Okay, let's do this!
An otherwise perfect song that, to your ears, is ruined because of a bad musical decision.
First one that comes to mind is Elvis Costello's "It's Time," from "All This Useless Beauty." I love this track. It's got a pounding beat, great lyrics and a chorus to die for. Then comes that damn suspension bridge, opening up and slowing the whole damn thing down. The melody doesn't even fit over the drum beat. There is a single version of the tune, which thankfully omits the awful middle.
This might ruffle some feathers, but both "Midnight Rambler" and "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" could use some editing. Both kick off with killer grooves and then, to my ears, just fizzle out altogether. I don't think the second halves of either are particularly good jams.
I am sure I'll come up with a dozen more, but I just wanted to get you started.
32 comments:
Sacrilege! I think the ending of 'Can't You Hear Me Knocking" is the best instrumental passage in their whole catalog. However, I fully agree with you "It's Time". No need for that part, and the song would be better with that minute trimmed. I think the jam at the end of Rambler is pretty decent; not great. But since it's rare for the Stones to stretch out, I'm OK with it
While I acknowledge this is basically asking for a public stoning, I would have been okay if the "Na-na-na-nananana-nas" on the back half of "Hey Jude" had been trimmed a bit...
Fleetwood Mac - "Oh Well, Part 1"
Elvis does this with irritating regularity and "It's Time" is far from his worst offense. Check out "You Bowed Down" from the same album or even "Veronica" for two more glaring examples.
"While I acknowledge this is basically asking for a public stoning..."
Hahaha.
The "Hey Jude" ending for me, has always been about Paul's vamping. He's channeling Otis and Little Richard and I could listen to that for 10 minutes.
@delraich
What about "Oh Well Pt. 1?" Where's the sabotage?
When I read that Dion had recorded "If I Should Fall Behind" I couldn't wait to hear it.
The doo-wops ruined it.
Zep's "Royal Orleans" is fantastic but once it hits the "Down on Bourbon St" part, for me, it hits a wall. The music is still churning but Plant's vocal is pedestrian at best and Gary Cherone-like at worst. Considering how brilliant he was at coming up with unique phrasing and melodies over Page's music, this cut was always irksome.
Oh my, I'll have to give this some thought, and definitely will try to stick to non-obscurities (if I find time to dive deeper than this here response).
I respond now, because I think I know what Delraich was hinting at: The first part of Oh Well is fine but not extraordinary prime Mac, but Pt 2 is sublime. I, in fact, when compiling my all-time fave songs, put Oh Well Pt 2 on it. It is my beloved Mojave Desert set to music.
C in California
i used to resent the funky break in the middle of Petty's "American Girl," but time heals all wounds.
This is an interesting topic because it requires you to think about songs you like -- but then if they get derailed, you don't like them any more. Generally, I find songs that have a break in the middle where the singer just talks about something to be too distracting to get into (like Adele's "My Little Love" off of 30 -- which was emotionally involving the first time I heard it, but now it's just kind of annoying on subsequent replays...)
And songs that differ from the album version vs the single version (which is an artistic decision for sure) can become tiresome. Too many examples of that to list (hah), but Captain Sensible's "Wot!" came to mind immediately -- it takes almost a full minute to get to the actual song.
But, then again, I can listen to Alice's Restaurant Massacree over and over...
And related to "Wot!" -- the first time I heard the single of "68 Guns" by The Alarm back in the day -- I fell in love with it (and still love it!)
But the album version adds this slow, boring "build-up" in the middle that sucks all the energy out of the song for me.
That boring guitar breakdown in the middle of Prince's "I Could Never Take the Place Of Your Man."
"Oh Well - Part 1" goes from an infectious acoustic blues riff into a 'sensitive' folky dirge with flute
Aha! I called Oh Well exactly opposite of Delraich! Vive le difference!
C in California
I actually love both parts of "Oh Well!"
Oh well!
The squawking bleating overlay destroying the outro of The Move's "Down On the Bay." A perfect recording willingly sabotaged, I've never understood it.
Funny that poor Gary Cherone was mentioned. I came here to add my 2 cents about David Lee Roth's spoken word parts in "Panama" and "Unchained". The former is tolerable, but the latter is Diamond Dave at his corniest.
Fully agree on "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" but "Midnight Rambler" never bothered me as much.
