Most Wonderful Sound / Music

• Epic Riff is this in musical form.
• The opening of Trans-Siberian Orchestra's "Carol of the Bells". A single cello that manages to be one of the most wistful and mournful things in music, and then a really loud power chord on electric guitar. You know you're in for a ride on this one.
• Rogue Wave's Nourishment Nation.
• The Funky Drummer Break
  • We can't include Funky Drummer without mentioning the equally awesome Amen Break.
• The beginning of Ozzy Osbourne's "Crazy Train": AAAALLLLL AABBOOOOOOAAARRD!! HA HA HA HA HA HAA! DU-DUM (AI AI AI) DI-DUM DO-DUN DU-DUM...
• That final, shining,19-second chord at the end of Alexander Scriabin's Poem of Ecstasy
• Before Ozzy, there was Black Sabbath.
  I. Am. Iron Man. Thud Clank! Thud Clank!
• The wailing clarinet that kicks off a performance of Rhapsody In Blue.
• "Tangram Set 1" by Tangerine Dream is pretty much just one long, twenty-minute collection of Most Wonderful Sounds arranged into a progressive melody. Best of all is probably that ethereal windchime noise that plays from 3:26 to 3:34.
• The snazzy trumpet sound just after the most (in)famous part of "The Pink Panther Theme"... I love that better than the beginning, which is also good.
• When you hear the opening bass riff of "Under Pressure" (which is epic on its own), there are two ways it can go. One is to segue into "Ice Ice Baby". The other starts with a fantastic guitar riff which assures you that you're about to listen to Queen and David Bowie, not Vanilla Ice.
  • Or how about both?
• The opening drumbeat to Coldplay's "In My Place". Few things have been recorded as perfectly.
  • No, Coldplay is second to "When the Levee Breaks" by Led Zeppelin. That whole album was recorded in an abandoned mansion, and John Bonham was playing the drums at the bottom of the huge staircase. The microphones were on the third floor landing.
• The epic chord at the start of "A Hard Day's Night" by The Beatles
  • The trumpets at the beginning of All You Need Is Love.
  • The even-epic-er chord at the end of "A Day in the Life", which sounds like a piano being played with another piano.
  • The opening drum roll of "Glass Onion".
• Mariah Carey hitting her signature high note.
  • The intro to "All I Want For Christmas Is You". When you hear it, you know the Christmas season has officially begun.
• "You're boned like a saint, with the consciousness of a snake."
• For a U2 fan, the intro to Where The Streets Have No Name.
  • The ending guitar figure in "With or Without You".
• The shattering glass sound in Artillery's "Terror Squad".
  Terror squaaaad! *crash crash*
• Hellion's shriek in Judas Priest's "Screaming for Vengeance".
  Screaming, (aaaugh!) screaming for vengeance
  The world is defiled in disgrace!
• The mad laughter at the end of Twilightning's "Rolling Heads".
• The revving chainsaw's (five of them!) at the start of WASP's "Chainsaw Charlie (Murders in the New Morgue)".
• The piano from The Rolling Stones (Band)' She's A Rainbow sounds like heaven in musical form.
• Bruce Springsteen
  • The harmonica, then piano a split second later, that opens "Thunder Road" on Born To Run.
  • The drum fill that opens "Born to Run" itself, followed by the horns and guitars and pretty much every instrument in existence playing at once. Hell yes.
• The beginning of The National's Fake Empire.
• The drum at the beginning of Bob Dylan's Like A Rolling Stone.
• "In The Air Tonight". THAT drum break. BA-DUM BA-DAM BA-DUM BA-DUM BUM BUM.
• Iron Maiden have made a career out of this trope:
  • The looped bassline that starts "Satellite 15".
  • The opening riff to "The Number of the Beast" and the subsequent scream from Bruce.
  • Every single second of "Hallowed Be Thy Name".
  • "Aces High". All of it.
  • The intro to "Caught Somewhere in Time".
  • Literally every single riff in "Fear of the Dark". That song is an Audience Participation Song for a reason!
    • And on that note, when it's performed live, the sound of the audience singing along to the guitar riffs.
  • "Where Eagles Dare"'s drum fill.
  • The intros to pretty much every song on A Matter of Life and Death.
  • IIIIIII'M ON MY WAY! OOOOOUT ON THE ROAD AGAIN!!!
  • That extremely sexual bassline on Revelations.
  • "The Alchemist". Best opening riff ever.
  • Dave Murray's guitar solo in "The Man Who Would Be King".
