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Hold those lighters high for these Crowning Moments of Awesome in the world of music.
See also Crowning Music Of Awesome.
- Beethoven's "Ode To Joy" from his Ninth Symphony distills the collective Awesome of Western civilization into a minute and a half of music, making it the Unofficial Crowning Moment of Awesome Theme Song. About nine-tenths of the scenes on these pages could probably be set to it (and some of them probably already are).
- And his Fifth Symphony, which is approximately one half-hour of pure, undiluted amazing.
- The first three movements of the Ninth are themselves filled with bits that could be considered CMOA's, especially the first. The fire-and-brimstone opening; the earth-shattering, seemingly endless timpani roll of the recapitulation; and the final "funeral march" of the coda - all soundtrack material for the end of the world. But this troper has to go with the very conclusion of the finale as his CMOA pick - especially as Wilhelm Furtwangler conducted it...those final shouts from the chorus of "Freude, schoner Gotterfunken!" and the insanity of the final Prestissimo give me crazy chills just thinking about it. (And regarding the Fifth Symphony, the transition from its scherzo to its finale is the CMOA of that piece, in this troper's estimation - like a giant ray of sunshine after a dark and stormy night.)
- Just behind Beethoven's Ninth, in terms of a Crowning Moment Of Awesome in classical music, is Mahler's Symphony No. 2, "Resurrection." The resurrection depicted is not, as you might think, the resurrection of Jesus, but rather the resurrection of all of humanity at the end of time. The symphony begins with a funeral march for a hero, and after several movements, builds to the very end of the world. Finally, everything falls silent. And then the choir comes in, ethereal, almost inaudible, with a simple command: "Auferstehen." ("Arise.") And from there builds to one of the most triumphant endings in all of classical music.
- This troper seconds the pick of the "Resurrection", particularly the amazing outburst before the end of the scherzo and the amazing calm of the following "Urlicht" movement. But, I would put the finale of Anton Bruckner's eighth on the same plane of awesome. Done right, it definitely lives up to its nickname of "Apocalyptic".
- How about Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture
 , especially the finale. That justs reeks of pure, distilled Badassness, so much in fact that V himself used it when he blow up the Parliament building.
- It uses cannons as musical instruments. How can it not be just made of awesome?
- And the church bells of an entire city. Mustn't forget those.
- This troper once owned the incredible Telarc recording of the Cincinnati Pops/Erich Kunzel version, sadly now lost to the mists of time. It had a warning label on the jewel case. When they fired the cannons for the recording (On the Michigan State campus if I recall correctly) it blew out windows. Yeah. Classical music that made windows explode.
- Mozart wrote a canon called "Lick My Ass." No, really...he did.
- Also, the ending of Don Giovanni and the Requiem,
- Listen to the first movement of Paul Hindemith's "Mathis der Maler" (the Engelsang), and then try to find a challenger for Classical Music CMOA for the 20th Century. You will fail. What's more extraordinary is that it was composed when Hindemith was already under harassment from Those Wacky Nazis.
- This troper's pick for 20th Century Classical CMOA belongs to Charles Ives' Fourth Symphony. Only a mad genius from Massechusetts could have thought to cram duelling marching bands, church hymns, ragtime, fraternity songs, bugle calls, Stephen Foster, tone clusters, quarter tones, polymeters, polyrhythms, polytonalities, and Transcendentalist philosophy all into one movement of about 12 minutes - and somehow make the damn thing work.
- Carl Orff probably never expected his O Fortuna movement from Carmina Burana to be known as "That music they play before major sporting events." But honestly, it's pretty awesomely badass. So awesome that it's almost cliche music for any scene of CMoA. If it doesn't get you fired up, you are dead inside.
- The Ramones' first British concert on July 4, 1976, the United States Bicentennial. Before the performance, the band hung out with fans including members of the Sex Pistols and The Clash. During their encounter, Clash bassist Paul Simonon explained that his band had not played a show yet because they felt they were not good enough. Johnny Ramone responded, "We stink. You don't have to be good, just get out there and play." And so Punk was well and truly born.
- Ever head of the Nicholas Brothers? You should. They just might be the best dancers of the 20th century, but their best moment came up in the 1943 movie Stormy Weather, where they show up in the middle of a Cab Calloway number and proceed to do a dance number that would cause anyone to drop their jaw.
- The Beatles. May be humanity's greatest accomplishment in art.
- This British troper didn't realise just how awesome they were until he saw Love in Las Vegas and finally understood that for a brief moment in time England had unquestionably beaten the rest of the world.
- This troper fires up Who's Next and chuckles derisively.
- At what? The Beatles or The Who?
- "A Hard Day's Night" and "A Day in the Life": possibly the greatest opening and closing chords in pop music respectively.
- Supposedly, John Lennon heard someone talking about a college course dedicated to analyzing Beatles songs. He immediately wrote the outline for "I Am the Walrus" and said "Let the fuckers figure that one out!" If this is true, this is unquestionably Lennon's Crowning Moment of Awesome (and even more so if the part about him being high at the time isn't.)
- Ever heard "Pure and Easy" by The Who? I'm pretty sure the note it describes is somewhere in Hey Jude.
- Frank Zappa's career was full of these, but you've got to give it to We're Only In It For the Money. Delivered at the height of the 1960s youth movement, not only was it one of the few rock albums that came out saying "This is bullshit, rock and roll isn't going to change the world and the counterculture is just as ridiculous as mainstream culture", but it also came with a fantastic parody of the Sgt. Pepper cover. At the time, mocking the Beatles was almost blasphemous in some quarters.
- In June 2005, sextugenarian Knight of the Realm Sir Paul Mc Cartney takes the stage at London's Hyde Park for the 'Live 8' charity event and plays... an awesomely near-apocalyptic version of the terminally Manson-linked Beatles metal freakout Helter Skelter.
- "Hotel California" by the Eagles is not only their crowning moment of Awesome, it is quite possibly the crowning moment of awesome for all non-Beatles Rock and Roll.
- No, just No
- This troper is going to nominate Dire Straits' Tunnel of Love. Those final two and a bit minutes...
- This troper's going to second that with fervor. Not just the end guitar solo, which is loss and nostalgia personified, but the drum/guitar solo in the middle. The entire Making Movies album is pretty severely underappreciated.
- The original 1985 Live Aid concert can be considered a CMOA for music. However, Phil Collins, love him or loathe him, takes the cake by flying on a Concorde jet to play in both the London and Philadelphia shows.
- On an episode of Haromoni@, Hello Project member Junjun won many hearts by stealing a banana that was supposed to be used as a prop and eating it. She did this other times, too. There's also the episode where Junjun cried after being able to successfully memorise the English names of 20 different types of cats.
- There are also many other Hello Project examples of Crowning Moment Of Awesome. Half their live performances will make you go "Holy crap, that's awesome".
- This. Just... this. Hagiwara Mai (the one on the far right who opens the song) is amazing for a 12 year old.
- Tom Waits, with his wife/collaborator Kathleen Brenan, on discovering that he had roughly 20 bucks to his name and a child to support after being dropped by Asylum Records (who hold the rights to all of the songs he had written up to that point, so he could no longer profit from them), completely reinvented himself with the self-produced album Swordfishtrombones. This is after he signed with Island Records, at the time a small company with a reggae/Caribbean foundation rather than the giant it is today. He went on to top that with a series of genius and even more experimental albums. Also, this is on top of the fact that anything Tom Waits has ever done is awesome.
- Waits is legendary for his refusal to prostitute his music for commercial jingles, even going to court to prevent it. The one exception I know of is for a charity. Well Done, Sir.
