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Shout Out / Music
aka: Shout Out Music

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Left: "What is Love", Right: La La Land
Shout Outs in music, song titles, lyrics, and band names.

For related tropes, see the index page. See also Song of Song Titles.


Artists/Groups with their own subpages:


Other examples:

  • "Aliens on Earth" by 32Crash lifts its main chorus lyric from the title and refrain of Public Enemy's "Party For Your Right to Fight", which itself was a shout-out to The Beastie Boys' "Fight for Your Right to Party".
  • 50 Cent
  • Anotha Level, Let Me Take Ya
    Because I don't smoke crack jack just fat sacks of indo
    I'll whoop your ass with Ken on my Super Nintendo
  • The 69 Eyes' "Wasting the Dawn" is a tribute to Jim Morrison and naturally includes some references to The Doors lyrics and details about his life: The title is a reference to The Doors' "The WASP (Texas Radio and the Big Beat)", which includes the lyric "No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn". The song also addresses Morrison as a "little bird of prey" and "the lizard", references to "Bird of Prey" and "Not to Touch The Earth" note . The lines "Forgetting the night, darkest July, Paris '71" refer to the time and place Jim Morrison died. Finally, the music video includes scenes of Vile Valo dressed as Jim and possibly portraying his ghost.
  • Afroman's "Crazy Rap (Colt 45)" references Cheech & Chong, Cadillac Coupe Deville, Dolly Parton, Driving Miss Daisy, Hawaiian Punch, Hennessy, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Palmdale.

  • On Alabama's "Southern Star", after the line "Let my mind just go and drift away", the guitarist plays the riff from "Drift Away" by Dobie Gray.
  • Beastie Boys:
  • As far back as the 80's, Big Daddy Kane referred to his style as "Transformin' on stage like a Decepticon."
  • Big Sean's "Supa Dupa" references Elton John, JoJo, Lindsay Lohan, Michael Jackson, Michael Jordan, Mortal Kombat, Robocop, Roots, The Silence of the Lambs, The Simpsons, and Super Mario Bros..
  • CB Radio's True Loves references John Wilkes Booth, MacBook, and Toucan Sam
  • 3 Doors Down's song "Kryptonite" is obviously a Superman reference. The music video is even about superheroes.
  • Acid Mothers Temple are fond of titling their albums or songs with punning references to their influences. A few of the more prominent examples:
  • Adam and the Ants' Cleopatra has a reference to the film Cleopatra, and what a disappointment it was
    What a weak distorted image
    Elizabeth and Richard gave you
  • Aerosmith's "Livin' On The Edge" includes a nod to the refrain of "You're A Better Man Than I" by The Yardbirds:
    If you can judge a wise man by the color of his skin
    Then mister, you're a better man than I
    • "Girl Keeps Coming Apart" includes a couplet borrowed from Frank Zappa's "Dinah-Moe Humm" from Over-Nite Sensation: "She was buns up and kneelin' / I was wheelin' and dealin'". Zappa is credited in the liner notes for this.
  • The Air instrumental "Mike Mills" is named after the director responsible for many of their music videos (not to be confused with the R.E.M. bassist of the same name).
  • The video for a-ha's "The Sun Always Shines On TV" features an orchestra of mannequins, a nod to Kraftwerk's "The Robots", which had robotic likenesses of the band singing and playing the instruments.
  • The bridge of Put Your Hands Up by Alex featuring Marwa references Michael Jackson's "Don't Stop Till You Get Enough", The Supremes' "Stop in the Name of Love", and a melodic hook from the refrain of Dead or Alive's "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)".
  • Jason Aldean's 2013 single "1994" repeatedly name-drops 1990s country hitmaker Joe Diffie and several of his song titles.
  • alt-J's song "Breezeblocks" references Where the Wild Things Are at least twice. The song has the line "Do you know where the wild things go? They go along to take your honey" and later the ending chorus says "Please don't go - I'll eat you whole - I love you so, I love you so, I love you so" in reference to the books line “Oh please don't go - we'll eat you up - we love you so!"
  • The Antlers have a song titled "Sylvia". Here are a few lines from the chorus; you get three chances to guess who it's a shout out to, but you'll only need one.
    Sylvia, get your head out of the oven
    Go back to screaming and cursing
    Remind me again how everyone betrayed you
  • AOA's "Get Out" MV has all the members cosplaying as several female characters to promote female empowerment - Choa as Elle Woods, Jimin as Mathilda, Yuna as Lara Croft, Youkyung as Leeloo, Hyejeong as The Bride, Mina as Holly Golightly, Seolhyun as Juliet (the 1968 version with Olivia Hussey) and Chanmi as Hermione.
  • "Stop the Rock" by Apollo 440 has "Dancing like Madonna, into the groove". The title may also reference "Don't Stop The Rock" by Freestyle.
  • Apoptygma Berzerk - Incompatible: "I ate the red pill, no turning back".
    Was that the wrong pill to take?
  • The Aquabats love cramming shout-outs into their songs however they can. Examples include:
    • "Idiot Box!" includes references to Casper the Friendly Ghost, Scooby-Doo, Mr. Magoo, Mickey Mouse, and and an off-hand allusion to Marc Antony's monologue in Julius Caesar.
    • "Tarantula!" contains two references to Indiana Jones: a girl by the name of Marianne (Marion), who is the daughter of one Professor Jones.
    • "Radiation Song!" contains several references to The Road Warrior, as well as several direct quotes from the film.
    • The bridge from "Fashion Zombies!" is a parody of Vincent Price's monologue from the end of Michael Jackson's "Thriller"; the first three lines of both are even the same.
  • Arthur Conley's "Sweet Soul Music" (itself a retool of Sam Cooke's "Yeah Man") does several shout outs, where he says "Spotlight on" and names the singer and some part of the lyrics they've used or their style. He mention Lou Rawls, James Brown, Wilson "Wicked" Pickett, and, on Otis Redding's segment, has the horn section play the chorus from Redding's "Sad Song (Fa Fa Fa Fa Fa)" at a faster tempo.
  • A Skylit Drive's first album Wires... and the Concept of Breathing contains various ShoutOuts to the Final Fantasy franchise.
  • Ken Ashcorp's "20% Cooler" is basically one big reference to My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, as obvious by the title coming from a memetic line stated by Rainbow Dash. It shout-outs to the cartoon many times.
  • Ashnikko's "Slumber Party" has the lyric "my girl look like Wednesday Addams". Meanwhile Princess Nokia's verse on the same song is mostly themed around early 2000s pop culture references - in order: "Hot In Herre", "I'm A Slave 4 U", Bring It On note , and "Dip It Low" by Christina Milian note .
  • The Konami Code was paid homage to by the band The Ataris by the song entitled just what the code was: "Up, Up, Down, Down, etc..."
    • It also appears in "Anyone Else But You" by indie darlings The Moldy Peaches — "Up up down down left right left right B A start/just because we use cheats doesn't mean we're not smart."
    • Eventually, it even became the name of a band in its own right.
    • The band "The Gothsicles" produced an album, titled NESferatu, that has a song (and several remixes) about the Konami Code and its giving you "thirty guys" in Contra.
    • Deftones are apparently Contra fans as they have an original instrumental titled U,U,D,D,L,R,L,R,A,B,Select,Start in their 2006 album, Saturday Night Wrist.
    • Schoolyard Heroes have an entire song about the code. 95% of the lyrics are the code repeated over and over.
    • "30 Lives" by The Motion Sick, featured in DanceDanceRevolution X.
  • The second verse of A7's "Piece of Heaven" has the line "Now I'm better off alone", a reference to Alice Deejay's hit "Better Off Alone", which uses the same instrumentation.
  • Bad Religion's 2002 album, The Process of Belief has a line about "Milo went to college, but you knew about that," a Shout-Out to the Descendents' album, Milo Goes to College.
  • Barenaked Ladies has lots of shout-outs, especially in their earlier albums.
    • Rush's "Tom Sawyer" and "The Spirit of Radio", and Vince Guaraldi's "Linus and Lucy" are sampled and a reference to "Stairway to Heaven" is made during "Grade 9".
    • The band repeats the phrase "Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto" several times in "The King of Bedside Manor".
      • Not to mention the fact that they do so immediately after yelling "STYX!"
    • An admittedly incomplete list of the cultural references in "One Week", in lyrical order: Aquaman, the Canadian restaurant chain Swiss Chalet, Busta Rhymes, LeAnn Rimes, Bert Kaempfert, Vertigo, the song "Scenario" by A Tribe Called Quest (and also the late-1990s H5N1 avian flu epidemic in China that spread to humans), The X-Files, Harrison Ford, Frantic, Sting, Snickers candy bars, Akira Kurosawa, Sailor Moon, Birchmount Stadium (an obscure Toronto sports venue), and "The Robbie" (a major youth soccer tournament hosted by said stadium).
    • "Odds Are" features the lyrics "twenty-three or four to one" which is a reference to Chicago's song "25 or 6 to 4".
    • The video of "One Week" starts with a homage to the "Doll on a Music Box" scene in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
    • "Brian Wilson".
    • Not only is "Silverball" a thinly-veiled shout-out to Pinball, but the lyrics also include shout-outs to the Lord of the Rings game and the original pinball rock opera, Tommy.
  • The 2012 Berlin show "Best of Musicals" included a Disney medley with "Poor Unfortunate Souls" (from The Little Mermaid (1989)). Whilst Ariel was singing as Ursula stole her voice, the actor for Ursula shouted "Sing, my Angel of Music!" This is not in the original; it's a reference to the title song from The Phantom of the Opera, where Christine sings similarly high note sequences upon the Phantom's urging.
  • The Bevis Frond's Vavona Burr opens with the 30 second Album Intro Track "Frond Cheer", a version of Country Joe And The Fish's "Fish Cheer" that spells "Frond" instead of "Fish". Country Joe McDonald gave Parody Assistance by leading the cheer himself.
  • Another band that seems fond of these is Blind Guardian. Naming an album A Night at the Opera after the Queen album is a bit obvious for a Shout Out, but the song "Welcome to Dying" ends with "I spread my wings and fly away" repeated four times which, given that they covered Queen's "Spread Your Wings" and are huge Queen fans, is probably a Shout Out.
    • "Blood Tears" includes the following lines of Metallica's "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)":
    "Welcome to where time stands still
    No one leaves and no one ever will"
    • Another probable Shout-Out include the chorus of "The Script for My Requiem", which mentions "jester's tears" (Marillion's first album is called Script for a Jester's Tear).
    • These lines in "And Then There Was Silence" references Dream Theater's first album, which is called When Dream and Day Unite:
    "The vision's so clear
    When day and dream unite, the end is near"
    • And, of course, there are all the references to literature and mythology. There's a list on Blind Guardian's page.
  • Bliss n Eso stuffed their track "Destiny Lane" with pop culture references. Alice in Wonderland (2010), the Black Pearl, William Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, Tim Burton, The Beatles, and the list goes on... Other tracks also contain references to The Matrix among other things.
  • The Blue Öyster Cult song "Revenge of Vera Gemini" contains the line "No More Horses, Horses, (We're going to swim like a fish)". This is a double reference to Patti Smith's album Horses and to the BOC's own song "Subhuman". Of course, the co-writer of "Vera Gemini" sings co-vocals on this track...
    • "The Marshall Plan" quotes part of the Deep Purple "Smoke on the Water" riff. It also includes spoken words from Don Kirshner, referencing Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert.
  • Bob Segarini recorded a song, "I Like the Beatles And My Baby Loves The Rolling Stones". It references songs by both bands, including "I Wanna be Your Man", which The Beatles gave to the The Rolling Stones (Band), as well as recording their own version.
  • Boney M.'s famous "Oh, those Russians!" at the end of "Rasputin" is probably a shout-out to "Oh, those Turks!" in Eartha Kitt's performance of "Üsküdara" ("Kâtibim") - a Turkish folk song the melody of which forms the musical core of "Rasputin".
  • Bon Jovi, "It's My Life": "My heart is like an open highway, like Frankie said, 'I did it my way!'". When Paul Anka, lyricist of "My Way", covered the song, it was changed to "He did it My Way".
  • The name of the band Boys Don't Cry is sometimes assumed to be a reference to The Cure song of that name - according to members, it's instead a reference to "I'm Not In Love" by 10CC, which has a Spoken Word in Music section where a woman repeats "big boys don't cry". As a nod to the misconception, Boys Don't Cry did release an instrumental song titled "The Cure".
  • "Ready or Not" by Bridget Mendler contains the lines "I could be your kryptonite", referencing Superman.
  • In "Stronger", Britney Spears calls back to "Baby One More Time": "My loneliness ain't killing me no more!"
    • Also in "Inside Out" she has "You're the only one who drives me crazy" and "Hit me one more time it's so amazing" mentioned of cause her previous hit singles (You Drive Me) Crazy! and "Baby One More Time".
  • Built to Spill's "Distopian Dream Girl" includes the lyrics:
    My stepfather looks just like David Bowie
    But he hates David Bowie
    I think Bowie's cool
    I think Lodger rules
    My stepdad's a fool
    • "Nowhere Nothin' Fuckup" borrows most of it's verse lyrics from "Oh! Sweet Nuthin'" by Velvet Underground, while the title is a reference to a fictional song mentioned in Philip K. Dick's novel Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said.
    • "You Were Right" is a variation on the Song of Song Titles, as every line of the verses quotes a lyric from a famous rock song (e.g. "You were right when you said 'you can't always get what you want' / You were right when you said 'it's a hard rain's gonna fall'"). Though they're not necessarily citing songs they're influenced by here, just ones that fit the pattern of being classic rock radio staples with pessimistic lyrics (or at least ones that have individual lines that sound pessimistic out of context).
    • "Planting Seeds" has the lines "I've heard that they'll sell anything / And I think they might / I think Bill Hicks was right / about what they should do". This alludes to an oft-referenced Hicks quote: "If you work in advertising or marketing... kill yourself".
  • Butter 08's "Dagobrah" is named after Dagobah, the swamp planet from Star Wars: The altered spelling is possibly for the sake of Writing Around Trademarks, though the added "r" is distinctly pronounced in the chorus. Since it's a Hardcore Punk pastiche, the song also parodies the spoken word section from Minor Threat's "Out Of Step":
    Listen! I'm not trying to tell you how you live your life!
    I'm just saying there are a lot of things out there that are real important to people that I don't find much importance in...
    Whether it's eating squishies or playing mini-golf!
  • Buzzoven have admitted their name is a double Melvins shout out - the name of Melvins vocalist/guitarist Buzz Osborne (sometimes credited as King Buzzo) plus their song "Oven".
  • Rapper Cage originally went by the name Alex, as a nod to A Clockwork Orange. His single "Agent Orange" sampled Wendy Carlos' score from that film. They Live! is referenced in the artwork for his album Movies for the Blind. Jello Biafra, doing an imitation of The Dubya, says "I'll Fuck Anything That Moves!", quoting Dennis Hopper's character from Blue Velvet.
  • Italian rapper Caparezza made a song about improving as an artist, that is, going to "the next level". Of course, it includes many references to video games from Arkanoid to Wonder Boy. Oh, and the video is a giant homage to TRON.
  • During the fade-out of Captain & Tennille's cover of Neil Sedaka's "Love Will Keep Us Together", Toni Tennille sings "Sedaka is back!", acknowledging both Sedaka's co-authorship of the song and his then-ongoing comeback in the 1970s.
  • The Cardigans' "Heartbreaker" has an intro that sounds a lot like "Black Sabbath" by Black Sabbath, and at the end of the song that same part is reprised, with Nina Persson saying "Oh no, please God help me" in the same way Ozzy did in that song. As unlikely as it might seem, the band are all fans of Ozzy-era Black Sabbath, and have also done covers of "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" and "Iron Man".
  • Eric Carmen's "Make Me Lose Control" has the line:
    Jennifer's singing Stand by Me / And she knows every single word by heart
  • In Catherine Wheel's 1995 song "Hole", the first lyrics of the chorus are "Always the pretty songs for us to sing along and get fucked up", which bears a similarity to the chorus of "In Bloom" by Nirvana. (Probably the most common interpretation of this song is that it's about the death of Kurt Cobain.)
    • From the same album, "Receive" includes the lyrics "Grow my hair long and strange / I'll be a walking mountain range", which is similar to lyrics from "I Shall Be Free No. 10" by Bob Dylan.
    • Then, from their next album, "Phantom of the American Mother" includes the lyrics "Now there's a sinking look in your eyes / Like black holes in the sky", which references "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" by Pink Floyd. (Catherine Wheel also recorded a cover of the title track of the album that song was from, Wish You Were Here.)
    • Also, one of the songs on their second album is titled "Fripp".
  • In Chamillionaire's "Ridin'", there is a cassette tape deck and video output to a car TV monitor for one or more game consoles. "PlayStation" refers to the first PlayStation, or the PlayStation 2, as the song came out in 2006. The video shows an Xbox controller.
    "And my shine on the deck and the TV screen / And ride with a new chick, she like "Hold up" / Next to the PlayStation controller".
  • The works of Charles Ives are full of Shout Outs - particularly to marches, hymns, folk songs, and school fight songs.
  • Childish Gambino is full of nerdy references, including to Invader Zim in "Bonfire" and Dragon Ball Z in "Not Going Back". He also acted in The Martian, Solo, and Spider-Man: Homecoming, and is the voice of Miles Morales in season 3 of Ultimate Spider-Man (2012).
  • Chilly Kids' "At The Ice Arcade" references Asteroids, Berzerk, Donkey Kong, Grandmaster Flash, "The Message", Pac-Man, Pinball, and Space Invaders.
  • Chris Brown's "Look At Me Now" references Cîroc vodka, Cirque du Soleil, Guiding Light, The Karate Kid, Lamborghini, LL Cool J, and Sprite.
  • The Clash's version of "Police And Thieves" starts with Joe Strummer ad-libbing "Going through a tight wind!", which is a lyric from "Blitzkrieg Bop" by the Ramones. It's possibly the earliest musical shout out the Ramones ever got, as the Clash song only came out a year after the first Ramones album.
  • Lloyd Cole's "Rattlesnakes" uses a little name-dropping to establish character:
  • "Brimful of Asha" by Cornershop is a tribute to Indian Filmi Music. The title is a reference to playback singer Asha Bhosle; she's also name-checked in the lyrics, as are playback singers Mohammed Rafi and Lata Mangeshkar. The song later references All India Radio (a public broadcast outlet) and non-Indian musicians presumably played there, such as French singer Jacques Dutronc and "the Bolan Boogie" (the name of a compilation album by T. Rex).
  • Denzel Curry's "ULTIMATE" references Dirty Harry, Dragon Ball Z, the Glock pistol, and Spartacus.
  • The video for Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" ends with a recreation of the stateroom scene from the The Marx Brothers' movie A Night at the Opera.
  • The lyrics to Daft Punk's "Teachers" are essentially a long list of artists who have influenced them: the majority are DJs and producers involved in techno or house music, but a few less expected names being checked are Brian Wilson, Dr. Dre, and George Clinton.
  • Danger Dan
    • Ölsardinenindustrie
    Im Grunde will ich lieber Mario Kart auf dem Super Nintendo spielen

