and (city) buses. Chrissie Hynde was in town (Milwaukee) to play when she heard the Femmes for the first time; they opened for the Pretenders that night.

2. "Oh No Lets Go" from Prince's Lets Go Crazy

3. Bob Mould's guitar tone

4. The time I first heard "Bastards of Young" sitting with my headphones on in my parent's house after waiting over an hour and half for it download on a pre-napster mp3 website through our dial up connection (Remember when mp3s used to be up on people's geocities pages!)

5. The waterfall guitar line from Ministry's "So What"

THE PULP FICTION BASSLINE

THAT GUY FROM FUGAZI'S KNEE JERK BENDING FEEDBACK THING HE DO

RANDY RHODES OVER THE MOUNTAIN SOLO

ROLAND

D4 LIVE

02. The synth break in Ultravox's "Passing Strangers."

03. The bit in "Keep It Comin'Love" by KC & The Sunshine Band where the chorus ends, the guitar jangles and KC goes "Oh yeaaahh."

04. Mark E. Smith's squeals on Totale's Turns which always make me smile.

05. That crunchy Velvets guitar sound (What Goes On, Foggy Notion, I Can't Stand It, etc.) - also used wonderfully by The Wedding Present, Unrest, The Feelies, Dean Wareham, etc.

...with honourable mention to the guitar solo in Television's "See No Evil."

2. Nirvana live at Les Foufounes Electriques, Montreal, days before Nevermind comes out, opening with 'Aneurysm'. The energy was almost intolerable. Wow, what a tune, esp. live and unheard by me to that point.

3. Gary Young threatening the audience with two live lobsters at a Boston Pavement show, early 90s.

4. Hearing the totally unexpected Paul's Boutique for the first time. Pulled off a Detroit traffic jam highway on a summer job drive home to buy it. Pulled back on and forgot about the traffic jam.

5. Uncle Tupelo ushering in the alt-country revolution (long dead) at the Middle East upstairs in Cambridge, MA on their first tour. One stomp on a distortion pedal, opening riff of opening song, one customer's mind blown.

(I also second 90% of the coolest moments already expressed in this thread)

2. The part of Styx's "Come Sail Away" where the synth interlude ends and the guitars kick in.

3. Several of the shrieks on Bikini Kill's "Rebel Girl" single.

4. On Magic Dirt's "I Was So Cruel": near the end the song comes to a false ending, followed by an absolutely perfectly screamed "I was so cruel!" that kicks off the finale. There are many intangibles involved in getting a scream just right, and this one makes not a single misstep.

5. "I was just a puppet" from "Squelch the Weasel."

Kent Burt, I want to hug you for this. Especially since I was just today thinking about this and how that little bit got stuck in my head all throughout my junior year of HS and how happy it made me feel.

Ok, I'll try to narrow this here list down to five:

1.  The line, "We go undiscovered 'cos people are careless/One way or another, they'll never forget us" in Duran Duran's "Playing With Uranium", because I just love that they actually sang those words and I love how they build up to the chorus.

2.  The whole of the tweaker/David Sylvian song "Linoleum", which I swear I'll stop harping on about once I get enough of the song. (But I really don't want to get enough of it because I just think it's truly magical.)

3.  The whole "I am a D.J., I am what I play/Can't turn around no, can't turn around no" bit in David Bowie's song "D.J.", because I think that is the hookiest and catchiest moment in that whole song and it just gets me every time I listen to it.

4.  Japan. "Cantonese Boy". The whole of the song, from the instrumental introduction and first line of "We're pushing through these farming towns" to the quiet "Only young men broke the wall" closer. Which reminds me that I need to listen to the song again.

5.  The way you can just picture the whole waking-up process when you listen to the Visage song "Whispers" and you can imagine how perfect it would be to listen to this song the first thing on a Saturday morning, when you can wake up late enough to have sunlight peeking through your blinds.

02. Elbow's 'Fugitive Motel' (bonus related Elbow moment: Crying during a live rendition of 'Switching Off' -- then watching Guy Garvey wipe a tear away too)

03. Dancing to a 2 Many DJs set with my girlfirend and our friends

Ummm, dont want to sugget any more as I only have two left (I'm playing by the rules!) and would just regret anything I said from now on. I agree with The Lady Ms Lurex, everything's cool.

2. Black Francis' holler

3. ATP 2002 - the best weekend of my life

4. The beginning of KaitO's 'Thwipside' at Truck 2001 - I can still feel it reverberating in my chest

5. The way that when Come's 'In/Out' ends I always imagine it segueing into MBV's 'Only Shallow'

2) Beck yowling "AIN'T GOT NO SOOOOOOOOOOOUL! NO NO NO NOOOOOOOOOOO!" on "Mountain Dew Rock (Fuckin' With My Head)"

3) That first few seconds of Timbalandage in "Jigga What, Jigga Who" where the question is "holy crap, how is he going to rhyme over THIS?"
3.5) "I got a condo with nothin' but condoms in it"

4) Mr. Lif's tour of his aunt's pimped out bathroom in the Definitive Jux Revenge of the Robots DVD

5) The ending of Basement Jaxx's "Red Alert" video where the face on the album cover warps, bubbles, then pops and burns away (also one of the top 5 most fucked-up horrifying things ever)