Awesome Music / Hard Rock

Hard Rock

• AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" always gets the blood pumping! The electrifying opening riff, the powerful guitars, the thundering drums, Brian's epic vocals... WOW.
• "Lift U Up" by Swiss band Gotthard, especially the intro and that little guitar...bit at about 1 minute 25 seconds.
• "Eye of the Tiger" makes any Training Montage infinitely more awesome!
• Led Zeppelin:
  • "Kashmir", "Immigrant Song", "Black Dog", "The Song Remains the Same", but especially "Stairway to Heaven", which is not only their most famous song, but according to a Guitar World poll, it has the greatest guitar solo of all time.
  • "Immigrant Song" is used repeatedly by Michael O'Neil in the Posleen War Series to send his Mobile Infantry into battle.
  • "Dazed And Confused", where Jimmy Page plays the guitar with a freakin' cello bow! In the movie The Song Remains the Same, they play a 30+ minutes version of "Dazed and Confused".
  • For "Over the Hills and Far Away", it's a toss-up between the intensely beautiful acoustic guitar intro and the part when it abruptly transitions into headbanging hard rock (but is still tempered by the acoustic guitar throughout the song).
  • "In the Light" might have one of the greatest intros of all time.
• Wishbone Ash played "Warrior" in 1973. It doesn't start like much, but the end chorus/refrain is this trope, distilled and bottled: "I had to be a warrior / A slave I could not be / A soldier and a conqueror / Fighting to be free"...
• Arena rock, a subset of hard rock. Out of the arena bands, Boston stands out, with its rousing "More Than a Feeling" and its incredibly epic "Foreplay/Long Time" double song.
• Butthole Surfers' "Pepper" will forever be Awesome Music fodder. "Who Was in My Room Last Night" is just as good.
• Rev Theory's "Hell Yeah" really gets your blood pumping, because who can say no to shouting "Hell yeah!" at the top of their lungs?
• Almost anything composed by Jim Steinman, but his true Awesome Music would have to be Meat Loaf's Bat Out Of Hell album, especially the title track and both "I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)" and "It's All Coming Back To Me Now", for their dramatic, bombastic nature. Subsequent awesome tracks include music from 80s movie Streets of Fire ("Nowhere Fast", "Tonight Is What It Means To Be Young"), and the fantastically over the top ballad "Total Eclipse of the Heart" by Bonnie Tyler.
• Jimi Hendrix:
  • "Machine Gun" from Band of Gypsys. The most incredible thing to ever have been done on an electric guitar.
  • Or "Voodoo Chile" (not the wah-wah one). A 15-minute jam that never once feels boring, together with some of the best musicians ever guesting on the track.
  • Pretty much every time this man picked up a guitar resulted in a CMoA. Behold his amazing cover of Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode", in which he plays part of the solo with his teeth.
• Aerosmith's cover of "Train Kept A-Rollin'". Each and every one of the FIVE solos could count as a CMOA in and of themselves. The studio version has the guitar solos by studio musicians, Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner, who are both awesome in their own right.
  • "Sweet Emotion" and "Lightning Strikes" stiffen up the sinews, and summon up the blood.
  • "Movin' Out" from the first album sounds particularly good through a couple of 2x12 speaker cabinets. Tyler's lyrics on the rock lifestyle are classic stuff.
  • A lot of the songs from their Get a Grip album are pretty great, but "Livin' on the Edge" is fucking awesome.
• Anything by KISS especially "I Was Made For Loving You".
  • "God Gave Rock And Roll To You" is totally excellent.
  • "Rock And Roll All Night"! It's practically their signature song and oh, so awesome.
  • "Love Gun" is their best makeup-era song, period. That opening riff sounds like a big ol' fucking machine gun going off!
  • OOOOOH OOOOH BLACK DIAMOND.
  • And the songs from their post-makeup days, which got closer to metal (or at least to hair metal). "All Hell's Breakin' Loose", "Into the Fire", "Heaven's on Fire", "My Way", "Under the Gun", "Tears Are Fallin'", etc.
• Queens of the Stone Age:
  • Songs for the Deaf was a pretty darn hard rock album, but at the end of it all, the "hidden" track "Mosquito Song" comes on. The perfect, beautiful, and very dark setup to their next album, Lullabies to Paralyze.
  • "Sick, Sick, Sick" will kick your ass three times over.
  • For the sake of convenience let's just list the highlights from Songs for the Deaf. "Song For The Dead" is a fantastic hard rock song, "First It Giveth" is always a solid choice, "No One Knows" is a classic, and the first track "You Think I Ain't Worth a Dollar, But I Feel Like A Millionaire" is so intense it feels like a punch in the face. The "screamed" lyrics just work so well.
  • And that's just off of one album. There's also "The Bronze", "18 A.D.", and "Born to Hula", and none of these ever made it to a major release.
• Foreigner:
  • For years, they had numerous hit songs that fell just short of #1 on the Billboard Pop chart like "Waiting For a Girl like You". In 1985, they finally created the song that put them on top, "I Want To Know What Love Is", a magnificent power ballad complete with a choir accompaniment.
  • "Jukebox Hero" makes you wanna jump on a table and rock out on an air guitar!