    Und jede Stunde, die ich damit verschwendet habe Mario Kart zu spielen
    • Rumsitzen
    Heute will ich nur noch 'n Fuffi Weed und ein Super Nintendo

    Ich will einen alten Game Boy, mit Super Mario Land und Tetris
  • "Thin Line" by Dag Nasty ends with 30 straight seconds of the repeated lyric "I trusted you!". While still making sense in the context of the rest of lyrics, it also seems to be a nod to an Andy Kaufman bit: Andy once appeared on variety show The Midnight Special and performed a deliberately repetitive three-minute rock song where the only lyric was "I trusted you!".
  • Hip-Hop producer Dan "The Automator" Nakamura is apparently a big fan of comedian/actor/writer Chris Elliott:
    • His duo with fellow hip hop producer Prince Paul, Handsome Boy Modeling School, named themselves after a fictional modeling school from an episode of the Elliott-starring sitcom Get a Life, and their album So... How's Your Girl? frequently used samples from the same episode. The pseudonym Nakamura used for the Handsome Boy Modeling School project was Nathaniel Merriweather, which was probably meant to sound similar to Nathaniel Mayweather, Elliott's character in Cabin Boy.
    • Another Cabin Boy reference he made was titling a mix album Wanna Buy A Monkey?, after dialogue from the film. His publishing company is Sharkman Music, referencing the Cabin Boy character Chockie, who is "half man, half shark"... Similarly, when he produced Dr. Octagon's "halfsharkalligatorhalfman", he included some dialogue about Chockie as Spoken Word in Music.
  • The first verse of David Bowie's "The Man Who Sold the World" seems to be from the perspective of the other man in "Antigonish" (the one who wasn't there).
  • "Stuart" by The Dead Milkmen mentions "That Johnny Wurster kid that delivers papers in the neighborhood". The character in the song is named after Jon Wurster, a friend of the band best known for drumming for Superchunk.
    • In a much more overt shout out, they have an album called The King in Yellow.
    • "Punk Rock Girl" mentions Mojo Nixon ("We asked for Mojo Nixon, they said 'he don't work here' / we said if you don't got Mojo Nixon, then your store could use some fixin'!"). It also references Minnie Pearl.
    • In "Fez", they make the self-effacing claim that "ripping off the Butthole Surfers is how we make our living".
  • Deep Purple's song "The Mule" is based on a Foundation story; "The Mule". The titular antagonist has Mind Control and emotion-reading powers, and has Converted even his deadliest enemies into loyal servants.
    No one sees the things you do
    Because I stand in front of you
    But you drive me all the time
    Put the evil in my mind
    [...]
    Just another slave for the mule
    • "Speed King" from Deep Purple in Rock is referred to in the liner notes as, "Just a few roots, replanted". The first verse references Little Richard's songs "Good Golly Miss Molly," "Tutti Frutti" and "Lucille." The second verse references the soul classic "Rip It Up," as well as Elvis Presley's "Hard Headed Woman" and Chuck Berry's "Some People."
  • The verses in Def Leppard's "Rocket" contain references to the Rolling Stones, David Bowie (twice), Elton John (also twice), the Beatles, Thin Lizzy, Queen and others.
  • Deltron 3030 weaves its own bizarre anime-inspired science-fictional continuity, but also drops liberal references to comics, anime, video games, and other nerd culture. Del Tha Funkee Homo Sapien has been known to do so in his solo work as well, one of the better examples being "Proto Culture," a love letter to classic video games.
  • Some of Diafrix's tracks and music videos have references to Wally, Superman, and other pop culture characters.
  • Yo-Landi from Die Antwoord is often seen with a Pikachu-Hoodie. Pikachu also is mentioned in the song Banana Brain.
  • Dig's Defenders of the Universe includes songs titled "E.L.O." and ""White Sabbath".
  • "Calling Elvis" by Dire Straits is a shout out to... well, take a wild guess.
  • The Dismemberment Plan named themselves after an easily missed bit of dialogue from Groundhog Day: It's a phrase Ned Ryerson uses during one of the many times he attempts to sell Phil Connors insurance.
  • A live atmosphere example: Disturbed like to reference Silence of the Lambs, playing clips from it before certain songs. The most prominent example of this is the show entrance, which has the lead singer strapped down to a hand truck in a straight jacket, wheeled out on-stage by one of the road crew, dressed in a white coat.
  • Numerous shout outs in Doctor Steel's body of work. His song "The Dr. Steel Show" mentions and contains the tune of "Bali Ha'i", referencing his secret island base. It also contains part of the tune of H.R. Pufnstuf (which also takes place on a mystical island). Spaceboy samples Also sprach Zarathustra. The end of his song, Lullabye-bye, contains the beginning of the Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This". The opening lines of his song, Ode to Revenge, are a very twisted version of Nat King Cole's "Nature Boy". The song "Land Of The Lost", itself an Homage to the Sid and Marty Krofft show, Land of the Lost (1974) has a literal shout out, with a sample of Rita Moreno's "HEY YOU GUYS!" from The Electric Company (1971).
  • Does It Offend You, Yeah? are named after dialogue spoken by David Brent in The Office (UK) - the full context of the line is "My drinking - does it offend you, yeah?". Also something of a Line-of-Sight Name -before uploading some demo recordings online, they decided they'd name their band after the first thing they heard when they turned on the television, and that scene from the show happened to be what was playing.
  • "American Pie" has many. Speculation, sometimes really wrong, on what is referenced is common.
  • Drake
    • "HYFR" references Georgia State University, and George Strait, “All My Ex’s Live in Texas”.
    • "Pop Style" references Channing Tatum, Chevrolet Tahoe, and Kawasaki motorcycles.
    • "Summer Sixteen" references Canada Goose, Jimi Hendrix, Kanye West, and Lil Wayne.
  • On the subject of Dream Theater, the third movement of the song "Octavarium" is nothing but a gigantic list of well-placed shoutouts. The Other Wiki has a nice list right here.
  • Dr. Dre's "Nuthin' but a "G" Thang" references Compton, Death Row Records, Dolemite, Dr. Dre, Evander Holyfield, Long Beach, and Snoop Dogg.
  • Dr. Hook's "On the Cover of Rolling Stone" is a dream about what this rock group will do if they end up being pictured there.
  • Dum Dum Girls have said their name was inspired both by the Iggy Pop song "Dum Dum Boys" from The Idiot and the Vaselines song and album Dum Dum. It's been speculated that vocalist Dee Dee Penny's Stage Name was inspired by Dee Dee Ramone, but she's denied this.
  • In the 1995 John Taylor album track "Anon" (from his solo album Feelings Are Good and Other Lies), he sings, "As for Little Buddha/I like Keanu Reeves." Keanu dated John's ex-wife Amanda de Cadenet shortly after the two divorced.
  • Duran Duran shoutouts:
    • Their debut album included an instrumental called "Tel Aviv". When lead singer Simon Le Bon was working on an Israeli kibbutz before joining the band, he used to hang out in Tel Aviv.
    • Rio includes a song called "Last Chance on the Stairway", which in and of itself is a reference to the phrase "l'esprit d'escalier", or not being able to think of something good to say in response to someone else until it's too late. It also contains the lyric, "Just like a scene out of Voltaire, twisting out of sight," referring to how in many of Voltaire's works (Candide in particular), the storyline twists and turns so fast the protagonists never seem to know what hit them.
    • On their 1988 album Big Thing, there's a song called "Lake Shore Driving", which is a Shout-Out to Chicago's Lake Shore Drive. Chicago is one of keyboardist Nick Rhodes's favorite cities.
    • The band's name is derived from the Mad Scientist Durand Durand in Barbarella. Although they produced a song titled "Electric Barbarella" containing sound samples from the film, the lyrics have little to do with it, instead being about a Sexbot.
  • Dynamite Hack named themselves for a line of dialogue in Caddyshack - At one point in the film, Carl Spackler offers Ty Webb some marijuana, which he refers to as "dynamite hack".
    • "Dear Kate," is a somewhat tongue-in-cheek ode to British model Kate Moss - her last name is never mentioned, but it's made clear through specific references to magazines she's appeared in, as well as a nod to the controversy over her waifish appearance. There's also this line, describing how the narrator's friends don't understand his celebrity crush on her:
    They all think you're flat
    They all think your face looks like Eric Stoltz in Mask.
  • According to the band themselves, the line "They stab it with their steely knives, but they just can't kill the beast" from the Eagles' "Hotel California" is a Shout-Out to Steely Dan. This line was actually a response to "Everything You Did" by Steely Dan, which includes the line "Turn up the Eagles, the neighbors are listening".
  • The refrain of Edge of Dawn's "Beyond The Gate" echoes the ending of 2001: A Space Odyssey notably Bowman's descent into the sun and transformation into the Starchild: "I'm a suicidal planet and I'm aiming for the sun, all the gravity inside me will give way to a beautiful calm..." The title may reference the Star Gate. The band itself is named after a song from Covenant's first album.
  • The electronic band Ego Likeness is named after the holographic portraits from Dune.
  • Eiffel 65's "My Console" references The PlayStation console, and some PS1 era games: Tekken 3, Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil, Gran Turismo, Omega Boost, Bloody Roar, The X-Files Game, Ridge Racer, Oddworld, and Winning Eleven.
  • Doom Metal group Electric Wizard named themselves after two Black Sabbath songs, "Electric Funeral" and "The Wizard". They've made further Sabbath references with album artwork: their self-titled album renders their name in a very similar font to that seen on the cover of Black Sabbath's own self-titled album, while the front cover to the EP Legalise Drugs And Murder is nearly identical to that of Sabbath's Master Of Reality. Outside of that, they're fond of referencing horror films, often via Spoken Word in Music clips.
  • Eazy-E's "Boyz-n-the Hood" references the 1964 Chevrolet Impala, Bacardi, Guess jeans, and Eazy's friend Kilo G (not the rapper Kilo-G). The remix version's prologue references N.W.A's "Gangsta Gangsta".
  • Elvis Costello:
    • The opening line to his song, "London's Brilliant Parade," "Outside my window..." is said in a very similar way to Cream's song, "World of Pain".
  • Eminem
  • Eric B. and Rakim's "Microphone Fiend" is one of the most quoted songs in hip-hop. A lot of subsequent tracks have included the line "kick a hole in the speaker/pull the plug/and then jet" as a shout-out.