- Aaron Copland's "Variations on a Shaker Hymn" from Appalachian Spring is a CMOA for American classical music.
- All depends how you define "Rhapsody In Blue", which is a CMOA regardless of its genre.
- Yup, that definitely counts. Hell, the opening clarinet solo alone is pure Awesome.
- With the very first trumpet notes of Copland's ''Fanfare for the Common Man'' you know it's full of awesome. Even more CMOA is that the music itself is not just awesome, it makes you feel like you are awesome just from listening to it.
- Being the intended effect, given the title. It might as well be "Fanfare for You"
- This troper is in possession of a recording of Copland's "A Lincoln Portrait", which is a fourteen-minute piece dedicated to the 16th American president. What makes this piece unique is that it was written along with a speech containing quotes from the man himself. This particular recording has the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, and James Earl Jones speaking. "Fellow citizens...we cannot escape history." Indeed.
- The famous Overture from the 2004 Phantom of the Opera movie is the CMOA for movie soundtrack tunes. Especially if you hear it for the first time while you're sitting in the cinema, so that the beginning organ tune pushes you into your seat, preparing your soul to be skewered by the rest.
- That's nothing compared to hearing it in the live theater.
- The overture to the film of Sweeney Todd is similarly awesome.
- The film as a whole pales in comparison to the original theatrical production, mostly because they axed the chorus and all of its songs, most notably The Ballad of Sweeney Todd, which was used for various interludes and has two distinct full versions for the first song and for the finale.
- Alan Jackson had one of these at the 2000 Country Music Association Awards. The academy had invited legendary country singer George Jones to perform his Grammy-award winning song "Choices" during the show, but only an abridged version right before a commercial break. Outraged at what he perceived to be an act of disrespect against a traditional country music singer, Jackson stopped halfway during his own performance and begin playing "Choices" in protest. That takes balls. You can see it here.
- That's nothing compared to what Elvis Costello did on Saturday Night Live, when he interrupted his band and told them to break into "Radio Radio", a song he was specifically told not to perform. Costello's whole career is a case of Beware The Nice Ones, not to mention multiple CMOA.
- At the 1994 Grammy Awards, Frank Sinatra earned Lifetime Achievement. But when it looked like his speech might run long, the orchestra cut him off and the show went to commercial, much to the ire of all the stars in attendance, who wanted to hear what Ol' Blue Eyes had to say. While presenters mentioned the slight against the Chairman of the Board in passing, Billy Joel, up for nominations on his album "River of Dreams" and performing the title song, staged his own form of CMOA protest. When the pause in the middle of the song came up, he stopped the song... Then turned to the audience and checked his watch. "Valuable advertising time slipping away. Dollars...dollars...dollars." While the crowd roared its approval, he sat there for another fifteen dead seconds with the biggest shit-eating grin on his face before launching right back into the song, and there wasn't a thing the suits backstage could do about it.
- The French rock band Les Wampas was invited into the national official TV news. At the end of it, they proceed to sing one of their tunes... and then changed to a new one, "Chirac en prison" (Chirac in jail), in order to protest against the lacking of judicial actions against the then actual president, Jacques Chirac, which was into many financial scandals. The commercials quickly came to shut them...
- The pantomimed heroin hit in U2's live version of "Running To Stand Still" in their concert film: "Zoo TV Live From Sydney" could be considered a little Narm - ish, but this troper finds it rather chilling and sums up the whole point and awesomeness of Zoo TV in a few minutes of theatricality. Also, the entire Red Rocks show that marked their change from post-punk nobodies to world eating megastars could be considered the Crowning Moment of their career.
- The Arcade Fire is the best thing ever to come out of Canada. Ever. Especially at the end of No Cars Go.
- Two words: Neil Young.
- This statement probably depends on the troper's age. This troper has always regarded Canada's musical CMOA as being Saga's "On The Loose".
- How can we talk about Canada's musical CMOA without mentioning Rush? Those guys are one of the most famous and influental rock bands ever for a reason. They have many musical CMOA s, but YYZ is one of the top spots, showcasting perfect musicianship and collaboration between instrumentalists.
- Agreed. Rush are Canada's greatest achievement.
- That's only if you're not Canadian. If you actually are from Canada, its clear that the best band to come from here is The Tragically Hip.
- This troper is most definitely not a Limp Bizkit fan, but he has to give them major props for one thing: in the year 2000, when everybody and their dog was suing Napster for contributory copyright infringement, they instead embarked on a summer tour of free shows sponsored by the makers of the eponymous file-sharing software. Fred Durst, the band's frontman, even issued a scathing Take That to the entire rest of the industry:
Fred Durst: "We could care less about the older generation's need to keep doing business as usual, we care more about what our fans want and our fans want music on the Internet."
- After "Caress of Steel" tanked, the band Rush was practically at rock bottom. At that point, the boys basically said "Fuck it, let's just make a good record.", thinking it was going to be their last. The result was "2112". As a related CMOA, This troper hit a personal trifecta of Rushdom during the "Test For Echo" tour by getting on Rockline, sneaking into a soundcheck without getting busted and getting a front row seat from the concert they recorded the full live version of "2112" from for "Different Stages", getting Alex Lifeson's guitar pick afterwards.
- Nirvana: Cobain's scream at the end of "Where Did You Sleep Last Night".
- You could just add Cobain throwing his voice out for the last minute ten of the song too.
- Another moment is on the Jonathan Ross show, where they play "Territorial Pissings" instead of the expected "Lithium" and bolt while leaving the feedback to ring in the studio.
- Outside the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards, Kurt and his wife Courtney Love meet Axl Rose. Courtney asks "Axl, will you be the godfather of our child?" Axl, infuriated, screams to Kurt "You better tell your bitch to shut up or I'll take you to the pavement!" Kurt humiliated the macho Axl by simply turning to his wife and saying, in a sarcastic monotone, "Shut up, bitch." News of this confrontation helped ruin Axl Rose's career.
- For this troper, it's the seventh bar of Smells Like Teen Spirit when the drums kick in and we decide this will be a rock song for the ages.
- James Brown's performance in the 1964 concert documentary The T.A.M.I. Show. Easily the most electrifying moment of the show, and one of the greatest show-business performances ever caught on film. (This abbreviated clip gives you the tip of the iceberg — at one point, he dances across the stage on one foot.) Unbelievably enough, Brown was only the second-to-last act on the bill, and the band that had to follow him — a bunch of English youngsters called the Rolling Stones — were terrified over the prospect of having to top his act.
- Forty-one years later, British bands Doves gave up a headlining slot at Scottish festival T In The Park to Brown rather than have to follow his performance. This troper is reliably informed that it was a wise decision.
- James Brown singlehandedly saved the city of Boston. The night after Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, cities all over the country rioted. His concert performance at the Boston Garden was televised locally and then repeated, keeping people at home and calming the city's nerves.
- Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells was played mostly in one week, on short-shrifted studio time, by himself (plus a cameo from Vivian Stanshall who just happened to be around at the time). Recording companies wouldn't pick it up because they didn't think it was marketable. And he's never quite managed to make anything that tops it for sheer awesome.
- The Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah. Some say that its debut performance moved King George II so much that he stood up in appreciation, and the rest of the audience followed suit. Since then, it became tradition that the audience stand in this section of the performance.
- King George II was always a Handel fanboy, though. George brought Handel over from Germany, and many of Handel's greatest compositions were commissions from George, Water Music being the best-known.
- Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar On Me" from Hysteria. Not for the song itself, but the degree of difficulty involved. With a drum-heavy #1 rock anthem, Rick Allen showed the world that missing a left arm wasn't going to keep him down.