• Eddie Van Halen's signature finger-tapping fuelled the whole hard rock genre for the '80s.
  • The guitar solo track "Eruption" was in its time regarded as the best piece of guitar playing, ever.
  • "I'm the One" has a godlike solo. It took finger-tapping to its apex - and then every other rock band had to come along and copy the technique, which steered it into Narm territory.
  • RUNNIN'. WITH. THE. DEVIL. Can you say Epic Riff?
  • If you've ever wondered if Eddie Van Halen can work in short form, listen to his solos on "Jump" and Michael Jackson's "Beat It." He didn't always go in for the Epic Rocking, he could do tasteful stuff too!
• Love's "Seven and Seven Is". If you're gonna go full tilt for two minutes, you've got to build up to a nuclear blast. Pretty intense for 1966.
• "Revolve", "Queen", and "Roadbull" are some of the loudest, grittiest, and most jaw-droppingly spectacular pieces of stoner/grunge rock ever written.
• "Search and Destroy", "Raw Power", and "Gimme Danger" are all excellent examples of truly glorious rock music. In fact, almost every song by The Stooges is as well.
• "Cassie" by Flyleaf never fails to make for headbanging.
• Heart has some amazing songs, but nothing beats this live version of "Alone".
• Quiet Riot is basically the apotheosis of pop-metal. They blended all of the metal genre's elements - heavy blues, Gothic horror, insane riffs, and pinup sexuality - together into one inimitable package. All these years later, "Bang Your Head" is still terrifying. "Run For Cover" is probably their best song. And "The Wild and the Young" is an underrated gem: Frankie Banali's opening snare beat alone is proof that your world is about to get rocked really fucking hard.
• Whitesnake deserve to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame someday, if only because they were one of the most technically accomplished bands of the '80s. Their 1987 album is pure gold, with not a single bad track. "Children of the Night" particularly deserves a mention: it proved to the band's critics that, yes, they could be subtle....and yet still be badass as well. Same with "Kitten's Got Claws" from Slip of the Tongue.
• Semi-fictional, but Spinal Tap has given us plenty of immortal musical moments. "Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight", for example, is an ear worm for the ages. "Stonehenge" is a thrilling celebration of ancient paganism. And while "Break Like the Wind" may be an awful title, it is a flat-out mythic song. But then, would you expect any less from Joe Satriani?
• Theory of a Deadman, anyone? "Deadly Game" and "Invisible Man" in particular. Those songs are like a comic book come to life.
• Alter Bridge. They definitely beat the shit out of Creed. Especially "Open Your Eyes" and "Metalingus" (best known as the entrance theme for the "Rated-R Superstar" wrestler Edge). Whoever thought Christian salvation could sound so badass?
  • "Isolation". Just...wow this song is pretty kickass. Especially in the choruses.
• Journey in general is made of Awesome Music.
  • "Lights" will invoke nostalgia for anyone who's been to the big cities.
  • "Wheels In The Sky" is PERFECT to blast on road trips.
  • "Faithfully" is THE GREATEST. LOVE SONG. EVER.
  • "Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)" never fails to give those special feelings you only get from a great rock song.
  • And, quintessentially, "Don't Stop Believin'". One of the most recognizable Classic Rock songs ever, and the lyrics and melody are absolutely Made of Win. In 2009 it became the top-selling catalog track in iTunes history. Steve Perry had the perfect rock voice: "Do-on't stop/Be-lie-vin'/Hold on to that fee-ee-li-in'/Stree-eet lights/People oh-oh-ahhh..."
• German hard rock band Bonfire is truly underrated, it's a real shame they were never as well-known as the Scorpions with killer songs like Sweet Obsession.
• Deep Purple, especially Mark II with such classic albums as Deep Purple in Rock (featuring "Child in Time" and "Speed King") and Machine Head (with not only "Smoke on the Water", but also "Space Truckin'", "Highway Star" and "Lazy"). And the classic live album Made in Japan. All of these are iconic riffs and fuel for many hard rock and heavy metal guitarists. The interplay between Ritchie Blackmore on guitar and Jon Lord on keyboards drives the songs, topped off by the magnificent vocals of Ian Gillan.

Glam Rock

• "Ballroom Blitz" by Sweet. Will you give you enough energy to last for days.
• Roxy Music, "2HB". Something about that song is just so calm and slow-burning it becomes awesome. On the other end of the scale - but on the same album - "Re-Make/Re-Model". Epic saxophone.
• Spoon. "I Turn My Camera On". OH MAN. It is magnificent.
• The 69 Eyes. Most of their songs could probably be listed here, but, for sake of saving time, "Wasting the Dawn".
• Blue Öyster Cult:
  • The live version of "Veteran of the Psychic Wars" is the best. The solo is made of refined awesome.
  • "Cities On Flame With Rock And Roll" boasts an Epic Riff that was composed trying to outdo another Epic Riff, "The Wizard" by Black Sabbath, in the process giving us two epic riffs.
• Skillet gave us "Awake and Alive", "Hero", "Whispers in the Dark", "Falling Inside the Black", "Comatose", "It's Not Me It's You", "Monster", and "The Last Night". Whoever said that Christians can't love hard rock?

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