The Song that Best Represents a Band/Artist

[spike]

if we do Neil Young, we should do solo and with Crazyhorse. There’s enough material to warrant separating them.

We already decided on Down By The River for Neil Young. What's your Crazyhorse pick?

He did that one with The Horse.

[epilogue]

if we do Neil Young, we should do solo and with Crazyhorse. There’s enough material to warrant separating them.

We already decided on Down By The River for Neil Young. What's your Crazyhorse pick?

He did that one with The Horse.

Oh. My bad. Strike what I said, then. Reverse it.

What's your Neil Young pick?

[E.H. Ruddock]

Old Man

[tragabigzanda]

[tragabigzanda]

[epilogue]

What about Bowie? He's had so many lives. What single song best represents David Bowie? Is it Life On Mars, or maybe Space Oddity, or Ziggy Stardust? Is it Changes?

[tragabigzanda]

Top 10 maybe?
Hello Morning
Close Captioned
The Kill
Place/Position
Do You Like Me?
Latest Disgrace
Recap Modotti
Nightshop
Break
Life & Limb

I'd maybe bump Life & Limb for Epic Problem

[epilogue]

Okay, so... I've been thinking this through since my Bowie post...

The song that best represents a band/artist.

To me, that's one song that if you played it for someone it would tell them what they needed to know about that artist. It doesn't mean everything that artist does has to be represented. It's the song that represents the group's essence. One song that would tell a novice whether or not they needed to bother digging deeper into a body of work.

With that in mind, I think Life on Mars? is my pick for Bowie. It's lush. It's weird. It's lyrical. It's catchy. It's character driven. It's dramatic and cinematic. It transports. All things I associate with David Bowie.

[washing machine]

Pavement - Silence Kid

This is probably true, even if I personally relate with Pavement through Wowee Zowee and beyond.

[washing machine]

Sonic Youth - Schizophrenia

Hmm

This is 100% true.

[tragabigzanda]

[washing machine]

I want Reid to weigh in on Malkmus.

It's most likely Real Emotional Trash. This one was tough because Malkmus's solo career is just so varied and also not super well known, so a "definitive" anything in that regard is not something most music fans probably care about.

I'm picking RET because it jumps all over the place, but in a way that hits everything I consider "definitive" about SM and the Jicks. It's a full band effort, like most Malkmus lyrics the song is serious but not serious, it's the right tempo, and most importantly it's a giant showcase for some definitive Malkmusian guitar work. It's also a show-stopper live, Doors reference and all. Only Malkmus could somehow work LA Woman into a song in a way that makes sense and not sound like a total tool.

[washing machine]

Sonic Youth - Schizophrenia

Hmm

This is 100% true.

KD makes a solid argument for The Diamond Sea later in the thread, but I welcome your support

I love KD and I love Washing Machine, but I just really don't think he's given pre-Geffen SY a fair enough shake on the board over the years for that to be a balanced take. I should read the actual posts though.

[epilogue]

I love KD and I love Washing Machine, but I just really don't think he's given pre-Geffen SY a fair enough shake on the board over the years for that to be a balanced take. I should read the actual posts though.

For what it's worth I think KD's right. Using my definition/understanding of how this thread works, of course.

[washing machine]

For Sonic Youth I'd say "The Diamond Sea" -- for something truly representative of the band I think you'd need a track that represents their concise songwriting capacity and their longform instrumental proclivities. Despite its length I think "Diamond Sea" is one of SY's catchiest and most palatable songs during the "song" portion, but it goes on to do an equally great job representing the feedback, texture, etc. experiments that they go into in greater depth on their side releases.

Good call on The Diamond Sea, KD. I went with Schizophrenia bc it has the more experimental/noise bridge in the middle of an otherwise tight composition. But yours would work too.

Okay, I disagree with KD and I'm with trag on this one. Though it may sound like trag is also now with KD? Still, I'm going Schizo.

Here's why: Though both songs have a noisy, no wave element to them independent of the song structure proper, Schizophrenia has more of it with less of a time stamp. Schizo also has Thurston and Kim singing. And better Steve Shelley drums. Come on.

But most importanly, and this is obviously subjective to no end, but Schizophrenia to me just sounds more like a SY song. It's slightly out of tune, it's unsettling but somehow ear candy too, it is full of texture, and when I close my eyes I can see dark NYC alleyways, clear as day.

[tragabigzanda]

[washing machine]

Yeah go to hell KD!

Its the old fruit that makes wine

[epilogue]

Yeah go to hell KD!

Its the old fruit that makes wine

wat

[washing machine]

Yeah go to hell KD!

Its the old fruit that makes wine

wat

It's a fairly layered post that I constructed specifically for trag.

[epilogue]

Yeah go to hell KD!

Its the old fruit that makes wine

wat

It's a fairly layered post that I constructed specifically for trag.

Ah, well never mind then.