  • Eric Church's 2013 single "Like Jesus Does" is book-ended by the line "I'm a long-gone Waylon song on vinyl". The second verse also contains the line "I'm a good ol' boy drinkin' whiskey and rye on the levee".
  • Alternative Rock / Pop Punk band Eve 6 named themselves after a character from the X-Files episode "Eve".
  • The video for Feist's "1234" might be a shout-out to the "Bonjour!" song from Beauty and the Beast: The singer wears a spangly blue outfit while everyone else wears plain clothes in yellows, reds, greens, and purples (some wear blue jeans, but they don't sparkle).
  • The Far East Movement song "Rocketeer" features references to Back to the Future ("Where we go, we don't need roads") and Super Mario Bros. ("we're on to next level, Super Mario").
  • The band Fightstar did an entire concept album about Neon Genesis Evangelion, and it's actually not bad.
    • Not to mention a song entitled "Shinji Ikari"!
    • And the song Lost Like Tears In Rain which is sung from Shinji's POV. It even ends with the line "It's Neon Genesis"! The title of the song itself is a reference to Blade Runner.
  • fIREHOSE's If'n is titled as a reference to Bob Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright" ("It ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe / If'n you don't know by now"). The cover art includes a photograph of Hüsker Dü. Song titles include "For The Singer of R.E.M." and "In Memory of Elizabeth Cotten" (a folk/blues musician who died the year the album was released). The vinyl version has the entire track-list on the A-Side, so that the B-Side could feature John Fogerty's autograph as given to bassist Mike Watt.
  • Five Iron Frenzy's cover of "Sweet Talkin' Woman" ends with Reese Roper shouting "E.L.O., I have all your albums! Yes!"
  • Flaming Lips "The Sun" features the line "It'd be so kind to see your face in my door", a slight variation on a lyric from Carole King's "So Far Away" ("it'd be so fine to see your face in my door").
    • Early in their career, they made a habit of referencing The Beatles: "The Spontaneous Combustion Of John" quotes "The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill" from The White Album ("Like the first time Captain Marvel zapped him right between the eyes"). Oh My Gawd!!! is book-ended with Beatles samples - opening track "Everything's Explodin'" starts with a Spoken Word in Music clip from "Revolution #9" ("Take this, brother, may it serve you well") and closer "Love Yer Brain" ends with a loop taken from "Tomorrow Never Knows". And "Out for a Walk" includes a clip of "La Marseillaise" that seems to be taken straight from the intro of "All You Need Is Love".
    • The song "In The Morning of the Magicians" takes its title from The Morning of the Magicians, a 1960 book on the occult by Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier.
  • "Wind Up" by Foo Fighters namedrops "Manimal" by hardcore punk band The Germs in the chorus ("Want a song that's indelible, like 'Manimal'"). Somewhat interestingly former Germs member Pat Smear was playing with the Foo Fighters at the time.
    • "Times Like These" has "I'm a new day rising" (an album by Hüsker Dü).
  • Franca Morgano - "Firewalker" has multiple shout-outs: "I can Walk on (the) Water (Catch) and I'm Walking in the Sky (DJ Encore), you just tumble in my footsteps when I'm walking Through the Fire (Chaka Khan)..."
  • Frank Turner loves employing this trope in many of his songs, but most obvious of all is in "Substitute". The first chorus references Shakespeare ("If music was the food of love...") and in the second references The Beatles ("If love is really all that we need...").
  • Futuristic, Pound Cake (Remix)
    Listen to my art switch, spitting since cartridge
    In a Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64 that's that Mario Kart shit
    Perfect Dark bitch, change of heart, that's the game
  • Indie hip-hop group Furthermore ended their first album with "Melted Vinyl", which name-drops a downright ridiculous number of Marvel Comics superheroes, then mentions a crossover with the Justice League of America in the final verse.
  • G-Eazy, California Culture
    Stayin' stoned to the bone, I couldn't be higher
    Playing Super Nintendo, Street Fighter
  • * Garbage has a few:
    • Two improvisations while recording their second album, "don't worry baby, it will be alright" in "Push It" and "we were the talk of the town..." in "Special". Both had to be cleared with author permission, and thankfully Brian Wilson and Chrissie Hynde approved.
    • "Sleep Together" ("If we sleep together, will you like me better?") has a clear homage to Romeo Void's "Never Say Never" ("I might like you better if we slept together!"). Shirley downright sung the original's lyrics during that album's 20th anniversary tour.
    • "Only Happy When It Rains", "Supervixen" and "Felt", amongst others, are homages to Shoegazing (The Jesus and Mary Chain for the former, who released a song called "Happy When It Rains" back in 1987, and My Bloody Valentine for the latter two, with "Supervixen" going so far as to imitate the opening drum roll and riff from "Only Shallow").
    • "Supervixen" is also named after 1970s Exploitation Film Supervixens.
    • Third album Beautiful Garbage is named after a line in Hole's "Celebrity Skin".
  • Galaxy Hunter's Quantum of Galaxy album is named after the James Bond film Quantum of Solace, and the intro track has the line "I am Hunter, Galaxy Hunter" along with interpolating the 007 theme's progression.
  • The verse of More's "Around the World"(not to be confused with ATC's hit released the same year) is a melodic reference to Europe's "The Final Countdown".
  • The Game (Rapper): "100" references Lil Wayne, The Notorious B.I.G., OVO Sound, Puff Daddy, and the Rolls-Royce Ghost.
  • Genesis examples:
    • Plenty in The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. "Needles And Pins" (The Searchers); "My run-run-Runaway" (Del Shannon); "Raindrops-a Keep Falling On My Head, they keep falling on my..." (Burt Bacharach); "I wandered lonely as a cloud" (Robert Burns); "It's only knock and know-all, but I like it" (The Rolling Stones), etc., etc.
    • The 3 X 3 EP is a twofold reference. The EP's name is a reference to The Rolling Stones' album 12 X 5, and the cover of the EP is a black-and-white photograph of the band members jumping into the air in a very similar fashion to the cover of The Beatles' Twist and Shout EP.
  • George Strait's "Blue Clear Sky" got its seemingly-backwards title as a shout-out to Forrest Gump.
  • GFRIEND's Sunny Summer makes a recreation of Vermeer's painting "Girl with a Pearl Earring" and a couple of references to Shakespeare's sonnets.
  • Gilby Clarke's solo debut album Pawnshop Guitars has a few.
    • "Cure Me...Or Kill Me" mentions "the Addams Family blood"
    • "Johanna's Chopper" mentions "Superman's magic train"
  • gmcfosho has songs referencing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, X-Men, Street Fighter, Power Rangers (among other things), and one of his music videos contains a lightsaber.
  • The Godflesh song "Circle of Shit" gets its title from Italian art horror film Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom - the film is divided into four segments, one of which has the title card "Girone della Merda", or "Circle of Shit".
  • God Lives Underwater titled their album Life In The So-Called Space Age as a Depeche Mode shout out - that phrase appears in quotes on the back cover of the Depeche Mode album Black Celebration. Fittingly, the same year they released that album, they also contributed a version of "Fly On The Windscreen", originally from Black Celebration, to Depeche Mode tribute album For The Masses.
  • Rapper Greydon Square, who describes himself as "the black Carl Sagan."
  • Grimes' album Geidi Primes is titled after Geidi Prime, a planet in Dune - six of the ten songs on the album are also titled with Dune references. She also chose her stage name as a reference to the artist Ken Grimes.
  • On the booklet for Guns N' Roses' Use Your Illusion I, "You Could Be Mine" has thanks for Elton John and his lyricist Bernie Taupin, as a title of one of their songs is on the lyrics ("'Cause I think we've seen that movie too!").
  • "Taxi Driver" by Gym Class Heroes namedrops several bands within only two minutes. The list that's linked probably isn't even complete.
  • The High & Mighty include references to Star Wars in their tracks, for example in their most famous "B-Boy Document '99" Mr Eon claims: "I'm Jedi Master, Mace Windu".
  • "Teeth For Eyes" by Ho-Ag seems to be from the point of view of The Corinthian: The chorus might sound like Word Salad Lyrics, but is actually a description of the character, who literally has two mouths where his eyes should be ("Who am I? / Who am I? /Corinthian spy / I am that guy with the teeth for eyes")
  • The Hold Steady have a lovely shout out to Bruce Springsteen's famous line, "Tramps like us, baby, we were born to run" in their song "Charlemagne in Sweatpants" with the line "Tramps like us, and we like tramps."
    • The Hold Steady have numerous shout outs to the likes of Dillinger Four, Jack Kerouac, Youth of Today, Seven Seconds, John Cassavetes, John Berryman and more.
    • The Hold Steady have shout outs to their own songs: "Stay Positive" alone references "Hornets! Hornets!", "Positive Jam", "Massive Nights", "Sweet Payne", and "Most People are DJs". And that's just one song.
    • The Hold Steady are a band composed of Shout Outs - poets, bands both obscure and well-known, previous events in the ongoing story of Holly, the Bible and earlier song lines and titles. There's now have a whole wiki devoted to explaining references.
    • "Raise a toast to Saint Joe Strummer I think he might have been our only decent teacher!"
  • The Horrors thrive on this trope. Notable examples include:
    • “Sheena Is a Parasite”, which is a Shout-Out to the Ramones and their song “Sheena Is A Punk Rocker”. This makes more sense when you realize that the song is actually a short, brutally told history of punk rock.
    • Faris openly lifted lines from the Jay and the Americans song “She Cried” for the bridge of “Who Can Say”.
    • Their song “Monica Gems” is a general Shout-Out to Sixties Psychedelic Rock.
    • The band recently repainted their studio floor orange and blue stripes in homage to Syd Barret.
  • The iconic Ian Dury and the Blockheads single "Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3" is a veritable list of shout outs to the things Ian found delightful, from Elvis Presley and Smokey Robinson to Steven Biko, Woody Allen, Italian crooner Adriano Celentano, and the The Marx Brothers.
  • Ice Cube, Friday
    My big homey just got out
    Used to be down now he's just cracked out
    He's 'bout hard as Darth Vader
    In his sweatshirt, khakis and Chuck Taylors