  • The entire middle section of Sign of the Cross. BEST. INSTRUMENTAL. BREAK. EVER.
  • On that note, pretty much their whole discography.
• The drum machine sound from the Stop Making Sense version of Talking Heads' "Psycho Killer".
  • The opening keyboard riff of "Life During Wartime" from Stop Making Sense
• From the Vocaloid song "PoPiPo": WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!
  • From "I want to eat tuna": "Maguroooooo o kudasaiiiii... nyaaaaaa!!"
• The main guitar riff from Led Zeppelin's "Black Dog". Greatest guitar riff ever. And the soft guitar sounds that begin the song, before the vocals and the riff.
• Djent djent. Djent djent djent. Djeeeeeeent-djent djent. Djent djent djent. Djeeeeeent...
• The opening to "Running the World" by Jarvis Cocker ranks up with "Where the Streets Have No Name". It makes you feel as though you were gently lifted into a pillar of light. Hear it here.
• Pink Floyd
  • The opening to "Shine On You Crazy Diamond"
    • And then... B♭–F–G–E...
  • "Learning to Fly" is calming from the first second.
  • David Gilmour playing a pinch harmonic on the solo for "Time". To quote one of the comments, "that pinch harmonic is what angels cumming sounds like."
  • Echoes has two - that guitar arpeggio bomb about 18 minutes in, and right before the funk jam Gilmour's guitar solo, but even before those, the very first note - that distinctive "ping".
  • The entire bass line from One Of These Days.
• The opening riff to Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky" Best. Riff. Ever.
• The intro to "Welcome to the Black Parade" by My Chemical Romance.
• Anything Mark Tremonti does with a guitar.
• "Ground control to Major Tom..." The entire song is pretty awesome, but that first line is so amazing!
• "PON PON WAYWAYWAY PONPONWAYPONWAYPONPON"
  • "Ah, you make me happy!"
• The chords at the beginning of Katy B's "Lights On".
• I want my, I want my, I want my MTV...
• The guitar solo in "Agony of Defeet" by Parliament. It starts at 3:37.
  • The last couple minutes or so of this Parliament song. The combination of the strings and horns is nothing short of beautiful.
• The massively harmonized A Capella opening of "Some Nights" by fun..
  Some nights I stay up cashing in my bad luck,
  Some nights I call it a draw,
  Some nights I wish that my lips could build a castle,
  Some nights I wish they'd just fall off
  • How about in Irish Gaelic?
• Hearing the opening notes of your favorite song, no matter which one it is, on the radio.
• The keyboard solo in "Jump" by Van Halen.
  • To Cubs fans watching WGN in the mid-80s, that keyboard solo announced EXCITING CUBS BASEBALL about to begin at beautiful Wrigley Field! Might still do so in memory.
• It's the music that we choose, It's the music that we choose, It's the music that we choose, It's the music that we choose, oh yes! The music that we choose...
  • Up on melancholy hill, there's a plastic tree...
  • 2D's singing voice in general.
• The opening guitar riff to "Back in Black" by AC/DC.
  • Gonnnng...gonnnng...gonnnng...gonnnng...cue the guitar. The opening of "Hells' Bells" is out-and-out goosebump-inducing.
• The horns at the beginning of Metallica's "The Unforgiven" and "Unforgiven II" leading into a mournful acoustic guitar in the original and something harder but no less awesome in II.
• The bassline to "Head Like A Hole" by Nine Inch Nails or the beat to "Closer" is so awesome, it makes my ears weep with joy and pleasure.
• The opening guitars on John Mayer's "Bigger Than My Body".
• Mbube (known to Western audiences as "The Lion Sleeps Tonight"). Sing it with me people: A-weema-weh, a-weema-weh, a-weema-weh, a-weema-weh...
  • "Mbube" wasn't the most remarkable tune, but there was something terribly compelling about the underlying chant, a dense meshing of low male voices above which Solomon yodelled and howled for two exhilarating minutes, occasionally making it up as he went along. The third take was the great one, but it achieved immortality only in its dying seconds, when Solly took a deep breath, opened his mouth and improvised the melody that the world now associates with these words: In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight.
• Fans of Neil Young need only hear the words "Old Black". Neil's uniquely personal style, plus his various modifications and the use of extra-heavy strings, give the instrument an almost human voice. More here...
• The harmonized sections of Neil's 1970 ballad After the Gold Rush as recorded by Prelude. The whole song's beautiful, but the harmonized sections are especially so.
• The intro of Fireflies by Owl City. The simple repeating sequence of notes just begs to be sung along too.