- This Troper thinks anything post-accident Allen does in and of itself is a CMOA and a CMOHW simply cause he's doing it all with just one arm. Losing an arm as an instrumentalist is practically means the end of the career for that person, but he didn't give up playing and the band didn't give up on him either.
- Weird Al's interview of K-Fed.
- In terms of Weird Al, "White and Nerdy" in general. A rap parody song about being a geek became his first #1 single in his 20+ years of performing. It's arguably better known than the song it's based on. This is a song that contains lyrics like "Only question I / ever thought was hard / Was do I like Kirk / Or do I like Picard?"
- However, for the sake of accuracy, it should be pointed out that "White & Nerdy" was his first Top 10 single of all time, not #1. Not bad for a song that got in due to him losing the rights to parody another. Although he has had one #1, "Eat It" reached #1, just in Australia.
- In November of 2007, rock band Queens of the Stone Age put on a small show at a rehab clinic in Los Angeles, Calfornia. Well, they would have if they weren't forcibly removed from the premises by security halfway through their first song for one of the most pure rock and roll moments ever. What was the song that got them kicked out? Feel Good Hit of the Summer, which goes like this: Nicotine, Valium, Vicodin, Marijuana, Ecstasy and Alcohol (repeat 3x) / C-c-c-c-c-cocaine!
- It was awesome enough that the Queens got Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top to record with them on Lullabies To Paralyze, but nobody was prepared for the awesomeness that occurred when Gibbons' beard played the guitar. Yes, that's right. As documented on the making-of DVD, right before the bridge of the song his beard rests on the guitar string, creating a "beard harmonic" that is audible on the finished recording. This moment alone completely justified the existence of both ZZ Top and Queens of the Stone Age.
- Within the entire brilliant output of John Williams' career, three pieces of music are generally considered his Crowning Moments of Awesome: the Superman theme, The Imperial March and Duel of the Fates.
- Poor My Chemical Romance. The definitive Crowning Moment Of Awesome of their entire body of work has to be The Bit With Liza Freakin' Minelli. Come on, it's Liza Minelli.
- To be fair to Liza, her version of "Cabaret" is a CMOA for her and for musical theater. Can you imagine anyone but Liza singing it?
- You sir, have never heard Dead!.
- Or Welcome to the Black Parade.
- A-HA's lead singer Morten Harken sustaining a note for 20.4 seconds in the song "Summer Moved On".
- Which doesn't come anywhere close to Dave Grohl screaming at the top of his voice for 29 seconds in Foo Fighters' Monkey Wrench.
- Say what you will about Rap/Hip-Hop, you will be hard pressed to find a more electrifying live performance than LL Cool J doing an acoustic version of "Mama Said Knock You Out" on MTV. A performance made that much more legendary by MTV/Viacom's inexplicable decision to not to re-air LL's MTV Unplugged episode or include any of his stuff on any of the Unplugged compilations. Judge for yourself.
- The 1963 Royal Variety Performance. The Beatles take to the stage to perform 'Twist and Shout'. Before they play, John Lennon addresses the primarily upper-class audience and informs them that this is an audience participation number:
John Lennon: Would the people in the cheaper seats clap your hands? And the rest of you, if you'd just rattle your jewelry.
- The Sex Pistols renting a barge and following Queen Elizabeth's Silver Jubilee parade while blasting "God Save the Queen" deified them in the minds of the Punk community. Even after the group utterly failed in the U.S. and fell apart, they are still remembered for having the cast-iron balls to actually do it.
- There are some slight misconceptions in that statement, but I urge fellow tropers to read Jon Savage's magnificent history of English punk, "England's Dreaming", to get the real story. Savage was on the boat, which, to up the CMOA quotient of this moment, was called, yep, the Queen Elizabeth.
- JonathanCoulton: Thing A Week. One week, one song. For an entire year.
- "The Call of Ktulu" as performed by Metallica and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.
- NO. NO. YOU SIR, GET THE HELL OUT. The Call of Ktulu, though a marvellous piece of work, isn't even fit to lick the boots of the combined works of Metallica, the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and Ennio Morricone - this is the Ecstasy of Gold.
- Your Mileage May Vary. This troper finds that the singer going "eeeeeyyy" in the background is a poor substitute for the soaring soprano in the original.
- In a similar manner, Within Temptation's Black Symphony, accompanied by the Metropole Orchestra, the Pa'dam Choir, several guest artists, and Winston Churchill.
- The lead-up to the most head-banging moment in all music.
Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me. For me. FOR MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! bang DUH DUH DUH DUH DUHDUHDUH DUH DUH DUH.
- Finland got yet another crowning moment of awesome when it shipped the latex-clad monsterband Lordi to Athens to compete in the Eurovision Song Contest, an event at which Finland has never even placed in the top five before...and won the whole thing.
- With the highest points scored by any entry ever (at the time, it's since been broken).
- And immediately followed it up with breaking the world's record for the largest Kareoke performance of "Hard Rock Hallejuah"!
- While we're on the subject of the ESC: Bosnia-Herzegovina's first appearance as an independent country on the contest. In 1993, smack in the middle of the war. The ovation for the artists went on for so long that they actually did not hear their clue. And then, later that night, the ovation when the telephone line to Sarajevo was established. Halfway between CMOA and CMoH.
- Tommy, by the Who, was one of the first rock operas, and commonly regarded as being among the very best of all of them; the Who would later top themselves with Quadrophenia.
- The drum fill in Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight". You know the one—DUN DUN...DUN DUN...DUN DUN...DUN DUN...DUN...DUN. Say what you want about the rest of Collins' output, but anyone who doesn't air drum along with that fill has no soul.
- The alternate Collins air-drum exercises: "The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway", "I Don't Care Anymore", Frida's "There's Something Going On", Collins and Philip Bailey's "Easy Lover", and Howard Jones' "No One Is To Blame" as a warm-up.
- YEAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
- Perhaps the guitarist with the most CMOA, Jimi Hendrix
- After simulating making love to his guitar during a psychedelic rendition of 'Wild Thing', he proceeded to pour lighter fluid on his precious instrument, light it on fire, and then smash it on stage.
- Played lefty guitar on a RIGHT handed Strat
- Brought the Wah-Wah pedal to mainstream (Two words: Voodoo Child).
- Defied the authorities by allegedly making out with another man to get out of military service. That takes balls.
- I'm not sure if this is true or not, but there's a story that says that Hendrix played a guitar with his teeth while it was on fire. That's some pretty bad-ass stuff!
- Noel Gallagher of Oasis raised a giant noise about Jay-Z being invited to headline Glastonbury 2008, declaring that he "wasn't having hip-hop" at it. Jay-Z's response? He comes out with a guitar, singing "Wonderwall" off-key, and gets the entire crowd singing along before discarding it and going into "99 Problems". Take That, Mr. Purist!
- The one-and-only Woodstock concert in 1969. Highlights include
- The New York Philharmonic Orchestra's visit to North Korea in early 2008. Not only was it a move to strengthen USA-North Korea relations, but it allowed the usually heavily censored media free and unrestricted access to it. Included on the set list were the works of Gershwin, Wagner, and Bizet, as well as Aegukka (North Korea's anthem) and The Star-Spangled Banner. The concert is especially amazing when you consider that since there was no peace treaty for the Korean War, the United States technically still at war with North Korea.
- Iron Maiden in 2008 playing in India, 30,000 people packed the stadium for the first big metal band to ever play in the 2nd most populated country in the world. History was made when the devil horns were thrown up in the whole crowd rocked out.
- To be honest, anytime Iron Maiden appears on a stage is a CMOA. The band is thrice-distilled, pure awesome. Want proof? Watch Flight 666. There is a priest out there, who bases his sermons on their lyrics.