    Smokin indo
    Playin dat Super Nintendo
    Hear a rat tat tat on my window
  • The Icona Pop song "Girlfriend" uses lines from Tupac Shakur's "Me And My Girlfriend". It uses the line "All I need in this life of sin is me and my girlfriend" from the chorus and changes "Down to the ride to the bloody end" to "Down to ride 'till the happy end". Tupac's song is about a gun while IconaPop sings about The Power of Friendship (or romance to some).
  • Inquérito, Meu Super-Herói
    Meu bom velhinho me manda um Atari se der
    Põe na lixeira que aqui em casa não tem chaminé

    E a tv sempre mostrava ao contrário, num entendo
    Criança feliz tinha que ter Super Nintendo

    Carregava sempre a mesma arma, a marmita
    O desemprego era o medo, a Kryptonita
  • Interface's "Mirror, Mirror" references a line from Assemblage 23's "The Noise Inside My Head": "A prisoner to the noise inside your head".
  • In This Moment's "Big Bad Wolf" uses "The Three Little Pigs" references as allegories about the protagonist.
  • The video to the INXS track "Mediate" is a homage to the "Subterranean Homesick Blues" section of the Bob Dylan rockumentary Don't Look Back.
  • Ivan Ives, Villain
    Well, I guess y'all thought I was the shit
    Cause like a Super Nintendo, I got my 16 bit
  • Jared Evan, Super Nintendo (Outerlude): Video shows Super Mario Bros. 3 in an NES.
    What ya gonna do?
    What ya gonna do when the game is over?
    SuperNintendo, yea
    But you ain`t on my level, aye
  • Jay-Z:
    • "Big Pimpin'" references Bun B, Pimp C, and Timbaland.
    • He references several comic characters in his track "Kingdom Come" off the album of the same name. He compares himself to Superman/Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, and Peter Parker. Plus the parallel between the state of Hip-Hop at the time of his album's release and the state of the world in DC's Kingom Come.
  • Rapper Jean Grae named herself after the Marvel superhero Jean Grey.
  • Jimmy Eat World's song "A Praise Chorus" contains a shout out to "Crimson and Clover" by Tommy James and the Shondells, "Our House" by Madness, "Why Did We Ever Meet" and "All of My Everything" by Promise Ring, "Don't Let's Start" by They Might Be Giants, and "Kickstart my Heart" by Motley Crue - all in one verse:
    Crimson and clover, over and over
    Our house in the middle of the street - why did we ever meet?
    Started my rock n' roll fantasy
    Don't, don't, don't let's start
    Why did we ever part?
    Kickstart my rock n' rolling heart
    • "The Authority Song" has the lines "The DJ never has it / JMC Automatic": JMC is an abbreviation for The Jesus and Mary Chain, and Automatic is one of their albums. The song's title is a reference to John Mellencamp's similarly named "Authority Song" - the Title Drop is in the context of playing a song called "Authority Song" on a jukebox, and the lyrics also mention "What Goes On".
  • The fourth movement from Johannes Brahms' Symphony No. 1 in C minor contains a very obvious shout out to Ludwig van Beethoven's Ode to Joy — written into the Symphony when Robert Schumann named Brahms "the second Beethoven". After the Symphony was finished (it only took Brahms 14 years to write it) Hans von Bulow dubbed it "Beethoven's Tenth". When told the two symphonies bore a certain similarity, Brahms replied, irritatedly, "Any ass can see that."
  • Johnny Polygon, Lovesick (Super Nintendo)
    Love sick, masochists if this is all we are
    Super Nintendo
    It's okay, it's alright, we gon' get fucked up tonight

    I play too much Super Nintendo
    Staring at TV
    Looking through windows so long
    Ooh, baby, it hurts so good (so long)
    Ooh, baby, it hurts so good (so long)
    I play too much Super Nintendo
    Super Nintendo (so long)
  • The lyric video for Italian singer Jovanotti's single "Nuova era" features a caricature of the artist in concert as an astronaut in front of a huge audience composed of aliens. Among them, the usual Greys, some Martians from Mars Attacks!, ALF, Ro-Man, Zorotl (the blue alien from Eiffel 65's, uh, Blue), and others looking like Mudokons. Also, as a Freeze-Frame Bonus, there's a hidden alien Waldo.
  • Juniel's stated One Piece inspired her to write "Summer Vacation". Sure enough, the lyrics have lines like "With an old treasure map and a compass in our hands, let’s go to find our brilliant dreams".
  • Though he's never mentioned by name, "D.A.N.C.E." by Justice is a tribute to Michael Jackson. The biggest hints at this are blatant lyrical nods to his hits "P.Y.T." ("You were such a P.Y.T.") and "Black Or White" ("Neither black or white / it doesn't matter"), as well as The Jackson 5's "ABC" ("Just easy as ABC").
  • Michael Kamen's score for Die Hard 2 quotes Mrs. Gulch's theme from The Wizard of Oz for the moment when McClane uses a bicycle to take out a bad guy!
  • Kanye West:
    • "Bonnie & Clyde Freestyle" references Eminem, Jay-Z, Mase, Nas, The Notorious B.I.G., and Tupac Shakur.
    • "Breathe In Breathe Out" references Candyman, Lexus GS, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan Altima, Pentium, and the Sony Handycam.
    • "Siiiiiiiiilver Surffffeeeeer Intermission" not only refers to Silver Surfer and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer; it is a shout out to Max B and the mixtape Public Domain 2: Rise of the Silver Surfer.
    • Graduation (the album "Stronger" is on) also includes the track "Good Morning", where West rhymes
      Good morning and, look at the valedictorian
      Scared of the future while I hop in the Delorean
    • Even his dark, brash electro effort Yeezus includes, on the song "Guilt Trip", the line
      Star Wars fur, yeah I'm rockin' Chewbacca
  • The announcing video by the Swedish band Kent for their last album, Då som nu för alltid is basically consisting of this trope: It's full of references to old songs, albums and music videos by the band, in an amazing way.
  • Alicia Keys' "Girl on Fire" has "She's a lonely girl, and it's a lonely world" (Eddie Holman) and "She gonna let it burn, baby, burn" (The Trammps). Earl Shuman, the writer of the former song, sued Keys for plagiarism.
  • DJ Khaled's "I'm So Hood (Remix)" references Batman (1989), Cadillac, Frasier, Joe Frazier, the New Orleans Saints, the Rolls Royce Phantom, and T-Pain's "I'm So Hood".
  • Kid Rock referenced "Amazing Grace" in "Cowboy": "I once was lost, but now I'm just blind", combining that line and the next, "Was blind but now I see". "Cowboy" references Amadeus Mozart and "Rock Me Amadeus" by Falco, and Beck's beer, Boone's wine, Four Seasons Hotel, Larry Flynt, and the Los Angeles Lakers.
    • "All Summer Long"'s refrain ends with "singing Sweet Home Alabama all summer long" followed by the well-known guitar scores from the famous Lynyrd Skynyrd song.
    • In "Bawitdaba", in addition to referencing Busy Bee Starski, "Rapper’s Delight" by The Sugarhill Gang, Jack Daniels Whiskey, and Southern Comfort, Kid Rock is giving a shout out to strippers, those who peruse at strip clubs, cars packed with speakers, gangstas consuming 40 oz. beers, prostitutes utilizing beepers, crackheads, critics, cynics, heroes at the methadone clinic, hookers in Hollywood, hoods throughout the world, gangs receiving money, Ford Mustangs, pornography, acquaintances in cell block six of a county jail, grits, and the notorious hijacker D.B. Cooper.
  • Klaus Schulze:
    • "Bayreuth Return" and "Wahnfried 1883" from Timewind, as well as Schulze's alternate name Richard Wahnfried, are references to the works of Richard Wagner. The former refers to the town where Wagner built his opera house for the first performance of Der Ring des Niebelungen, while the latter two refer to the name of the composer's home, where he was buried upon his death in 1883.
    • X includes tracks named for Friedrich Nietzsche, Georg Trakl, Frank Herbert, Friedemann Bach, Ludwig II of Bavaria, and Heinrich von Kleist.
    • Dune is named for the famous novel by Frank Herbert, while the cover art is a screenshot from Solaris (1972) with the title overlayed which Schulze photographed directly from his television screen.
    • Trancefer includes a track named "Silent Running", after the film of the same name.
  • Lagwagon's Hoss album is named after the Bonanza character, with the cover art being a photo of actor Dan Blocker as the character. Apparently, when asked permission for his likeness, the late Blocker's family just requested a small donation to charity in return.
  • Layzie Bone's "I Get Higher" references Toucan Sam of Froot Loops.
  • Ted Leo & The Pharmacists' album The Tyranny of Distance is named after a lyric from "Six Months in a Leaky Boat" by Split Enz - they would later do a Cover Version of the Split Enz song on the EP Tell Balgeary, Balgury is Dead.
  • "Sphinxes" from Leonard Bernstein's "Divertimento for Orchestra" is an unadorned representation of the principal theme which recurs throughout the work, much like the movement of the same name (intended not to be played) from Schumann's "Carnaval".
  • Ken Leavitt-Lawrence, a.k.a. MC Hawking, performs his astrophysics-themed raps with a WillowTalk speech-to-text and represents himself as being Stephen Hawking.
  • The artwork to Liars' "There's Always Room On The Broom" single is an Affectionate Parody of the logo of Einstürzende Neubauten - a crudely drawn broomstick and witch-hat are added to the stick figure-like symbol, and "Einstürzende Neubauten" is crossed out and replaced with "Liars".
  • In Canadian electropop singer Lights' song "Ice" she pays a brief lyrical homage to Vanilla Ice ("...I'll let a little light melt the Ice Ice Baby!").
  • Lil B, Video Game Master
    Yeah, Lil B bitch
    Yeah! I'm overseas bitch, yeah, playing Nintendo
    Video games, all games, nigga, all-terrain
    All the things, about anything, man I don't care
    Yes, all games, any game...
    Zelda-uh
    Super Mario, Smash Bros, anything man, smash hoes like Smash Bros
    Smash in the back of this NASCAR, yeah so hard
    Gran Turis', yes sir
    Final Fantasy is the bitch
    Flash games, you better not play games
    I'm not playin' games, nigga PS2 bitch
    Don't play games, I got Xbox 3-6-Oh, yes

    Yes sir, put on pause
    Mod chips and mod chips, I got video games like mod chips
    I got 360 games on my XBox
    Hundred million games on my PS
    Hundred million games on my 2, bitch

    Video games, ET, TT, Tekken 3, Tekken 6, 8, haha

    Video games
    Play video games, nigga, y'kna mean?
    I told y'all I've been on them motherfuckin' games since the Sega Genesis
    Super Nintendo, y'kna mean? Atari, Sega Dreamcast, y'kna mean?
    PS2 nigga, PSOne, y'kna mean? All that shit man, super fun
    Metal Gear Solid on y'all motherfuckers, y'kna mean?
    I'm on y'all a hundred percent man
    Hah, yeah
    Video games, so real so strict

