Tell me your favourite dissonant chord

Dissonant chords aren't that fun out of context, though. So here are some of mine:

Dim7 chords that reoccur but resolve differently -- for instance, in the verse of Michelle by The Beatles, first there's a Ddim7 that resolves to Eb, then it immediately comes back as a Bdim7 and resolves to C.

Similarly the ingenious modulations in Come Back to Camden by Morrissey in which a single augmented chord is interpreted in every possible enharmonic way as the song modulates from C to Ab to E and back to C, moving full-circle by minor sixths.

Half-diminished chords standing in for IV chords generally, but the best one I can think of is the Bbm7b5 at the end of the verse in God Only Knows which somehow leads to the A (tonic) at the beginning of the chorus, WTF.

Minor/major7th chords, like the Am/G# on "Don't want to leave her now" in Something by The Beatles. This one's pretty standard, but that whole progression in Something is brilliant.

Dissonance is in the ear of the beholder.

Well there's objective dissonance and subjective dissonance. The former is a physical phenomenon to do with beat frequencies and such -- a minor 2nd is more dissonant than a perfect fifth no matter who is listening to it. But the latter refers to what's treated as a dissonance compositionally. For instance, a major 7th in Classical music was a dissonance that must be resolved, but in jazz you can happily end up on a major 7th chord.

I knew I'd get a spanking on that one.

sexy thread title is sexy.

I don't exactly know which chord is it (I remember thinking it was Am9) or if it's even dissonant, but I love the opening chord of The Cure's "love song".

that one what's in all the drum and bass tunes that they sample once and then every bar is a key change

I forgot all my chord names and just go by intervals now. like dude at the end of close encounters. he died not that long ago, did you know?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Dodds

I also want to shout out to the annoying-to-finger-on-the-guitar maj7th voicing that goes 3rd 7th root fifth, e.g. Cmaj7 voiced as E B C G, aka the Cousteau chord.

not hard to fret on the top 4 strings

I love that one that goes BLURNK

thelonious used it a lot

when I am rich I am going to have someone build me a Mellotron that uses tapes of people saying "BLURNK"

BLUUUUURNK BLUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURNK BLURRRRRRNK BLURNK BLURNK BLUUUURNK BLUUUUUUUURNK

wayyyyyyyy uuuuuuuuup hiiiiiiiiiiiigh

if I ever convince myself to finally buy that digital field recorder one part of my brain keeps telling me I need I will provide you with the appropriate sample set for yr birthday, or whenever

Whatever that chord is at the beginning of whatever slow song it is on Blank Generation where it sounds like Quine nicked it from Link Wray.

I made this one up and like it, here are the frets in open tuning:

E: 7
A: muted
D: 9
G: 9
B: open
E: 7

It's a little hard to play, but try riffin on it and slide it up a half step leaving the b open still. I keep meaning to write something based around that.

I'm with James Redd, that's a good chord. Don't know what it is but I think sometimes Quine might sound dissonant because he's a little out of tune. Maybe not?

Speaking of Thelonious, one that comes to mind is the second to last one in (I think) Ugly Beauty, the G chord that resolves back to C. I think it's built like this:

E
B
G#
F
G