- The story of Sepultura, the first big metal band to come from the third world. After suffering under a brutal dictatorship until 1985 this band rose from poverty and limited resources to become the symbol of Brazil's metal scene. Playing in their homeland to a roaring crowd makes for a huge CMOA.
- Dragonforce's Through the Fire and Flames. The guitarwork is at a level where, if you can play the song on Guitar Hero's expert level, you're considered to have had your own personal Crowning Moment of Awesome. Supposedly, they finished the studio take despite the lead guitarist's string snapping partway through. In the music video, his whammy bar goes flying at one point. The lyrics may be Narm territory, but they can sing about whatever they like with instrumentals like that.
- And this troper found the lyrics to be a Badass Creed set to music. Guess it's subjective.
- The part in the video where Li's whammy bar flies off was on purpose - in order to do the Pac-Man noise part way through the song, he drags the whammy bar along the strings. This doesn't make it any less awesome though, because it means that while in the middle of Through the Fire and the Goddamn Flames, he has to rip his whammy bar out of its socket, drag it across the strings, and get back to playing all withing a few seconds. Hardcore.
- Also, the supposed string snapping point in the song? Li did this by grabbing the string itself, and HOLDING THE GUITAR WITH THAT STRING! You think I'm kidding? Only Dragonforce would have people crazy enough to try this. (sound effect is shown around 2:50)
- Tenacious D. Just... Tenacious D. Specifically, Wonderboy, if you've seen the music video. Combine that with the Tear Jerker ending, and you have concentrated awesome.
- The Saxaboom may be the most awesome of all Tenacious D's awesomeness. Although this (really NSFW!) comes (no pun intended) close.
- No love for Master Exploder? JB lights a mic on fire, with just his awesome!
- An he blows people's brains out with it, too!
- Any choral arrangement by Moses Hogan.
- Three words: THE BLACK MAGES. We're talking about Nobuo Uematsu (the dude behind every bit of auditory awesome in the [[Final Fantasy]] series doing rocked-out arrangements of his combat themes. Go and listen to "Dancing Mad", "Zeromus", "Maybe I'm a Lion", and "KUROYAMINOKUMO" if you can't believe this troper.
- Hell, these are the same guys who made Advent One Winged Angel, which combines an orchestra, seriously metal guitars and Ominous Latin Chanting into a single, epic piece of work.
- This troper still believes that the ridiculously epic guitar solo at the end of "Dancing Mad" practically deserves its own CMoA page.
- And when it comes to Uematsu on his own? To Zanarkand.
- Frikkin Rotary Connection, man. Their cover of Hendrix's "Burning Of The Midnight Lamp" is hard to put into words... it's like the music playing as the hero completed his perilous journey and holds his sword aloft, only MORE AWESOME!!! And Minnie Riperton's voice is probably God's voice, I decided.
- French electronica group Daft Punk had worked their way into a bit of a spot in 2005 with the release of an album that didn't quite live up to their previous work. Some fans found the album, "Human After All" so bad, they claimed the duo was done. Daft Punk changed EVERYONE'S minds in 2006 with an appearance at the Coachella Music Festival, playing their first live show in 10 years, dressed in robot costumes, standing inside a glowing LCD pyramid, mixing and mashing up all their best songs from all their albums, awesomeing it up to the point that doubting fans found themselves loving even Human After All's songs in the live mixes. See foryourself!
- The Velvet Underground. "Sister Ray." Seventeen minutes and twenty-seven seconds of awesome. Done all in one take. That is all.
- "I—- have become, Comfortably Numb." Granted, Metallica and Dragonforce have them on BPM, but nothing beats Pink Floyd mastery of solo majesty.
- For your consideration, the 8 minute mark in the Boredoms' "Super Going." The tape skips, coming to a stop for a split second. Out of nowhere, there's a chord change and a shriek, and all the heavens come pouring through your speakers. Ho. Ly. Shit.
- That sound you're hearing is a crowd of thousands roaring along...to an instrumental. Rush - YYZ.
- Joe Meek wrote, recorded, produced and mixed "Telstar" over a three day weekend. In his apartment. In 1962. The band (The Tornados) was horrified and embarrassed to have played on the track, and were planning not to tell ANYONE that they'd been involved with the song...until it sold five million copies. And the last note rises, rises, rises, rises...and STAYS UP. Not bad for a pop instrumental named after a communications satellite.
- I think this has to count: Funtwo and Joe Satriani rocking out on the same stage at the same time! For those of you a little less Youtube nerd inclined, Funtwo is the guitarist in the most viewed version of Canon Rock. If you don't know who Joe Satriani is, go and shoot yourself now (or look him up on Google, if you really must)
- Rick Astley hijacking the 82nd Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and lip-snycing to Never Gonna Give You Up. Yes, the guy who performed the song in the first place effectively Rickrolled all of America.
- Bob Marley performing live after having been shot.
- And bringing together the leaders of the two main parties onstage as a gesture of goodwill in a period when Jamaica suffered severe political violence.
- "The Man Don't Give A Fuck" by Super Furry Animals isn't the band's CMOA because it uses the word "fuck" over and over and over again for a grand total of 50 times and not because they got the song into the UK Top 40, but because the sample ("you know they don't give a fuck about anybody else") that is used over and over in the song is from a song called "Showbiz Kids". By Steely Dan.
- The Cure's "Robert Palmer Version" of "A Forest" at the 1981 Werchter Festival in Belgium. Performed only when the band was threatened with being booted off the stage if they didn't stop after the next song so Robert Palmer could play and thus played a nearly ten minute, extremely overlong and slower version of the song. You can practically hear Robert Palmer getting more and more annoyed with each additional minute The Cure are on stage.
- "JUDAS! Play it fucking loud"
- Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton. Stairway to Heaven. Need I say more?
- Yes, seeing a drugged up Jimmy not being able to play is more sad than awesome...
- Yes. Jeff Beck, Stevie Ray Vaughan, live, on stage, at the same time, in a 20 minute long encore. A special CMoA for this troper because he saw them a scant few weeks before Stevie died in a helicopter crash. I'm ok, just Sand In My Eyes.
- X-Japan - Art of Life: Few, if any, bands can actually say they recorded a 29 minute song as opposed to stitching four or five songs together and claiming they're actually "movements."
- Not to mention the 12 minute long piano solo.
- ...Which was very creative, as it ended not with a complex conposition, but Yoshiki Hayashi thumping the keys agressively against a soothing backing piece, which actually worked better. And then there was the fact that it was three years in the making, and that the lyrics were excruciatingly close to perfect English, which is unsual for a Jrock band, and then you've got the fact that, during the live performance, all the band members put 100% effort into the song until the very end and didn't falter once. Oh, and it was released as a single despite its length. Bloody hell, is there anything that is not perfect about this song?
- Why is there no Led Zeppelin on this page?! "When the Levee Breaks" has got to be the ballsiest blues riff in all of musicdom. And Kashmir..just...Kashmir.
- "Ultimate" by Gogol Bordello. Heck, the opening lines alone are made of crowned awesome.
- Kobe Bryant, Micheal Phelps, Tony Hawk and Alex Rodriguez covering Bob Seger's "Old Time Rock & Roll" for a Guitar Hero commercial. C'mon how could you not like that!!
- Speaking of Guitar Heroes Eddie Hazel's Maggot Brains. Hazel's emotive performance arguably equals if not surpasses Jimi Hendrix’ “Machine Gun” or “Star Spangled Banner”, Jimmy Page’s “Dazed And Confused” and even Frank Zappa’s “Black Napkins”.
- Similarly Ernie Isley's breakthrough performance on The Isley Brothers 3 + 3 album. His guitar solos for the live cover of Machinegun/Ohio is legendary.