    $50, oh my fucking god I don't give a fuck, PS2, $50 games? Hahaha
    Yeah
    I just wanna tell y'all man, niggas playing video games all day
  • Lil' Jon's "In Da Club" references Kill Bill.
  • Lil' Troy's "Wanna Be a Baller" references 2 Low, the Chevrolet Impala, the Ford Expedition, Lil Ike’s Auto Collision, Lil’ Will, Lorinser, Mercedes-Benz, Moët & Chandon champagne, Short Stop Records, Swisher Sweets, Vogue Tyres, and Yungstar.
  • Lil Uzi Vert is himself a lover of comics both Western and Japanese, and his passions have frequently influenced his work and his aesthetics. His Luv Is Rage-Lil Uzi Vert vs. The World-The Perfect LUV Tape mixtape trilogy is heavily inspired by Scott Pilgrim (particularly the cover art and name for vs. The World), and he also drops various references to Naruto on "New Patek", the instrumental for said song also sampling the main theme from Death Parade. The music video for "He Did It" is a full-blown AMV featuring shots of animes like One Piece, Hellsing Ultimate, Black Lagoon, Fullmetal Alchemist, as well as (censored) shots of both ecchi and hentai. The cover art for the lead single of Eternal Atake, "Futsal Shuffle 2020", also shows an anime-fied version of him chased by various groupies in a similar fashion to a Harem Genre manga, and he has an entire collection of full Itasha wraps for his cars.
  • Lil Wayne's "10,000 Bars" references Austin Powers, Big Daddy Kane, Big Pun, Bill Gates, Corona beer, Discovery Channel, Ferrari, Kobe Bryant, the Los Angeles Lakers, Mase, Maybach, McDonald's, Mercedes-Benz, Nelly, The Notorious B.I.G., The Nutty Professor, The Prodigy, "Smack My Bitch Up", Range Rover, Tupac Shakur, Wolverine, and X-Men.
  • Limp Bizkit's "Take a Look Around" has "Follow me into a solo, remember that, kid? So what you gonna do?"
  • This is the tale of Captain Jack Sparrow!
  • The Finnish metal band Lordi has the song "Bringing Back the Balls to Rock", which contains numerous references to Eighties rock, and one single's cover art is KISS's Creatures of the Night cover, but with them instead.
  • The third movement of Luciano Berio's Sinfonia is a veritable potpourri of shout outs and quotations.
    • The form of the movement is based on the third movement of Gustav Mahler's Second Symphony.
    • The orchestra plays snatches of Claude Debussy's "La Mer", Maurice Ravel's "La Valse", Igor Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring", as well as quotations from Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern, Johannes Brahms, Henri Pousseur, Paul Hindemith and others.
    • An octet of singers and narrators intone (there's no other description) texts from Beckett, Joyce and others.
  • Lucinda Williams has done a number of shout outs over her long career. Her best known album "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road" has three: Hank Williams and Loretta Lynn in the title track, Robert Johnson in "2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten", Howlin' Wolf in "Lake Charles" and ZZ Top in "Metal Firecracker".
  • Ludacris
  • Lupe Fiasco loves anime and RPGs, and has made this known in many of his songs. He also has a punk band side project called Japanese Cartoon. While he denies naming his fifth album Tetsuo and Youth after the character, he does admit to being inspired by the character.
  • Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama" has a chorus devoted to singer Neil Young, and how they felt he had insulted the state of Alabama:
Well I heard Mr. Young sing about her
Well I heard old Neal put her down
Well I hope Neil Young will remember
Us Southern men don't need him around, anyhow.
  • Marianas Trench gives a shout out to Imogen Heap, The Black Eyed Peas, and Mumford & Sons in "Pop 101" while the lyrics reference Justin Bieber and the video references LMFAO, Kesha, and Robin Thicke.
  • Marilyn Manson has Omega, his persona throughout the Mechanical Animals Concept Album + Part 2 of his triptych. Omega is an androgynous space alien turned rock star.
  • "Down at the Twist and Shout" by Mary Chapin Carpenter (a song about her love of Cajun music) mentions the band BeauSoleil. BeauSoleil provided background vocals for the song.
  • Max Tundra's "Gondry" is all about how cool director Michel Gondry's music videos are (and how much he'd like Gondry to direct a video for him, despite the fact that it'd probably be too expensive). There's yet to be a Michel Gondry directed Max Tundra video, but Gondry did in fact hear the song - The booklet included with Director's Series, Vol. 3 - The Work of Director Michel Gondry includes a letter he sent to Max Tundra about it, complete with an outline of what kinds of videos he could shoot for different listed budgets.
  • MC chris ships Elixir and Wallflower, if the song "Nrrrd grrrl" is any indication.
  • Darryl McDaniels, one-third of Run–D.M.C., started his own line of comic books, Darryl Makes Comics.
  • The British band McFly is named after Marty McFly in the Back to the Future trilogy.
  • In "To Hell With Good Intentions", McLusky boast "We do more drugs than a touring funk band" - this is a play on a one-liner from Bill Hicks: "I don't do drugs anymore... than, say, the average touring funk band"
  • Mercury Rev's "Delta Sun Bottleneck Stomp" ends with the repeated line "Waving goodbye, I'm not saying hello", which seems to invert a line in The Flaming Lips "Felt Good To Burn" ("I wasn't waving goodbye, I was saying hello"). It's probably an intentional nod, because Mercury Rev's Jonathan Donahue was in The Flaming Lips when they had written "Felt Good To Burn" itself.
  • Metallica's "Leper Messiah" borrows the title from a line of David Bowie's "Ziggy Stardust". "Murder One" is named after Lemmy's amplifier, and filled with references to Motörhead to honor the recently departed frontman.
  • Method Man
  • MF DOOM: After his brother was killed in a car accident, he reinvented himself with a Doctor Doom-obsessed supervillain persona. His work contains references to numerous comic books, movies, and Saturday morning cartoons, and he collaborated with mega-producer Danger Mouse on an [adult swim] sponsored album called The Mouse and the Mask that contained songs about Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Perfect Hair Forever, and more.
  • Mike Watt's Contemplating The Engine Room is a Concept Album about working in a ship's engine room, which is meant as a metaphor for his experiences in Minutemen (among other things). Accordingly, when his Author Avatar narrator gives a long list of fellow crew members in "Topsiders", he actually uses the names of various people who had some connection to SST Records, the record label the band were on: Members of Black Flag, Hüsker Dü and The Meat Puppets are named, as are people like frequent SST Record Producer Spot, Black Flag roadie Mugger, and Black Flag and Minutemen cover artist Raymond Pettibon. The album also has a couple of references to "Fireman Hurley", who is clearly meant to be former Minutemen drummer George Hurley.
  • "I Love 64" by mind.in.a.box: "Will you still love me when I'm sixty-four (bits)?"
  • The EP Supernaut by 1,000 Homo DJs has a cover that homages that of Black Sabbath's Master Of Reality - fittingly enough, the title track is a Black Sabbath cover.
  • Monuments - the song "Horcrux" is a Shout-Out to Harry Potter, as in the part of The Amanuensis's storyline the song tells the main character has to hand over a piece of himself to the gatekeepers of the Garden of Sankhara (the basic principle of a horcrux in the Harry Potter franchise).
  • The Mooney Suzuki named themselves as a shout out to two former Can vocalists: Malcolm Mooney and Damo Suzuki.
  • The vocaloid song Full Moon Laboratory by mothy is a shout out to Fullmetal Alchemist.
  • Moulty Records was an independent record label that mainly released Boston Garage Rock and Punk music, and was named after Victor "Moulty" Moulton, the drummer from 60's Boston garage rock group The Barbarians. There was also a pun involved: They wanted to release records with "hooks", as in catchy refrains, and Moulty lost a hand for an accident and thus had a literal hook in its place.
  • Murda Turk, Dat Doen We Niet Meer (Remix)
    Up, up and the way we go
    Star Trek: Enterprise
    Lay low, ik blijf zo
    Super Nintendo
    Ik ben old school, ik ben oude school
  • The parade theme adopted by My Chemical Romance during their performances of The Black Parade was an allusion to The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
  • My Morning Jacket's "Librarian" mentions "Rainy Days and Mondays" by the Carpenters, and alludes to Karen Carpenter's death.
  • The video for "Ghost" by Mystery Skulls is a shout-out of The Exorcist, right down to the girl levitating off the bed.
  • "99 Red Balloons" by Nena references Star Trek: The Original Series:
    "Everyone's a superhero, everyone's a Captain Kirk"
    • If you look at the German lyrics, it means that everyone thinks they are Captain Kirk - that they live in deluded states, really. Which is why they think 99 balloons are a nuclear threat.
    Hielten sich für Captain Kirk
  • Pharrell Williams' rock band side project is called N.E.R.D., and their symbol is the Vulcan salute.
  • Randy Newman's "Kathleen" quotes the 1958 Italian pop hit "Nel blu dipinto di blu," better known in the English-speaking world by the title used for Dean Martin's Translated Cover Version: "Volare"
    "Nel blu, dipinto, Dipinto di blu
    Felice de stare, Di stare lassu"
    That means you love him and he loves you
    "Piu bel ci sono Ci sei tu"
  • OnCue, Inhale Exhale
    Cause I felt like I had them, since I was 9 with Aladdin
    On the Super Nintendo, so please tell me where did this time go?
  • Nelly
  • Nerf Herder:
    • Their name comes from dialogue in The Empire Strikes Back, where Princess Leia rebukes Han Solo's romantic advances by calling him a "nerfherder".
    • In "We Opened For Weezer", they fondly reminisce about their first time touring, which was as a support act for Weezer in 1997. The members of Weezer themselves get mentioned, as do "fifth member" and band archivist Karl Koch, and originally fan club founders Mykel and Carli Allan. Specific Weezer songs are mentioned ("Say It Ain't So" and "Butterfly"), and a verse deals with the fact that Pinkerton, the album Weezer were supporting at the time, was being trashed by critics but would later be Vindicated by History. Even the music is arranged In the Style of early Weezer. Buffy the Vampire Slayer also gets a mention in the song, since Nerf Herder performed the series opening theme, and the tour in question occurred right around the same time the first season of the show was airing. Finally, there's kind of a combination shout out and self-reference when the backing vocals start quoting "Jump" by Van Halen - Nerf Herder's first hit single was titled "Van Halen", with lyrics about the band that also quoted "Jump".
  • Nicki Minaj:
  • Noah:
    • Their original name Peterpan may or may not have been a Shout-Out to Peter Pan — they flip flop between saying it was named directly after the boy or it was named after something else which happens to share the name.
    • In the acoustic concert of Keterkaitan Keterikatan, Ariel tells the cello player to play the James Bond Theme in the middle of "Kau Udara Bagiku". Said interpolation is noticably absent when the recording is released in an album.
  • "Jaw Knee Music" by NOFX is just a big collection of Shout Outs to classic punk bands, including the The Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, Stiff Little Fingers and many others.
  • The Notorious BIG's "Juicy" references the battle between the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis in the Console Wars, often given a Shout Out:
    Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis
    When I was dead broke, man I couldn't picture this
    • A$AP Rocky, New York Bittersweet Symphony
      And I'm blowing up fast so I feel like B.I.G
      With the Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis
    • Chris Morris, Super Nintendo samples "Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis" from The Notorious B.I.G.'s Juicy, and samples Super Mario Bros. The "Super Nintendo" album cover shows Ryu and Ken, Donkey Kong, Link, Mike Tyson, Ryu Hayabusa, Kirby, Samus Aran, Mario and Wario.
      On this Super Nintendo I go so hard
      My light bill large and I ain't paying the rent bro
      And if they cut it shit that's what my friends for
      I'm all Up in they crib tryna play my Nintendo