• Fans of French progressive rock report being blissed out by the warm sound of the 1973 band Présence, especially the coda to their signature tune "Pleure le Monde" ("the world is raining" or "the world is weeping" or "everyone is weeping", depending on your perspective).
• Matthew Healy's voice. Sure, it's high-pitched and usually squeaky, but it's also very pretty and especially great when stripped down to acoustics.
• Queen
  • BOOM BOOM CLAP!
  • "Be-elzebub, has a devil put aside for me, for me, for MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" (guitar solo)
  • Especially in live settings, the distinctive howl of Brian May's homemade "Red Special" guitar going into feedback. For example, the beginning of "God Save The Queen" atop Buckingham Palace at the Party at the Palace concert in 2002.
• It's not as famous as some other examples on this list, but "Full Circle" by Half Moon Run is a bunch of wonderful sounds stacked on top of each other for three minutes.
• The beginning of Lorde's Ribs is a very wonderful sound.
  • Another group that worked with Lorde's producer Joel Little, Broods, has their own wonderful sound in the chorus of Bridges.
• And now, it's gonna be me and you-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh (cue the most epic synth-voice-breakdowny thing ever)
  • Similarly, Ellie Goulding's Anything Could Happen has a "eh-eh-eh eh-eh" thing at the beginning that is adorable and catchy.
• Just listening to an orchestra tune up is a beautiful and chilling sound, with all of the instruments creeping towards and then hitting the same note (save for octave differences). The larger the orchestra, the better.
• When not being creepy, the sound of a pipe organ is amazing; no other instrument can match its compass, variety of sounds and timbres, or have the power to make the entire building vibrate. For example, the Royal Albert Hall's Willis-Harrison (nicknamed "The Voice of Jupiter"). BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
  • Tune in to the APM show Pipe Dreams with Michael Barone. Crank it up. Feel the floor shake.
  • Arcade Fire uses one in their song Intervention. The result is appropriately epic.
• Traffic (Band) - Only Steve Winwood could get that stank on that organ in The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys.
• TIIIIIIIIIIIME FLIIIIIIIIIIIES!
• The majority of noises produced by Ian Anderson's flute.
• Many, many, many, of the riffs and motifs that can be found in Mike Oldfield's music qualify as this. Like Neil Young or Carlos Santana, his guitar work has a uniquely identifiable sound that can be awesome in and of itself. But the thing that qualifies the most is probably the "Finale" section Tubular Bells. It is beautiful. Especially that repeated bass riff.
• Sometimes it's the tone of the guitar, you know when the right combination of guitars, pickups, amps, and other gear come together and the end result is a guitar that's just perfect.
  • "Headlong" by Queen is a good example.
• The epic and distinctive drums at the beginning of "Hot for Teacher" by Van Halen.
• The intro and outro of Running Wild's "Under Jolly Roger".
  "Man the cannons! FIREEEEEE!" *full broadside*
  "Ready boardiiing!" "YAAAAAGHH!"
• The middle instrumental section of Nightwish's "Ghost Love Score," which is so over-the-top awesome that using it as the soundtrack to relatively mundane things to render them EPIC became a meme.
• The opening bass line of the Red Hot Chili Peppers cover of "Higher Ground".
• Probably the most epic usage of autotune = the climax in Bo Burnham's "We Think We Know You".
  "Bo, oh my God. Bo, oh my God. Bo, oh my God. Bo, OHHH MYY GOOOOOOOOOD.."
  • The first note of the guitar is epic in its own right.
• The Mellotron intro to "Watcher of the Skies" by Genesis, to the point where, especially when Peter Gabriel was still the lead singer, the band would often open their concerts with this song for this very reason.
• Uplifting trance is all about this trope, producing angelic and soaring beats that either make the listener grin ear-to-ear or sob Tears of Joy. There's a good reason why many fans claim this music is the Spiritual Successor of Classical Music.
• Fans of Finnish Alternative Rock group Poets of the Fall gravitate to Marko Saaresto's particularly clear baritone (and Surprisingly Good English).
• Any song sang by Schnuffel and Schnuffelienchen (Snuggle and Snuggelina) from German music and phone company Hamster/Jamba. Such as this song called "Sleepy Snuggle" which is sang by Schnuffel about his love of sleeping and his warm bed. Schnuffel also has a cute giggle which can heard in some of the songs sang by the bunny which sounds so sweet and relaxing.