- Living Colour, pretty much earned this for their SNL performance. That and the fact they were one of VERY few black rock bands at the time.
- When Garth Brooks won the 1996 American Music Award for Artist Of The Year (his third win in a row), he refused to accept it and left it on the podium. He stated that Hootie & The Blowfish should have won because they had sold more records and done more for music than he did that year.
- In this troper's humble opinion, the music video for Weezer's "Pork and Beans" counts. Seriously, they managed to take the weirdest, goofiest, or just plain stupidest memes that You Tube has given us and make them looking friggin' epic.
- Wilco's album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is a crowning moment of awesome for them not just because it was one of the best albums ever, but because it was purchased by Reprise Records, given up, and purchased by Nonesuch Records. The awesome part? Reprise and Nonesuch are both subdivisions of the same company.
- This troper could probably go nuts naming R.E.M.'s Crowning Moment Of Awesome events, but the best has to be getting their first top five hit song. Recorded on a mandolin. A feat that will probably never be replicated.
- Coldplay's Viva La Vida, and especially that album's tour.
- Lovers in Japan. This troper is choreographing a pas de deux to it and it is simply one of the most exhilarating songs ever created. Granted the entire album is something to behold but that song in particular is just fantastic.
- It should be noted that anything involving Viva La Vida is a severe case of Your Mileage May Vary with the Satriani plagiarism case and all. Coldplay fans think Viva La Vida is brilliant and original, Satriani fans say it is nothing more than a plagiarized desecration of the guitarist's work.
- Hoppipolla, by Sigur Ros. If you hear it, you will know why.
- So epic that the BBC used it for a CMOA of their own, the trailer for the Planet Earth series.
- I have a theory that "Hoppipolla" can make any movie trailer, tv preview, video game trailer, and commercial into their own COMA. Give it a shot, listen to the song while the Catwoman trailer plays.
- Sæglópur, from the same album; at 1:53 (album version), the song ascends to a mind-blowing new level.
- One person this troper probably would not have imagined having one, Donny Osmond, gets his for his transcendent dance performance in Weird Al's "White and Nerdy". Pop pop.
- "And as we wind on down the road". Seriously people.
- The whole of Led Zeppelin's fourth album is one of music's crowning moments. "Stairway To Heaven" was quite possibly the moment where the Rock 'n' Roll of the 50s officially ended, and true rock music began. To be a rock, and not to roll.
- JS Bach died in the middle of composing a piece. The last four notes(under the German note-naming convention of the time)? B-A-C-H. Not intentional, but still awesome.
- Not intentional, what the hell. Maybe not intentional that he DIED, but do you really think the greatest 18th century composer didn't notice what notes he was writing, after spending a lifetime carefully picking which notes to write?
- BACK. IN. BLACK. Seriously! When singer Bon Scott died after a night of drinking, AC/DC looked dead. But do they quit? Hell no! Instead, they hire new guy Brian Johnson and record one of the best Rock albums EVER MADE. Not only do they make that, but they make the second best selling album ever made.
- Queen's "The Show Must Go On", yet. Written and performed scant weeks before Freddy Mercury's death, summing up his entire career. It's even been reimagined for a musical, for pete's sakes.
- Not to mention Queen's epic 1985 Live Aid performance of "Radio Ga Ga", where the crowd of 75,000 people clapped in unison to the song's chorus.
- How has the end of Bohemian Rhapsody gone unremarked? Operatic gibberish segues to hard rock rage (relative rage, anyways). And the fact that this in turn becomes the CMOA for Wayne's World just solidifies it.
- Also, Brian May playing the Queen version of "God Save the Queen" from the top of Buckinham Palace for the Queen's Golden Jubilee is one of those moments that will live on in Rock History!
- Okay, so Nightwish had had a colossal falling out with their operatic singer and long term voice of the band Tarja Turunen after her prima-donnaish ways had caused the band to finally snap and fire her from the group. So after a year out of action, Nightwish finally came back with a new album, and a new singer who turned out to be none other than...Anette Olzon. Cue protests from some of the hardcore fan demographic, who had so wanted an operatic singer to replace Tarja, and dismissed Nightwish as a spent force. So "Dark Passion Play" comes out, and what happens? It turns out to be Nightwish's BEST ALBUM IN YEARS, with some particular CMoAs within the album being "Poet and the Pendulum" and "Amaranth".
- This troper doesn't buy the "Tarja was a prima donna" line. He thinks that Tuomas had fired her out of jealousy because she loved and married another guy, and then aired the band's dirty laundry as a spiteful attempt to make Tarja Turunen look like a bitch. It doesn't help that he and his wife met Tarja after a show, and that Tarja proved quite courteous, and even appeared to be flattered he said that he and his wife had adopted "Ever Dream" as "their song". However, Annette Olzon has proven to be a worthy successor, and it would be nice if the band stopped trying to drown the poor lady out when they play live.
- If we're talking about Nightwish and Dark Passion Play, this troper enjoyed Last of the Wilds, the instrumental track (with no implication that I dislike Anette's singing). While I'm here, it's also worth mentioning the colossal Take That inherent in the second track on the album, Bye Bye Beautiful (also good) and its video - as the song was written about Tarja. Just take Marco Hietala's vocals in the chorus: "Did you ever hear what I told you?/Did you ever read what I wrote you?/Did you ever listen to what we played?/Did you ever let in what the world said?/Did we get this far just to feel your hate?/Did we play to become only pawns in the game?/How blind can you be, don't you see?/You chose the long road, but we'll be waiting." Not exactly a quiet send off...
- Last of the Wilds actually has a version with lyrics in Finnish, called Erämaan Viimeinen. While not sung by Anette (Who doesn't know Finnish), it is amazing to listen to.
- By the way, the Digipak version contains an instrumental version of the entire album, and among other things, introduces the titular Pendulum in The Poet and the Pendulum with an appropriately visceral sound. It's somewhat drowned out in the vocal version.
- Don't forget "Master Passion Greed," which is a Take That addressed to Tarja's husband, Marcello Cabuli (who is said to be the influence behind Tarja's prima-donna-ish ways), and one of the hardest-rocking tracks on the album.
- Don't forget about the fact that Marco Hietala does vocals on that particular song instead of Annette, adding to the hard sound.
- This Troper thinks that this song should, for what Marco has said, cross over into Crowning Moment of Heartwarming Territory. Yes, it's a heavy song. Yes, it's a huge Take That to Tarja's husband. They will never play this song live. Never. They may bash the husband of Tarja, but they won't do it in public. Marco was chosen as the vocalist over Anette because he didn't want her involved in an issue that didn't concern her. Congratulations. You win.
- Actually doesn't the whole of Dark Passion Play count as a Crowning Moment Of Awesome for Nightwish? I mean you have the gems mentioned here and "7 Days To The Wolves", "The Escapist", "Sahara", and "Whoever Brings The Night."
- This troper would like to add "The Islander" to the list of CMO As for that album alone. Yes, its a soft folk influenced song, but the lead vocals are sung by Marco in a soft style that many probably thought he was incapable of.
- A bonus track on some versions of Dark Passion Play have the song The Escapist, which in this troper's mind should put to rest all the complaints about Anette's singing abilities.
- This troper needs to point out that Dark Passion play is a serious example of YMMV. This album, combined with the messy breakup has spawned a very ugly Broken Base that persists to this day. Metalfromfinland.com ignites into an Internet Backdraft every time a report on NW or Tarja is posted, and Anette is very inconsistent in her performance, while Tarja is killing it every night on her solo tour. While I think the Poet and the Pendulum is a great CMOA, the others shouldn't be considered because it takes an overwhelming majority to confirm a song as a CMOA.