      Street Fighter's my game, Mortal Kombat the same
      Ryu And Liu Kang Will send your ass to Japan
      Bet five and it's on
      A fireball to your chest
      Finish off with a combo and put 'em to rest
      Mom's yelling for chores and my girl says she's bored
      So I turn off the game and I'll be back in the morn
      Yeah I'll be back in the morn.
    • King Chip, Dear Hip-Hop
      Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis
      I was ten years old with the flow I reminisce
    • Minority$ociety, Dreams
      Who know the old days can change the way you think
      No taking it for granted, could be gone in a blink of an eye
      Now it's too late, click rewind
      Back to my Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis days.
    • Snoop Dogg, Santa Claus Goes Straight to the Ghetto:
    I want a Super Nintendo ... yeah, Sega Genesis, yeah
    Street Fighter II, all these games...
    • Spose, Why Am I So Happy?
      When I was six, my biggest worry if I can reminisce
      Was that I’d have a Super Nintendo but not a Genesis
    • Teiji Mack, Cigarett Trips
      Full crib, Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis
      Back then the buttons for the Hadouken, seemed limitless
      Pressing anything to hit a fatality
    • Too Far Boyz, Juicy ;)
      Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis
      That's what I used to to before I found my dick.
    • "Batman & Robin", while ostensibly a cover/parody of the Adam West Batman (1966) series, Snoop mentions characters that weren't in the series, such as Clayface. Generally Snoop Dogg has proven himself to be quite nerdy, showing interest in a wide variety of areas, including Game of Thrones and Dragon Ball Z.
  • The Notorious B.I.G.'s "Hypnotize" references the BMW M3, Coogi, "Da Doo Ron Ron" by The Crystals, the Detroit Pistons, DKNY, King of New York, the Lexus LX450, Martin, the Mercedes-Benz SL600, Moschino, Richie Rich, Roots, Starsky & Hutch, Star Wars, Timberland boots, Fruit of the Loom Underoos, and Versace.
  • Ogre You Asshole are named after dialogue from Revenge of the Nerds note , sort of: The story goes that drummer Arata Nishi ran into Eric Judy of Modest Mouse, who were touring Japan at the time, and being a fan, he asked Judy to name their band - he replied "I can't" at first, but then he wrote "Ogre You Asshole" on Nishi's arm. It was only later that the band learned it was a reference to the movie, which none of them had seen. After the band did take the time to watch the film, they made a further shout out by calling an album AlphaBeta vs. Lambda, after the dueling fraternities at the center of the plot.
  • Okkervil River's song "Plus Ones" from their album The Stage Names is a Song of Song Titles, and the same album's closer, "John Allyn Smith Sails", fuses a story about the suicide of poet John Berryman with a cover of the song "Sloop John B".
  • Orange Goblin included a pretty major shout out to Black Sabbath in their song "Nuclear Guru". They borrowed the final verse of Sabbath's "Into the Void" for their song's final verse.
    Mama said she's come to take us home
    Leave this broken planet all alone
    Find a world where love is there to stay
    Peace and happiness in every day
    It's gonna be okay
  • One verse of "Rip It Up" by Orange Juice ends in the line "...and my favorite song is entitled boredom", which is a shout out to the Buzzcocks song "Boredom". The lyric is immediately followed by a musical quote of that song's distinctive two note guitar solo.
  • Ozma's Rock And Roll Part Three. It wasn't their third release note  or a sequel to anything else called "Rock And Roll"; the title was meant as a nod to Gary Glitter's "Rock And Roll, Part One" and "Rock And Roll, Part Two".
  • Panic! at the Disco's first album, A Fever You Can't Sweat Out, has several Chuck Palahniuk references, most obvious in the song "Time to Dance".
  • Peter, Paul and Mary's "I Dig Rock-And-Roll Music" directly references by name, The Mamas and the Papas and "California Dreaming" and indirectly references their drug habits (John Phillips would, years later, admit he gave drugs to his daughter Mackenzie), by mentioning how he could really get on the scene that the Mamas and the Papas were into, but he couldn't flat out admit what it was because "if I really say it, the radio won't play it." Donovan and The Beatles are also name-dropped in the same song.
  • Petty Morals named themselves after a Keith Richards quote. During a trial resulting from a drug raid, Richards was quoted as saying of himself and the other members of The Rolling Stones "We are not old men. We are not worried about petty morals". The band also sells t-shirts based on the quote.
  • Phoebe Bridgers' album Stranger In The Alps is named after an infamous Bowdlerised version of The Big Lebowski - in the TV edit of the film, the line "do you see what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass!?" is nonsensically dubbed over as "Do you what happens when you find a stranger in the alps!?". Phoebe decided the censored line would make a good album title because she found it "kind of poetic on accident".
  • Pinback's "AFK" includes the line "I miss you, but not in a Slint way". This is most likely a reference to the Slint song "Good Morning, Captain", which ends on a very creepy note with Brian McMahan shrieking "I MISS YOU!"
  • Poets of the Fall
    • The title of their first album, (and later Temple of Thought Bonus Track) Signs of Life, is a nod to Pink Floyd’s instrumental of the same name.
    • Zoltar the Fortuneteller, the Sad Clown automaton singer from the video for "Carnival of Rust," is named for the Zoltar Speaks machine in Big.
    • "The Ultimate Fling" has nods to two of Dirty Harry’s quotes in its chorus; specifically, "Make my day," and "Do you feel lucky?"
  • The first lyrics from "Movin' On Up" by Primal Scream are "I was blind, now I can see / You made a believer out of me", which are very similar to the lyrics in the bridge of "Yoo Doo Right" by Can, a band that Primal Scream have mentioned in interviews as an influence on them.
  • Prince shout-outs:
    • "Get Your Groove On": "Bring the player, I'll bring the CDs / But don't U put nothing slow on / That new D'Angelo, some N.P.G. / And we'll make a bet 2 see who keep their clothes on."
    • "Good Love": "Gustav Mahler No. 3 jammin' on the box."
    • "Undisputed": "My level is now what you must learn to rise above / Talk to D'Angelo or better yet ?uestlove."
  • Princess Nokia mentions being a fan of Marvel comics on the track "Bart Simpson", the reason being:
    Characters look just like me,
    And women don't have roles that make them look too sexually
  • Speaking of Neon Genesis Evangelion, the entirety of A Thousand Angels by Rachel Macwhirter is basically a shout out to it.
  • The Radiators (US):
    • "Long Hard Journey Home" is a tribute to Professor Longhair, who is namechecked in the first line.
    • "I Want to Go Where the Green Arrow Goes" references the comic book character.
    • "Sunglasses On" is full of references to the biblical character Moses.
    • The Last Watusi (their farewell concert and album) was a reference to The Band's farewell concert and album, The Last Waltz. A watusi, like a waltz, is a type of dance—but a much less...respectable one.
  • The Raveonettes have said they arrived at their name by mashing up references to two of their main musical influences: Specifically, it's meant to be a shout out to both the Girl Group The Ronettes and the Buddy Holly song "Rave On".
  • Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Good Time Boys" includes several prominent references to other bands: Fishbone ("Funk it up, Fishbone"), X (US Band) ("If you don't believe me just ask John Doe", along with a brief sample of "White Girl"), Minutemen, and fIREHOSE ("He'll tell you in a minute about the men he knows / he'll tell you 'bout a band called fIREHOSE"). A line mentioning "the Watt towers" might also be an oblique reference to Mike Watt (who was in both Minutemen and fIREHOSE).
    • "Melowship Slinky In B-Major" from Blood Sugar Sex Magik has "Good god, purple haze now / Good god, the baddest of brains now".
      • One of their B Sides is an instrumental titled "Fela's Cock" - fans who don't catch the reference to Nigerian musician and political activist Fela Kuti tend to assume it's a typo for "Flea's Cock".
    • "Deep Kick" has the line "...but the Butthole Surfers always said 'it's better to regret something you did than something you didn't do'", referencing the intro to Butthole Surfers' "Sweat Loaf".
    • "Purple Stain" off of Californication is chock-full of these.
    • Also from Californication, this set of lines from the Title Track:
    Space may be the final frontier but it's made in a Hollywood basement
    And Cobain can you hear the Spheres
    Singing songs off Station to Station
    And Alderaan's not far away, it's Californication.
  • Reece Mastin has a few in "Rock Star" the music video and song, one to his audition on The X Factor, one to Emma Stone and P!nk and Patrone and some other moments in his history.
  • Reel Big Fish have references to their other songs in the song "Alternative, Baby".
  • Reggie and the Full Effect's 41 is named after the age James Dewees was when the album was recorded, just like Adele does with all of her album titles - the album art is also a parody of Adele's 21, using a Deliberately Monochrome closeup of James with his eyes closed and his head resting on one hand, shortening the group name to just Reggie, and using similar fonts for the text.
  • "On the Radio" by Regina Spektor: "On the radio/We heard November Rain/The solo's real long/But it's a pretty song" and "And on the radio/You hear November Rain/That solo's awful long/But it's a good refrain"
  • The Rentals' "Sweetness And Tenderness" has the lines "It's just like when Gary Numan says / 'you're just a viewer, cold and distant'". Minus the actual namedrop, this is a slight paraphrasing of Gary Numan's "Conversation" ("You're just the viewer, so cold and distant").
  • "Life Is a Rock (But the Radio Rolled Me)" by Reunion, in addition to being a Song of Song Titles, drops tons of references from 50s, 60s and 70s pop culture. (Although the reference to Jack the Ripper isn't a Shout-Out. Hopefully.) If you're interested, see the list at the end of this article at The Other Wiki or, perhaps better still, watch this video.
    • Incidentally, McDonald's used the music from "Life Is a Rock" for its "Menu Song" in the late 80s. (Mmm, McDLT.)
  • Rico Nasty appears with a Hello Kitty backpack in her track "Smack A Bitch", and includes anime-styled versions of herself in promotions. Her website includes an interactive 8-bit streetfighter version of herself.
  • Rittz, Profit
    No tours and shit, no Super Nintendo, but I got cartridges
  • Rocket From The Crypt named themselves after another band, Rocket From The Tombs - this became slightly more confusing when Rocket From The Tombs, who had broken up in 1975 without releasing an album and were mainly heard via bootleg recordings, reunited and started releasing official studio albums. The Rocket From The Crypt album Scream, Dracula, Scream! was named after a Wesley Willis catchphrase, although Wesley probably got it from the title of blaxploitation horror parody film Scream Blacula Scream to begin with.
  • Redman's "Dunfiato" references Berkeley College, Darryl Strawberry, Godzilla, Kendrick Lamar, Martin Luther King Jr., Michael Jordan, Serena Williams, South Park, Tic Tac mints, and Wayne Gretzky.
  • Remy Banks's "Saturday" references Apple Jacks, Billionare Boys Club, Cartoon Network, Children of the Night.
  • The name of Power Pop band Ridel High is a pun combining Rydell High, the fictional high school setting of Grease, with the name of their vocalist, Kevin Ridel.
  • The title of Darius Rucker's second country album (and third solo album), Charleston, SC 1966, is a shout-out to Radney Foster, one of the main influences on Rucker's country career. Foster's debut album, which Rucker said "showed me the possibilities of country music", was named after Foster's birthplace and year of birth: Del Rio, TX 1959. One guess as to where and in what year Rucker was born.
  • "Road Trip" by Scottish folk-rock band Runrig includes a paraphrase of Bruce Springsteen with the line "'Cause, baby, tramps like us were born with the cianalas" (Gaelic for homesickness).
  • The end of Rush's "The Spirit of Radio" has a spoof of the last line of Simon & Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence".
  • RZA's "And Justice For All" references Ghostface Killah, "Can It Be All So Simple", Full Metal Jacket, Ghost Rider, In the Heat of the Night, Julius Erving, M*A*S*H, Roots, and Trapper John, M.D..
  • Almost Once An Album, Sabaton has a song made entirely of references to other metal songs, bands or lyrics.
  • Sade's song Smooth Operator has the following lyrics:
    Diamond life, lover boy
    He move in space with minimum waste and maximum joy
    City lights and business nights
    When you require <u>streetcar desire</u> for higher heights
Which is a shout-out, of course, to the play A Streetcar Named Desire and its film adaptation.
  • Saigon, Oh yeah (Our Baby)
    I remember one time I was over at my Auntie house
    Spending the night. And we playin' Super Nintendo
  • sasakure.UK:
    • "For Campanella" is based on Night on the Galactic Railroad.
    • "Tiger Rampage" is based on The Moon Over the Mountain by Atsushi Nakajima.
    • "Crybaby Pippo" quotes "Be not defeated by the rain, Nor let the wind prove your better", the famous line from Be not Defeated by the Rain by Kenji Miyazawa.
    • "A Soliloquy of The Boy who Cried Wolf" is based on The Boy Who Cried Wolf, one of Aesop's Fables.
    • "Little Cry of The Abyss" is based on The Little Mermaid. The music video includes the original Danish text of the fairy tale.
    • "to Asteroid B-612" is told from the perspective of the titular character of The Little Prince.
  • "Rät" by Penelope Scott is a song mocking elitist Silicon Valley "tech bros" like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, and includes the line "And I hope someday Selmers rides her fuckin' train." This is a nod to "Selmers" Forrester from Night in the Woods, who wrote a poem with similar sentiments about wanting to "catch a bus out to the West Coast / and burn their silicon city to the ground."
  • Scott Walker's "The Seventh Seal" is a lyrical homage to the Ingmar Bergman film of the same name.
  • Seth Gueko, Barre de Fer
    Du coup j'crève mes ballons, j'me console avec ma Super Nintendo
  • Ed Sheeran's Castle on the Hill has the line "Driving at 90 down those country lanes / singing to Tiny Dancer."
  • The end of ""Shia LaBeouf" Live" has Shia LaBeouf giving a dead-serious Slow Clap in the silent theater, a nod to Citizen Kane where Kane does the same for Susan after her terrible opera debut. LaBeouf is shot from the same angle as Kane and is even wearing the same tux and white bowtie.
  • MC Silk, #Hot16challenge
    Synapsy stymulowane Super Nintendo
    Dla zasady suki synu, jak samuraje kendo
  • Simon Curtis' "Joystick" is an innuendo filled Intercourse with You song consisting completely of video game references.
  • Sixto Sounds & zircon's Flash Man remix "Nuclear Flash" includes a short riff from the old Mega Man (Ruby-Spears) cartoon. Hear it here (section in question is at ~1:56).
  • Skepta's "Mike Lowery" is full of those, starting with the line that gives the title (and there's a version that opens with a Snatch. sample):
    Look a badboy straight in the face, tell him I'm a real badboy, fuck Mike Lowery
    I just say Candyman five times in the mirror but nothing ain't happening