  • His girlfriend Schnuffelienchen has one song titled "Kiss me, Hold me, Love me" which features her singing about love and affection. She is even shown holding a stuffed animal version if Schnuffel who she has a crush on. The original German version of the sing has her sound more an angel and has a beautiful singing voice.
• A lot of adlibs in hip hop music, especially trap, definitely count as this. Highlights include Travis Scott's "Straight up!", 21 Savage's "Twenny-wan", Playboi Carti's "Slatt", DJ Khaled's "Another one!", Kid Cudi's humming, and possibly the crowning examples, Lil Wayne's lighter flick and "Young mula baaaaabyyyyy!"
• That train-whistle of a guitar that opens "How Soon Is Now?" by The Smiths.
• The guitar riffs and vocals in Red Vox's song Reno are a thing of beauty.
• Even the first few notes of a song can be this; especially if you've forgotten the name of the song, or just haven't heard it in a long time.
• The initial guitar riff of Guns N' Roses' Sweet Child O' Mine.
• Ludwig van Beethoven is a great source of these.
  • The beginning of his Fifth Symphony. During World War II, the BBC used it to mark the beginning of their news reports, because the four initial notes coincided with the letter V (for "Victory") in Morse code.
  • The Ninth Symphony, particularly its fourth movement. Odds are that, at one point or another, you have heard it - it is better known as the Ode to Joy.
• The horns, sampled from The Chi-Lites' "Are You My Woman (Tell Me So)", that kick off Beyoncé's "Crazy In Love".
• Nearly anything that uses an electric violin. Special shout-out goes to Lindsey Stirling for her songs "Underground" and "her cover of My Immortal".
• The entirety of Debussy's Claire De Lune. Sad when you sad. Happy when you are happy.
• Patti Smith. From her murmured poetic musings to her clarion calls for truth and justice, hers is one of the great contralto voices of the modern era.
• "If I could just leave my body... for the night" (drums enter)
  • Panda Bear's voice certainly counts too.
• One would say all of Tofie's music is designed to be this, but Wonderland's youyouyous, Sunrise Cutie's "hookah" moment where her happy words devolve into Gibberish of Love and Taipei's repeating "together and"s will definitely communicate a sense of undescribable well-being to you.
  • To say nothing of certain remixes. Especially roboi85's Digital Girl remix, which yahs you into... er... delicious accent heaven ?
• Every time Chino Moreno lets out a "Woo!"
  • Just take a listen to "Hole in the Earth", "Rocket Skates", "Poltergeist", "This Link is Dead"...
• The strings in Collective Soul's "Needs" are gorgeous in general, but when that cello comes in at the beginning of the end, it's downright divine.
• The French horns at the end of AWOLNATION's "I Am" add the perfect ethereal touch to an already amazing-sounding song.
• Everything concerning Disco Inferno's "Summer's Last Sound", but especially the strummed guitars at the beginning and all the found sound used throughout.
• Roundabout by Yes - the piano chords played by Wakeman and recorded backwards, straight into that E harmonic on an acoustic guitar. Yes, chords. Twice.
  • It isn't to mention the acoustic guitar and swirly organ reprise in the middle of the song, rushing into the main instrumental break.
    • ...that entire instrumental break, from Wakeman's organ slur coming in to that last climax before the final verse. It's like a sonic roller coaster. Buckle up for one hell of a ride.
• The machine gun riff of One by Metallica.
  • Master Of Puppets' main riff too.
    • Ditto for Enter Sandman.
  • GIMMIE FUEL, GIMMIE FIRE, GIMMIE THAT WHAT I DESIRE!
  • ...And Justice For All's guitar tone (or about any of classic Metallica album) is this.
  • Black Album's snare drum. It's just so powerful and sounds almost like a rifle.
• Anytime Dead sings something when he was in Mayhem. Not too raspy, not too guttural, the balance is just perfect. Despite being sadly short-lived, he was called THE Black Metal vocalist for a reason.
• The interplay between Jon Lord's keyboards and Ritchie Blackmore's guitar on many Deep Purple songs, especially during the Mark II period and songs such as "Lazy". It's a defining factor in the sound, and leaves no mistake who you are listening to. It's even better live.
  • Jon Lord's intro to "Child in Time" sets the mood, and catches your attention.
• With the rich electronic sound design combined with the darker themes, arrangements, and technical details, as well as the consistent volume mastering (compared to the Loudness War of Playing the Angel), Dave Gahan's Hourglass as a whole is an incredibly satisfying and recognizable record, and it stands out in the music industry with its unique sound.
• Emerson, Lake & Palmer
  • The synthesizer solo at the end of Lucky Man

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