- Jennifer Hudson Showing what a REAL singer is when she sung the national anthem at the Super Bowl.
- The Gates of Delirium. Yes. SO glad they pulled it together after TTO and cranked out a masterpiece.
- I think that Sonata Arcitca deserves a CMOA for San Sebastian. This may be the greatest break-up song ever created in metal. Hell, I'm nominating the whole nation of Finland for a CMOA for all their amazing metal bands...I'm glad that's out of my system.
- In The Hall Of The Mountain King. Even if you don't the story that goes with it you can still figure what's going on.
- This Troper deems the return of blink-182 as the Crowning Moment of Awesome for the punk music genre.
- So the Dead Kennedys were invited to the Bay Area Music Awards to perform California Uber Alles. Only, a few measures into the song, Jello Biafra shouts "hold it" and tells the audience that they've sold out now. They proceed to play an entirely new song, Pull My Strings, which is the single most sarcastic, angry and dead-on criticism of the entire music business ever written. Kick. Ass.
- Your Mileage May Vary on this one, but let's say that many people consider Korn's Blind to be quite heavy and aggressive. If you're one of those, you have yet to see their live performance of the song on Woodstock '99. And try to survive those killer riffs.
- Dream Theater's Learning to Live, an epic about a guy who's diagnosed with AIDS, but resolves to make the most out of his remaining time on Earth instead of letting himself sink in despair. Specifically, that high F# scream during the otherwise-instrumental bridge, the solo that comes after it... well, hell, the entire second half of the song, as it's just so climactic and triumphant. It captures the sound of someone dedicated to overcoming their obstacles and doing the best they can with what they have perfectly.
- This troper would like to argue that the bone-chilling closer to "The Count of Tuscany" is a greater Crowning Moment Of Awesome than "Learning to Live."
- This troper feels that that entire five-minute stretch rivals the end of A Change Of Seasons as DT's crowning musical moment. Just the build from the "Could this be the end?" bit to that AWESOME, AWESOME vocal tone James has...DAMN. His singing in the last two verses really, really cements this song's awesomeness:
The chapel and the saint
The soldiers and the wine
The fables and the tales
All handed down through time
Of course you're free to go
Go and tell the world my story
Tell about my brother
Tell them about me
- You know what? As the guy who originally added the Learning to Live example, I agree. Though the last track of any album of theirs tends to be extremely epic and awesome.
- As is "The Shattered Fortress", the last song the the "12-Step Suite". It's pretty much one big, awesome, Continuity Nod to all the previous songs in the series.
- For non-song moments we have bassist John Myung tackling singer James Labrie on a dare in the middle of a concert, and drummer Mike Portnoy playing catch with a stagehand, while playing "Erotomania".
- The entire "Live Scenes from New York" concert: they played the entirety of Scenes From A Memory, another full concerts worth of music after that (including all three parts of "A Mind Beside Itself"), and they for the encore, they played the 23 minute long "A Change Of Seasons". The icing on the cake is at the very end when James Labrie apologizes for having such a short set. Even more impressive, Mike Portnoy was suffering from food poisoning the entire time, and was hospitalized after the concert. And it still sounded awesome.
- Pearl Jam and their initial album Ten. Their other stuff after that is still awesome, but Ten is so good it became a textbook example of First Installment Wins when it comes to music.
- The live version of Free Bird. Left until the second encore than added another 4 minutes of solo bringing it up to a seven minute solo.
- Irving Berlin. Millions of people have never heard of him. They have, however, heard one of the songs he composed: White Christmas. They may have heard others - Anything You Can Do, Puttin' On The Ritz, No Business Like Show Business. The greatest part? He couldn't read or write music.
- He also didn't know how to play the piano - he couldn't play black keys. Berlin had his piano customized so that he could shift the keys over with a foot pedal, allowing him to play on just the whites. A minor CMOA itself for sheer gall.
- It's not just White Christmas. The composer of God Bless America could not read or write musical notation.
- 14 March, 2009: The Sound Relief concerts, held in Melboune and Sydney to raise money for victims of the Victorian Bushfires. In Melbourne, a crowd of over 80,000 (the largest paying crowd in Australian music history), including this troper, braved pouring rain to attend the event.
- Aaron North, co-founder of Buddyhead Records and ex-member of Nine Inch Nails' live band, once attempted to "liberate" a guitar in the memorabilia section of a Hard Rock Cafe while playing a show with his old band, The Icarus Line.
- "The Final Countdown" - Europe
- Drone metal band Hyatari's first album "The Light Carriers". The entire album is one long Epic Song but the CMOA comes during the last track. After 40 minutes of crushing, world-ending music the appropriately named "Collapse" takes it up to eleven so that it feels like the entire universe is imploding.
- One death metal band: Cryptopsy. One track: Open Face Surgery. One categorically insane vocalist: Lord Worm. One climactic piercing scream: 28 seconds long. Yeah.
- Another epic metal scream: James Maynard Keenan in "The Grudge". CMoA starts at 6:59, but you have to listen to the entire song to get the full effect.
- Haydn's Die Schopfung starts with God creating light. Apparently they had to stop the first performance of it to wait for the spontaneous audience applause to die down. YouTube link - the CMOA starts at 5:00
- Britney Spears's "Piece Of Me". Basically one long Take That to all of her critics. Absolutely hilarious, and probably a defining piece of her comeback. Although looking back on it, her going from nothing but a tabloid joke to landing hits with the likes of "Womanizer" and "If You Seek Amy" is probably a lateral move for the rest of the world's sanity...
- Michael Jackson. Thriller. That is all.
- And then there's "Smooth Criminal," featuring spectacular set design and amazingly precise choreography for the multitudes of dancers, including the famous diagonal lean.
- Don't forget the Rule Of Cool that oozes throughout the entire video, including an entire minute that's just one Crowning Moment Of Awesome after another. It's no wonder the Nostalgia Critic calls it the "*sigh* the coolest fucking thing I've ever seen in my life", but let's list them all:
- Upon seeing two guys fight over a woman, he doesn't walk but tangos his way there, with another woman no less. He then lightly pushes both men back which irritates the men as the try to punch him. Instead, he moves back and watches as the two punch each other before doing the cha-cha with the now free woman.
- A man dances with cash in his hands because he won a bet, but Michael shows him who the real winner is by taking his wrist and, in one swift motion, flips him to the ground before proceeding to take the guy's money...and the guy just complies.
- Personally, this troper finds this particular part the most epic scene in the entire video. Heading towards a pool table, Michael catches a white cue ball that bounced off the table and makes it explode in one grip! This doesn't make the guys playing pool happy as one of them breaks his cue stick and gets up in Michael's face. Michael's response? He blows the remains of the cue ball in the guy's face!
- Heading upstairs, Michael walks towards another guy trying to get with another woman. However, this guy immediately starts running at the sight of Michael. Another guy tries to punch him only to drop to the floor after Michael swiftly elbows him in the gut. Then, a guy carrying a knife tries to sneak up on Michael as he's dancing for the ladies. The ladies try to warn him, but he just keeps on dancing. Just when he's about to be attacked, Michael whips out a pistol from his suit and shoots him. The bullet doesn't exactly pierce the guy, but it does send him hurtling toward a wall and as soon as he hits the wall he disintegrates!
- Towards the end of the video, Joe Pesci's armed thugs march in on the roof. However, it turns out Michael is armed too as he takes out a FREAKIN' tommy gun.
- His epic HBO concert during his Dangerous tour was quite possibly the high point of his career. And it was, in This Troper's opinion, one of the single best concerts in the history of mankind.