    I been producing since Mario Paint on the Super Nintendo.
  • In The Smashing Pumpkins' song "If There Is a God", the singer ponders that if there were a God, He'd like "his loud guitars and his spiders from Mars".
  • Snoop Dogg
    • "Drop It Like It's Hot" references Chandon champagne, Ice Cream sneakers, Rolex, and the Rolls-Royce Phantom.
    • "Gin and Juice" references Daz Dillinger, Kurupt, Long Beach, and Tanqueray gin.
  • South Park Mexican
    • "Hillwood" references Cadillac and Lexus.
    • "You Know My Name" references Chevrolet Impala and Lexus.
  • Solarstone's "The Last Defeat, Part 2", in addition to being stylistically reminiscent of Sarah McLachlan, includes the lyric "A Sweet Surrender".
  • In the middle of Soul Coughing's "Casiotone Nation", Mike Doughty throws in quotes from the title theme from Yor: The Hunter from the Future ("Yor, Yor, he's the man, he's the man") and Fugazi's "Waiting Room" ("everybody's movin', everybody's movin', everybody's movinmovinmovinmovin'!").
  • Soulja Boy has admitted to having an anime obsession. He released a mixtape that sampled the Death Note soundtrack, and he released two mixtape-exclusive tracks titled "Anime" and "Goku".
  • Spandau Ballet's song "True" has a line "Listen' to Marvin [Gaye] all night long. "
  • Spencer Owen's Uncaged references Harry Potter, Dumbledore, Hermione, Snape, and Susan Sarandon.
  • Spit's "Blue Velvet" - the lyrics are entirely quotes from Blue Velvet; specifically, they're all lines said by the character Frank Booth. The chorus is a direct sample of the movie, a loop of Dennis Hopper yelling "Don't you fuckin' look at me!".
  • SpongeBOZZ's Streetfighter references Super Nintendo, Jack in Tekken 6, Ryu and Ken in Street Fighter, Fight Club, Heath Ledger, Kiss of the Dragon, Ong-Bak, John Woo, Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, and Mortal Kombat.
  • Arin Hanson's project Starbomb is composed of nearly constant video game references, though he's better known as an animator and Grump than rapper.
  • Stevie Wonder's "Sir Duke" from Songs in the Key of Life has a lot of references to 1940s musicians (names not appearing in the lyrics in square brackets):
    Music knows it is and always will
    Be one of the things that life just won't quit
    But here are some of music's pioneers
    That time will not allow us to forget
    For there's [Count] Basie, [Glenn] Miller, [Louis] "Satchmo" [Armstrong]
    And the king of all Sir Duke [Ellington]
    And with a voice like Ella [Fitzgerald]'s ringing out
    There's no way the band can lose
  • Al Stewart has a lot:
  • Stephanie Mabey's "The Zombie Love" is about a zombie woman who falls for a living man. Being a late 2000s, early 2010s song it obviously references a certain book.
    And all of your friends, they'd try to kill us. But only because they'd be jealous that our love is deeper than Edward and Bella's.
  • Rap-metal band Stuck Mojo drops comic references in its songs, including in "Here Comes The Monster" referencing The Incredible Hulk — note reference to Bruce Banner, as in the comics, and not David Banner, as in the TV show:
    Ill fools from Atlanta busting out Like Doctor Bruce Banner.
    I am green with envy I just want my shot in the Industry.
  • Richard Strauss's symphonic poem "Ein Heldenleben" (A Hero's Life) has a section titled "The Hero's Works of Peace" which is mostly made out of Leitmotifs lifted out of Strauss's previous compositions. These include several each from Strauss's popular tone poems "Don Juan," "Don Quixote" and "Also Sprach Zarathustra," but the single most frequent source is his little-known first opera Guntram.
  • Sublime
    • "April 29, 1992" references "Deep Cover" by Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre.
    • "Caress Me Down" references the G.I. Joe Kung Fu Grip and Ron Jeremy.
    • "Doin' Time" references Bradley Nowell, DJ Marshall Goodman, Long Beach, California, and the Dalmatian Lou Dog.
    • "Garden Grove" references Garden Grove, Lou Dog the Dalmatian, and the music from Jamaica.
    • "KRS-One" references KRS-One, Breath Control by D-Nice and KRS-One, and Elijah Muhammad.
    • "Smoke Two Joints" references "Rock Me Tonight" by Freddie Jackson.
    • "STP" references Flava Flav, Just-Ice, Matt Vargas, and Reggae music.
    • "What I Got" references Long Beach, California, the Dalmatian Lou Dog, "Lovin'" by Half Pint, "My Mom Smokes Pot" by the Rolling Scabs, "The New Style" by the Beastie Boys, and "Nappy Heads" by Fugees,
    • "Wrong Way" references "It’s Up To You" by The Specials.
  • Sugar Ray's "Fly" has the line "Twenty-five years old, my mother, God rest her soul." This is a direct reference to a line from Gilbert O'Sullivan's "Alone Again, Naturally", in which the mother's age was 65.
    • "Rivers" was written to sound like a Weezer song, and its Non-Appearing Title refers to Weezer's Rivers Cuomo. The shout out was apparently appreciated; about ten years later, Rivers Cuomo gave the song "Love Is The Answer" for Sugar Ray to perform, and appeared on their version of the song.
  • "Rapper's Delight" by The Sugarhill Gang, the first rap hit, had an extended album version that included a verse where Big Bank Hank talks about meeting Lois Lane and disses Superman.
  • "Alive" by Superchic[k] has a reference to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy.
  • Swashbuckle, a pirate-themed Thrash Metal band, begins their song "Cruise Ship Terror" with some dialogue that ends with "Take no prisoners, take no shit!" They also have a song, "We Are the Storm", is shouts out to Music/Alestorm and other Folk Metal bands.
  • Teenage Fanclub named their album Thirteen after the Big Star song of that name. Another nod to a Big Star song title was in the liner notes to Bandwagonesque - the "thank you" list had the heading "Thank You Friends".
  • Thousand Foot Krutch's song "I Get Wicked" has the line "P.S.: Don't play me like a 3DS."
  • Too Much Joy's "Susquehanna Hat Company" is titled after an Abbot and Costello routine: in the routine, the duo are trying to deliver hats to the title business and need directions, but anyone who they stop to ask flies into a rage when they so much as say the name of the place. The song is apparently about a girl who has a similar effect on people: "all you do is say, say, say her name/ and everybody goes insane".
  • Titus Andronicus use quite a few shout outs in their music, perhaps the most badass being the ones in reference to Bruce Springsteen. See: "Tramps like us, baby we were born to DIE!"
  • Tom Tom Club's "Genius of Love" name-drops several notable black musicians, namely (in lyrical order) George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, Smokey Robinson, Bob Marley, Jamaican rhythm section/production team Sly and Robbie, disco pioneer Hamilton Bohannon, rap pioneer Kurtis Blow, and James Brown.
  • Tone Lōc's Funky Cold Medina tells how "Just like Mick Jagger, I can't get no satisfaction."
  • Rapper Floco Torres has released two albums which reference Rocko's Modern Life: Floco's Modern Life and Ralph BI Ghead.
  • Tori Amos has given shout outs to Neil Gaiman in many of her songs:
    • "If you need me, me and neil'll be hangin' out with the DREAM KING / Neil says hi by the way," in "Tear in Your Hand".
    • "Get me Neil on the line. No, I can't hold. Have him read 'Snow Glass Apples' where nothing is what it seems," in "Carbon" refers to Gaiman's short story, "Snow, Glass, Apples".
    • "Seems I keep getting this story twisted so where's Neil when you need him," in "Space Dog".
    • "and if there is a way to find you, I will find you. but will you find me if Neil makes me a tree," in "Horses" refers to a deal between Tori and Gaiman during his writing of Stardust.
    • "Got a sister named Desire...Teach me about them old worlds big brother," in "A Sister Named Desire".
    • "Where are the Velvets?" in "Hotel" refer to characters from Neverwhere.
    • "Wednesday...so we go from year to year with secrets we've been keeping..." in "Wednesday," referring to the character in American Gods.
    • "Neil is thrilled he can claim he's mammalian/'But the bad news,' he said, 'Girl, you're a dandelion.'" in "Not Dying Today".
    • She also includes him in the album credits of From the Choirgirl Hotel, Scarlet's Walk, Strange Little Girls, Under the Pink, and To Venus and Back.
    • Also, a shoutout to Nine Inch Nails in "Precious Things": "With their nine inch nails and little fascist panties..."
  • Toy Dolls: "PC Stoker" begins with a musical quote from the theme from ''Z Cars'.
  • Train's "Soul Sister" has the line "Hey soul sister, ain't that Mr Mister on the radio, stereo", referring to the group that performed "Broken Wings".
  • Two Song Place, a subunit comprising FT Island's Song Seunghyun and comedian Song Eunyi, parodied many Korean Pop Music music videos that were popular the time in their video for "Age Height". They parodied
    • EXO twice, first by reenacting "Wolf"'s... tree scene, and secondly with "Growl" by having the two and their backup dancers dancing in uniforms like the original.
    • Sunmi's "24 Hours" by having Eunyi depressingly sit on the bed in a white shirt like the soloist.
    • 2NE1's "Missing You" by having Eunyi plus some female backup dancers reenacting a group scene.
    • miss A's "Hush" by Eunyi and female backup dancers dancing the choreography in the same outfits plus the comedian biting the lollipop like Suzy.
    • Troublemaker's "Now" with the pair copying the backhug and car scenes and Seunghyun spoofing B2ST's Hyunseung's The Joker scene.
  • Tyga's Switch Lanes references Chris Brown, Chris Tucker, E-Honda, Money Talks, Nike Air, and Rihanna.
  • Tyler, the Creator is a huge fan of the Grand Theft Auto franchise, even recording new music for the game's fifth installment.
  • UFO's "Doctor, Doctor" has an incredibly obvious shout out to Led Zeppelin in its "Livin', Lovin'" chorus, although they make it sound original by taking it in a different direction. They also reference a band playing "Little Wing", and have an album with the incredibly Springsteen-ish title The Wild, the Willing, and the Innocent.
  • A few shout outs crop up on the album Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone? by The Unicorns:
    • "Les Os" has the lines "Is this love of ours alive? / Is it chemically derived?", which paraphrase "What Is The Light" by Flaming Lips ("What is the light / that you have / Shining all around you? / Is it chemically derived?").
    • "Ready To Die" mentions Biggie Smalls in it's lyrics, so it's probably not a coincidence that the song shares it's name with his first album.
    • "(I Was Born) A Unicorn" includes a spoken breakdown that parodies Vincent Price's spoken word section of "Thriller".
  • U2's "Staring At The Sun" includes the lyric "Stuck together with God's glue", which is a reference to an album of the same name by fellow Dublin rock group Something Happens.
  • Van Halen's "Can't Stop Lovin' You" in the final chorus shows that Ray Charles' "I Can't Stop Loving You" was an influence:
    And I know what I got to do
    Hey, Ray, what you said is true, ooh
    I can't stop lovin' you
  • Vampire Weekend's song "Holiday" has a first line ("Holiday, oh, holiday, and the best one of the year") that closely echoes the first line of Fairport Convention's "Matty Groves."
  • The title of Velvet Crush's Teenage Symphonies To God is a shout out to The Beach Boys - Brian Wilson was famously quoted as describing Smile as "A teenage symphony to God". They also called a compilation A Single Odessey as a shout out to The Zombies' Odessey And Oracle (note that both titles spell "odyssey" the same way).
  • Grindcore/Hardcore Punk band Venomous Concept have a name that plays on the name of Hardcore Punk band Poison Idea - According to the band themselves, their name is meant to sound like "Poison Idea" rendered in Intentional Engrish for Funny, so it's both a tribute to Poison Idea and an Affectionate Parody of Japanese hardcore bands with Gratuitous English names.
  • Aside from being named after a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory character, Veruca Salt have made a lot of shout outs to other bands:
    • The album American Thighs is named for a line in AC/DC's "You Shook Me All Night Long".
    • Eight Arms To Hold You was also a Working Title for a Beatles album (which became Help! instead).