The recorded version of Springsteen's "Real World" on "Human Touch" ruins a GREAT song.
I have great respect for KRS-1 but I have NO idea what he's doing on R.E.M's "Radio Song"
"Hotel California" has that annoying 5 minutes of Don Henley before the great guitar duel at the end. But that might be not what you're looking for here :)
Sal,
100% agree about the Prince tune. One of his greatest pop tunes. Back in the cassette era, I made a (very) clumsy edit for the car.
Jim
100% agree about the Prince tune, one of his greatest pop tunes. Back in the cassette era i made a (very) clumsy edit for the car.
In the spirit of Chris Collins' Hotel California comment above, I almost complained about that cheesy porn soundtrack sax bit that pops up at the start of Baker Street and then pops up over and over. What's up with that???
Seriously, tho, he, and Sal, are off on the jam after the singing in Can't You Hear Me Knocking.
I used to, as a young'un, dismiss the noisy wordless coda at the end of T Rex's Rip-Off, but I like it lots now.
C in California
I love Midnight Rambler and Can't You Hear Me Knocking. De gustibus non est disputandum. Different strokes. I'm usually a sucker for middle eights or bridges. Hard to think of many I don't like. And usually if I don't like the bridge it's on a song that sucks anyway, like Bobby Goldsboro's "Honey." Beatles were masters of bridges. But some of their shittier songs like "Hold Me Tight," "Misery," and "Love Me Do" have terrible bridges.
There are scads of bridges I like a lot, like Beatles "I'm So Tired," "We Can Work It Out," "Oh! Darlin'," "Something," and "I Want To Tell You," just to name a few off the top of my head. Also I like the Stones' "Loving Cup," "Let's Spend the Night Together (cringe when I think what Bowie did to it)," "Miss You," and the bluesy live version of "Angie" from Brussels 1973. And any number of Beach Boys tunes ("Good Vibrations," "Heroes and Villains," "This Whole World").
But one that qualifies both as a favorite with reservations and major favorite would be Sagittarius' "My World Fell Down." That song was a big hit in San Bernardino. When it broke, I went to Gillette's Records (a hangout) in Riverside and, since I was mainly an album buyer, I asked if he had their album. There was no Sagittarius album in the Phone-O-Log. Little did I know there was no such band. But he had the single, so I forked over 69 cents for it. I loved the song in spite of the incongruent middle section sound collage which featured an annoying baby crying etc. I bought the LP at White Front over a year later. It took forever to come out. "My World Fell Down" wasn't the version they were playing on the radio. They edited most of the sound collage out. I think it was an improvement. Others may not agree.
VR
Jason Falkner's version of Do Ya, from a Jeff Lynne tribute album. The song rocks along and then right after the middle section/break, he includes this off-beat soundthing that goes something like sssttt-sssttt-sssttt for only a few seconds, but enough to derail a really great version of a really great song.
Randy
Animals 'Sky Pilot' with the go-on-too-long 'you-are-there' sound effects is highly editable, but same (albeit shorter) in Doors 'Unknown Soldier' doesn't bother me.
C in California
2:53 to 3:04 of Born To Run have always got me thinking…after that solo there was no point.
Noticed the Bowie pic on the right, the spoken interlude near the end of "Let's Spend The Night Together" should have ended up on the editing room floor...
@Ken D, back in the day when AM radio was reasonably relevant (and low-tech) the DJ at our local station must have gone out for a smoke break... there was a repeating skip near the end of their copy of Hey Jude, so we were treated to about 20 minutes of "nah nah nah nah-nah-nah CLICK". This sort of coloured my view of a reasonably good single.
Sabotage a song? But sabotage an album, now I got plenty and lets take a bat to a fave, Todds Wizard. Why oh why is Never Never Land song no 2? After a cool aural experience, we go disney? Lets get to Tic. And After the cool Motown Medley we get Hungry?
Todd eventually learns on future lps with Faithful and Initiation, keep the great songs together. Experiment on other side.
my fave Todd album. is called Wizard after all. that being said I never realized it was a cover till this year :)
How could I have forgotten The Lemon Twigs' "Hog". A beautiful ballad ruied by an atrocious, insane, serving no conceivable purpose, musically crap, middle part.
Non-Fiction by The Black Crowes starts off really good and then meanders, especially live
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