- His Motown 25 performance of "Billie Jean" where he did his first moonwalk, the dance move that would come to define The Eighties.
- Susan Boyle from Britains Got Talent 2009. When she walks into the stage she's making a complete fool out of herself. Every member of the audience treats her as a bad ugly joke. And then she starts to sing, and it's all magic!.
- "Green Grass and High Tides" by The Outlaws is an even bigger southern rock crowning moment of awesome than "Free Bird" for this troper.
- This is a double whammy. The YouTube Symphony Orchestra summit. Carnegie Hall sent out a global call to all musicians to audition to play in Carnegie Hall by posting a video performance of themselves playing on Youtube for the judges, and those chosen got to perform in Carnegie Hall itself, playing a CMusicOA composed specifically for the summit.
- Pink. The video of "There You Go". When the whiny ex-boyfriend keeps bugging her for a ride, she gives him one. By launching her Harley off a freaking rooftop through his apartment window!
- Or her concert video of "Fingers", which she sings while doing a Cirque de Soleil act thirty feet above the concert stage. Has to be seen to be believed.
- 16 street musicians, 10 countries and one Motown classic about standing together.
- Keith Emerson's antics with organs are particularly known, but the father of This Troper recalls one performance where Emerson stabbed his knife between two keys of the organ, causing a dischord. After their set, the band walked away...leaving the organ still playing the dischord.
- If you ever get a chance, look up Tom Lehrer's "The Elements Song." If you're able to actually PERFORM it with out stumbling, you, sir or madam, are amazing. I mean, the song was even referenced in an NCIS episode, for crying out loud!
- Also, "The Vatican Rag", based on how completely irreverent the lyrics are. A sample: "Get in line in that processional/Step into that small confessional/There, the guy who's got religion'll/Tell you if your sin's original/If it is, try playin' it safer/Drink the wine and chew the wafer/Two, four, six, eight/Time to transubstantiate"
- The soundtrack to the movie The Fountain is pretty amazing, but the song "Death is the Road to Awe" from said soundtrack is an amazing crowning moment of awesome. Yay long crescendos!
- This troper is not a huge Muse fan, but none can deny the power of New Born to cause involuntary head banging. A delicate piano intro with gentle falsetto vocals, and then a sputtering, fuzzed out charge up the low E string... Ooh.
- And to add to the Muse love, don't forget Map of the Problematique and its 8-bit version. This troper doesn't know which one is more epic.
- Political statements in songs are always cool, but a Breakup Song in which the person being dumped is a thinly veiled metaphor for the then-current president, that is truly awesome. Mad props to Maroon 5 for "Makes Me Wonder".
- MTV generally doesn't get much love from music fans anymore, but their (very) short-lived MTV Ultimate Mash-Ups series managed to bring together artists from (somewhat) different genres to produce the likes of this, probably more well-known now than either of the parent songs.
- Four words: THE MARINER'S REVENGE SONG. A CMoA for bespectacled nerds everywhere.
- The Hazards Of Love 3 (Revenge!). Talk about your High Octane Nightmare Fuel - when this troper first heard the song, she went pale once the singing started, and spent the rest of the song scared out of her wits.
- Linda Thompson gets one for going on a drunken rampage and smashing up a hotel room, and being informed by the manager that the Sex Pistols had been in the week before and hadn't been half as bad. Yes, that's right Britain's most notorious and anarchist punks outperformed by a folk-singing mother of four.
- Richard Thompson. Ducknapped!. "Can't Win". In the same way that Mark Knopfler's solos epitomize melancholy and David Gilmour's are brilliantly despairing, Richard Thompson has sewn up the market on angry fucking guitar.
- The part in "Gimme Shelter" by the Rolling Stones where background singer Merry Clayton's voice cracks. Chills every time.
- Also on the topic of background singers, Clare Torry's completely improvised vocals on "The Great Gig in the Sky" by Pink Floyd.
- The music video for Fatboy Slim's Weapon of Choice is probably the best example of showcasing Christopher Walken's mad dancing skills. The song also gets bonus points for referencing Dune.
- Louis Armstrong. In 1964 he took "Hello Dolly" to #1 on the charts, at the age of sixty-three. And in the process knocked the fucking BEATLES out of the top spot. And that's arguably the least impressive feat of his career.
- Hybrid is just a band that continues to come out with songs that amaze this troper. Particularly Finished Symphony and Just For Today are just two examples of mixing two genres together that just isn't done as often as it should be. Or maybe not.
- Country artist George Strait was recently named ACM Artist of the Decade for the 2000s, shortly after getting his 57th number one country hit.
- Need proof that Michael Jackson's death was the most epic death to hit the music industry ever? Very shortly after his death, the sheer mass of downloads of his songs on iTunes made him dominate almost the ENTIRETY of the Top 40 songs.
- The Last Night of the Proms, particularly Land Of Hope And Glory.
- What, no love for Richard Wagner? His Ride Of The Valkyries is only the most obvious example — even more badass examples, just from The Ring are “The Entry of the Gods into Valhalla” from Rheingold, the “Magic Fire Music” from Die Walküre, and “Siegfried’s Rhine Journey,” “Siegfried’s Funeral March,” and “Brünnhilde’s Immolation” from Götterdämmerung.
- Dee Snider (of hair metal band Twisted Sister), Frank Zappa, and John Denver teaming up to defend heavy metal (and "explict music" in general) from the PMRC. The people on the PMRC's side did not seem to think that Dee Snider would be intelligent. But he put forth his case very eloquently and intelligently, and heavy metal lived to fight another day... though with the "parental advisory" stickers on the albums. But record sales still went up simply because of the stickers.
- That's a very bare bones account of what happened. Dee Snider knew the board expected him to be dumb, rude, vulgar, etc. etc. So he met there expectation. Visually, anyway. He entered the hearing in last night's jeans and denim vest over whatever t shirt he had lying on the floor, half-assed smudged makeup and hair all a mess. He went up to the stand, and pulled out a piece of paper, folded about 27 times, unfolded it, flatening it out and eerything. He then proceded to blow them away with a very eloquent and thoughtful speech. Here is his recounting
- It's even more of a CMoA for Denver, who everyone expected to be on the PMRC's side; his standing up for freedom of expression alongside artists whose music and lifestyles were pretty much his polar opposites was a huge shock.
- If you were born in the 80s, or even just alive in the 80s, chances are you watched a movie on HBO at some point. And if you did, you maybe saw the intro HBO played before a lot of movies, especially Saturday nights. You know the one, where the camera zooms through a town, then up into space, where the HBO logo flies at you, twirling? The best part of the whole thing was the music, which might possibly be one of the best things ever composed. Watch 'HBO in Space' here, but be prepared to get chills from it.
- Daisuke Ishiwatari's work on all of the Guily Gear music qualifies. Case in point, the solo in Fuu-Ga (Elegance).
- Any version of "Awe of She". That is all you need know.
- Rob Halford of Judas Priest had his CMOA during the Painkiller Tour when he rode a motorcycle onto the stage, crashed into a drum riser and broke his nose, and proceeded to perform the full concert before seeking medical attention.
- There's also his 19-second long note at the end of Painkiller, which is a CMOA on its own.
- The entirity of the Beelzebos by Tenacious D.
- This troper saw Judas Priest at Sunmmerfest 2009. Ten minutes before Priest took the stage, the crowd was getting impatient and tired of listening to the same Aerosmith album they used as prerecorded music all day. Out of what this troper believes to be coincidence, they started playing Black Sabbath's "War Pigs." At least 5,000 people stopped restlessly calling for Judas Priest and started singing along.
- No 'Smoke on the Water'? One of the MOST famous, just raw-sounding opening riff? You all fail horribly.