    • In another Beatles reference, the bridge to "Volcano Girls" parodies "Glass Onion":
      Told you 'bout the Seether before
      You know the one who's neither or nor
      Well here's another clue if you please
      The seether's Louise
    • The bridge of "Born Entertainer" is a nod to Cheap Trick's "I Want You To Want Me":
      I want you to want me
      I need you to need me
      I dare you to ditch me
      I beg you to miss me
    • "Number One Blind" includes a short bridge with the repeated lyric "It is time", a confirmed reference to The Pixies' Single Stanza Song "Stormy Weather". The chorus of the song is centered around a pun about a brand of window blinds, of all things: "Levolor, which of us is blind?"
    • "Laughing In The Sugar Bowl" has the lines "'Whole Lotta Love' is playing on the radio" and "'Dirty Back Road' is playing on the stereo".
    • Though the band themselves haven't said so, the EP title Blow It Out Your Ass It's Veruca Salt has been interpreted as a parody of Nevermind The Bollocks Heres The Sex Pistols.
  • Vision Divine to Survivor's "Eye Of The Tiger" on their instrumental Nemesis.
  • Walk Off The Earth's "Red Hands references "Black Betty":
    Don't put the blame on me, child, the damn thing gone wild
  • Weezer have a few songs full of these:
    • "I look just like Buddy Holly, oh, oh, and you're Mary Tyler Moore..."
      • And the video to that song is a homage to Happy Days, complete with footage from the series.
    • "In The Garage" references the X-Men, KISS, and Dungeons & Dragons, while "El Scorcho" mentions Green Day, Cio Cio San from the opera Madame Butterfly, and professional wrestlers Johnny Grunge and New Jack.
    • "Heart Songs" is essentially a List Song of Rivers' musical influences over the years, organized chronologically from the 1970s (starting with Gordon Lightfoot's "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald") to 1991 (a full verse about how hearing Nevermind inspired him to start Weezer itself).
    • "Jamie", "Susanne", and "Mykel And Carli" are tributes to the band's lawyer, an A & R assistant at their record label, and the former leaders of their fan club, respectively.
    • And, of course, "Pork and Beans" — while the song itself is mostly Take Thats to the mainstream (Timbaland is even mentioned by name), the video is filled with Shout Outs to YouTube memes, with a lot of Internet celebrities personally appearing in original footage.
    • "Devotion" includes a somewhat obscure KISS reference: Rivers Cuomo mentions being "no six foot, hot look, all American man" in that song, whereas in "All American Man", Paul Stanley refers to himself as "a six foot, hot look, all American man".
  • Scott Weiland's "Jimmy Was A Stimulator" begins with a sound effect of a car starting up, a Miami bass style hip hop drum loop, and Scott ad-libbing "we like the cars, the cars that go boom" - this is a reference to "Cars with the Boom" by Miami bass hip hop duo L'Trimm.
  • "Weird Al" Yankovic:
    • He directly quotes a verse of the Gilligan's Island theme in "Amish Paradise": "No phone, no lights, no motorcars, not a single luxury. Like Robinson Crusoe, it's as primitive as can be". Also, "Tonight we're gonna party like it's 1699".
    • The name and cover of Al's fifth album, Even Worse, are an obvious reference to Michael Jackson's Bad, with the song "Fat" parodying the title track of said album.
    • He spoofed Chamillionaire's track "Ridin'" with "White and Nerdy", which is all about an extremely geeky white guy who wishes he could be accepted by the 'gangsters'. Given the title of the spoof, this was of course full of nerdy references, from collecting X-Men comics to finding out if he liked Kirk or Picard better.
    • The Animated Music Video for "Don't Download This Song" homages the Everything Explodes Ending of White Heat.
  • The band Whirlwind Heat named themselves after the cover art to Sonic Youth's Goo. Said album cover includes the following text: "I stole my sister's boyfriend. It was all whirlwind, heat, and flash. Within a week we killed our parents and hit the road"
  • John Williams' theme to Close Encounters of the Third Kind plays "When You Wish Upon a Star" from Disney's Pinocchio quite clearly at one point. The tune is played as a message to the aliens at the end of the film.
  • "I've Seen All Good People" by Yes has the background vocals "All we are saying/is give peace a chance". Along with another Lennon shoutout in the lead vocals, "send an instant karma to me/initial it with loving care."
  • The title of Heavy Metal band Zimmers Hole's album When You Were Shouting At The Devil... We Were In League With Satan combines two somewhat contrasting 1980s metal references - Mötley Crüe's song and album Shout At The Devil and Venom's song "In League With Satan". It supposedly came out of a band member overhearing an argument between two people about who was "more metal" and turned into a band in-joke; Since Venom are considered more "underground" than Crue, the title translates to "when you were a poseur, I was the real deal".
  • What would happen if some radio executive somewhere decided that it would be a good idea to form a bubblegum pop band aimed solely at teenaged female nerds? They might end up with something like "Yuri the Only One", a pop song whose lyrics are entirely composed of video game and anime references. A sample of the lyrics:
  • The album Prayer for the Weekend is filled with Shout Outs: "The Worrying Kind" has the line "just a mortal with potential of a superman," "New Pollution" actually shifts into a lyrical and musical parody of "Amazing Journey" from Tommy at the start of the chorus, and the title track is one long Shout-Out to Alice Cooper. Beyond that, a line from "Little Dysfunk You" is "always quoting Morrisey, but did you ever do it with a boy?"
  • A trance tune called "14 Hours To Save The Earth" references a line from the Flash Gordon movie: "But we only have 14 hours to save the earth!" One of the mixes is called the Rocket Ajax mix, after War Rocket Ajax from the same movie.
  • A couple Southern Rock bands have songs containing a bunch of Shout Outs to other Southern Rock bands or artists:
  • Eurobeat songs frequently contain shout-outs, for example "Go Rocky Joe" by Maximum Power, in addition to being very similar to "Spiderman" by Mark Foster, has the line "Rocky Joe, now somebody's watching you", shouting out to "Somebody's Watching Me" by Rockwell.
  • The New Wave of British Heavy Metal was chock-full of bands named after songs by Thin Lizzy, UFO, and Judas Priest. Chinatown, Black Rose, Heavy Pettin', Obsession, and Dissident Aggressor, just as the tip of the iceberg. Later speed metal bands borrowed Exciter (Judas Priest song, band initially an Iron Maiden clone), Overkill (Motörhead song), and Machine Head (Deep Purple album).
  • Two Covered Up versions with Shout Outs to the performer of the cover: Seal's "Fly Like an Eagle" goes into the chorus of his song "Crazy", and Lenny Kravitz's "American Woman" goes "I gotta go! I gotta get away! Baby I gotta go! I wanna fly away!".
  • Taj Mahal's "Jorge Ben" is a full song shout out to South American musician Jorge Ben Jor, who wrote "Taj Mahal" - which was well known for being Rod Stewart's "inspiration" for his one disco single(of which le later lost a lawsuit over).
  • Tupac Shakur
    • "5 Deadly Venomz" references Five Deadly Venoms.
    • "California Love" references Converse Chuck Taylor sneakers, Elliot Ness, Inglewood, Locs sunglasses, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Oakland, Pasadena, Sacramento, and San Francisco.
  • Ty Dolla $ign's "Blasé" references Bombay Sapphire, Christian Louboutin, Hennessy, Maserati, Mercedes-Benz, Ludacris's "Area Codes", and Nate Dogg.
  • Rapper Wale, who, although he nicely drops sports references in his rhymes (and refers to himself occasionally in songs as "Wale Ovechkin" as per the Washington Capitals player), gained notice for a critically acclaimed mixtape that was inspired by (and used samples from) Seinfeld. He had a second Seinfeld-themed (and popular) mixtape some years later.
  • Warren G's "Annie Mae" references The Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight".
  • Will Smith's "Gettin' Jiggy With It" references The Jeffersons, the Los Angeles Lakers, Oakland Raiders, and Shaquille O'Neal.
  • Wu-Tang Clan
  • Wynonna Judd's "Girls with Guitars" has the riffs to "Sunshine of Your Love" and "Smoke on the Water". The final line of the song quotes Dire Straits' "Money for Nothing" as well.
  • XV
    • 80's Baby
    Getting a Super Nintendo was a thing in your dreams
    I was the first one on the block with it, felt like a king
  • Yo Gotti's "Down in the DM" references Angela Simmons, BMW, Instagram, Facetime, and Snapchat.
  • Your Old Droog, Sonic Youth
    Team Super Nintendo, I never played Sonic as a youth
    NBA Live with Mitch Richmond on the cover
  • Swedish rapper Yung Lean seemingly has a soft spot for the Super Mario franchise, having referenced it in lyrics and song titles on numerous occasions. In the video for his song "Hurt", he can also be seen waving around Pokemon cards and Nintendo 64 paraphernalia.
  • The first verse of Steps' "Deeper Shade of Blue" quotes The Ink Spots' "Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall". The chorus also references the line "Planet Earth is blue, and there's nothing I can do" from David Bowie's "Space Oddity".
  • The main lyric of "Magic Carpet Ride" (no relation to the Steppenwolf song) by Mighty Dub Katz is a reference to "White Horse" by Laid Back: "If you wanna get high, get on my carpet ride. If you wanna get rich, you're gonna pay like it's a bitch."
  • Near the end of Jr. Jr.'s "Gone" video, the chorus line of disembodied legs performs a gravity-defying 45-degree lean similar to that in Michael Jackson's "Smooth Criminal", but sideways.
  • The bridge of Mariah Carey's "Fantasy", which Sampled Up Tom Tom Club's "Genius of Love", covers the first verse of the original song.
  • The verses of Gerard Joling's "Together Again" each interpolate a line from Neil Young's "Only Love Can Break Your Heart", namely "How does it feel to be alone?" and "You have a friend you never see".
  • The chorus of Bananarama's "Look on the Floor" almost directly quotes that of My Mine's 1984 Italo Disco single "Hypnotic Tango".
  • "In Space, No One Can Hear You Cry" by Color Theory includes shout-outs to both of Ridley Scott's most famous films: the title referencing the tagline of Alien, along with the Previews Pulse in the intro, and a bridge passage similar to Vangelis's end titles theme from Blade Runner.
  • The title track of Kraftwerk's Trans-Europe Express has the lyric "From Station to Station, back to Dusseldorf City, meet Iggy Pop and David Bowie".
  • Power Glove's Playback album cover depicts lookalikes of Ahnold and Sly Stallone posed in the style of the NES box art for Contra.
  • "Everyone Falls in Love" by Tanto Metro & Devonte has two: "Tell me whatcha wanna, whatcha really really wanna do", and "Beep beep, the singer got the key to the Jeep, vroom".
    • Fellow Jamaican dancehall artist Beenie Man, in "Who Am I?", likewise has "Sim simmer, who's got the keys to my Bimmer?"
  • "Twilight Zone" by Dance Mafia feat. Ange Lloyd both samples the theme tune of the 1959 series and interpolates the 2 Unlimited song's main riff.
  • The covers of BT's second and third albums both reference 2001: A Space Odyssey. ESCM displays The Monolith, while the vinyl sleeve of Movement in Still Life has the Star Child.
  • Bomfunk M Cs' "Freestyler" has a double shout-out in its first verse: "Or will your heart go on like Céline Dion, Karma Chameleon". Then the second verse gives us "Like Debbie Does Dallas, yeah we come scandalous, so who the fuck is Alice, she from the Buckingham Palace?"
  • "Petit Love" by Smile.dk, featured in Dance Maniax 2nd MIX and DanceDanceRevolution 4th MIX PLUS, gives us "Mr. Lennon said it, all you need is love".
  • Pet Shop Boys' "I Want To Wake Up" mentions "songs like 'Tainted Love' and 'Love Is Strange'".
  • Buttress: The plot of "Brutus" is inspired by Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, with the main conflict arising from Brutus' betrayal of her friend and benefactor Julius Caesar.

Alternative Title(s): Shout Out Music

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