- Trans-Siberian Orchestra's "Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24" - a very haunting mix of 'Carol Of The Bells' and 'God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen' built up higher into a crescendo of rock and traditional instrument.
- The kicker is the inspiration for this is a certain Serbian Cellist (Vedran Smajlovic) who instead of hiding in the shelter, had kept playing in memorial of people killed during the Siege of Sarajevo, even though the city was still being shelled.
- "Smells Like Teen Spirit" mashed up with "Never Gonna Give You Up". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN75im_us4k
- Girl Talk's Feed the Animals is the ultimate mashup. 200+ songs spanning over 53 minutes? Fuck yes.
- I would say Aretha Franklin's career in general, but this moment stands out. Pavoratti was billed to perform "Nessun Dorma" during the 1998 Grammy Awards broadcast, but came down with a throat ailment and was advised by his doctors to give his voice a rest. Literally at the last minute, Aretha agreed to fill in for Pavoratti, and proceeded to bring down the house!
- Ray Charles. The man's life is one 73-year-long crowning moment. After watching his brother die and going blind before the age of seven, he learned to play the piano, revolutionized the worlds of jazz, blues, soul, country, and gospel, beat a nasty heroin addict in the 60s, had "Georgia on My Mind" instated as the state's official song, won 17 Grammy awards over his career (five after his death), and did it all without seeing a single goddamn thing.
- His meeting with Jamie Foxx during production of his bio-pic can also be considered a Crowning Moment; Jamie sits down with this master of soul in what would be for most the world's most nerve-racking jam session, and impresses him enough to declare on the spot that Foxx is perfect for the movie. Which he was, in every aspect (though that belongs in CMOA of films).
- Chris Broderick. Observe.
- Coheed And Cambria's song "The Final Cut" often gets stretched out to over 20 minutes live. On their Neverender DVD, a theremin is brought out on stage before the song, and during the ensuing jam, vocalist/guitarist Claudio Sanchez plays it like he normally would, but then he starts playing the damn thing WITH HIS HAIR.
- Power metal band Lost Horizon was always Crazy Awesome to begin with, but its 11-minute masterpiece "Highlander - The One" is their greatest moment of glory, an impossibly epic roller coaster of a song that culminates in singler Daniel Heiman belting out one of the highest notes ever recorded in heavy metal, a D above soprano C. That's about one and a half octaves beyond the reach of most opera tenors. And he nails it in full voice—no breathy falsetto trickery here.
- At the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, Taylor Swift won the Best Female Video award and was interrupted halfway through her acceptance speech by rapper/career asshole Kanye West. Kanye said he would let her finish while insisting that Beyonce (who was also nominated in that category) should have won. Taylor never got to finish her speech, and Kanye was booted from the theater almost immediately afterwards. This sorry state of events led to two CMoAs: whenever Kanye's name was mentioned the rest of the night, it was met with a violently negative reaction from the crowd, who seemed to finally grow tired of his antics; later on, Beyonce wound up winning Video Of The Year, and instead of giving an acceptance speech of her own, she showed a huge amount of class and brought Taylor Swift back out on stage to finish the speech Kanye interrupted.
- Another arguable CMoA came from P!nk, who by all accounts had to be physically restrained to keep her from attempting to beat Kanye's face in.
- Anna Nalick falls off a table in mid-song, and instead of acting awkward and embarrassed, she mannages to joke about it for two hilarious minutes, and THEN actually goes on to finish the song as though nothing had happened- and it was all captured on film!,
- I just have three things to say: Moving In Stereo. Phoebe Cates. Red bikini.
- Professional wrestling entrance themes have produced a number of Crowning Moments of Awesome over the years:
- "Unstable," the Ultimate Warrior's theme music. A heavy guitar riff blares as a 'roided-up madman sprints to the ring? Awesome. The WWE DVD "The Self-Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior" credits the song for much of his popularity.
- The opening riff to Rick Derringer's "Real American" provided a lot of C Mo A's during Hulk Hogan's heyday, but probably none moreso than Wrestlemania III. Andre the Giant enters the ring... dramatic pause... cue "Real American" as a reported 93,000+ fans start screaming in unison.
- The entire Hammerstein Ballroom singing along to "Enter Sandman" at One Night Stand.
- Elvis Presley had some of the greatest rock and roll songs, but his crowning moment probably came from his movie "Jailhouse Rock." If you haven't seen the title song performed in the movie, you should know it's probably the first music video ever. There's a reason he's called the King.
- This troper must nominate Under Pressure. A collaboration between Queen and David Bowie? Yes. Just... yes.
- Roger Waters, bitter after years of being asked if he would ever play "The Wall" again, declares he would "when the real wall comes down". Germany pulls down the Berlin Wall, and how do they celebrate? Roger Waters organises an all-star cast to play "The Wall".
- Norwegian alternative rock group Kaizers Orchestra, known for their energetic live preformances, was asked to use playback in an appearance on a Norwegian hit list programme. When they found out playing live was not an option, they opted for some rather creative sabotage. During the song, the organ player sat at his organ reading a newspaper, the drummer was overacting, one of the guitarists was peeling an orange which he later threw at the audience and the vocalist lip-synched to something else than the song they were "playing."
- Muse did a similar stunt, albeit not to the same degree. When playing with playback during an Italian talk show, all the band members switched roles.
- Iron Maiden pulled the musical musicians' chairs trick in the 80s, while promoting Somewhere In Time, on a Spanish talk show. They weren't asked back.
- Pendulum. Check out Slam, Propane Nightmares, and their remix of The Prodigy's Voodoo People, and you'll see why they are amazing.
- The punk band The Living End's bassist doesn't use an electric bass guitar. No, he goes for the full size upright double bass. On which him and the guitarist will stand on and play during the concerts.
- Johnny Cash's cover of hurt. And the original Nine Inch Nails version for that matter. Both versions are very powerful and very personal to the recording artists: Reznor wrote it when he was coming off a drug addiction, Cash covered it when he knew his life was coming to an end.
- Bruce Springsteen and The E-Street Band had done two critically acclaimed albums, but still hadn't got his big break. So knowing that the last album could be his last, he put everything he could into it. The album in question was Born To Run, his magnum opus and regarded as one of the all time best albums ever, ending up at #18 on Rolling Stone's best albums ever.
- When The Clash was about to tour the United States, their manager wanted many punk bands to support them. The Clash refused and said they wanted their idol, R&B legend Bo Diddley. The C Mo A came when Bo directly replied and was their opening act.
- Modern blues player Joe Bonamassa. On his 2009 tour, he celebrated his 20 years as an artist. During that tour he not only filled out his dream arena, The Royal Albert Hall, but who walks up on the stage to play with him? His idol, Eric Clapton.
- Journey. Don't Stop Believin. this one
- David Bowie's song 'The Man Who Sold the World' is one of the best known songs in his catalogue; a brilliantly chilling rendition of a man coming face to face with his own mortality memorably covered by Nirvana. It's absolutely perfectly crafted both lyrically and musically. The kicker - he wrote it in two hours in the lobby of the recording studio, on the final day of the mixing of the album.
- Not sure if anyone else feels this way, and maybe this should go into the anime section, but Kyon's "BYUUUUUUN!!!" in his version of Hare Hare Yukai is awesome. The whole song is dripping with so much boredom that that in itself is a Crowning Moment of Awesome.
- The scream in Kentai Life Returns! is worth a listen too.
- Finally, Peter Kay's Children in Need 2009 official song video, with all the childhood characters of the UK for the past 40-odd years, including Pudsey shredding out a guitar solo and of course finishing with Hey Jude and One Day Like This. Just watch it. It's beautiful.
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