"Hotel California" is the title track from the Eagles' album of the same name and was released as a single in February 1977. Writing credits for the song are shared by Don Felder (music), Don Henley, and Glenn Frey (lyrics). The Eagles' original recording of the song features Henley singing the lead vocals and concludes with an extended section of electric guitar interplay between Felder and Joe Walsh.
The song is considered the most famous recording of the band, and its long guitar coda has been voted the best guitar solo of all time. The song was awarded the Grammy Award for Record of the Year in 1978. The lyrics of the song have been given various interpretations by fans and critics alike, the Eagles themselves described the song as their "interpretation of the high life in Los Angeles".In the 2013 documentary History of the Eagles, Henley said that the song was about "a journey from innocence to experience... that's all..."
"Dream On" is a power ballad by Aerosmith from their 1973 debut album, Aerosmith.Written by lead singer Steven Tyler, this song was their first major hit and became a classic rock radio staple. Released in June 1973, it peaked at number 59 on the Billboard Hot 100 but hit big in the band's native Boston, where it was the number one single of the year on WBZ-FM, number five for the year on WRKO and number 16 on WMEX (AM).[citation needed] The song received immediate heavy airplay too on the former WVBF (FM)...often showing up in the #1 position on "The Top Five At Five"...in June, 1973...
The album version of "Dream On" (4:28, as opposed to the 3:25 1973 45rpm edit) was re-issued in late 1975, debuting at number 81 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart on January 10, 1976, breaking into the Top 40 on February 14 and peaking at number 6 on April 10. Columbia Records chose to service Top 40 radio stations with both long and short versions of the song; thus, many 1976 pop radio listeners were exposed to the group's first Top 10 effort through the 45 edit.
"Dream On" was first played live in Mansfield, Connecticut at the Shaboo Inn.[citation needed] In a 2011 interview, Tyler reminisced about his father, a Juilliard-trained musician. He recalled lying beneath his dad's piano as a three-year-old listening to him play classical music. "That's where I got that Dream On chordage," he said.
Tyler says that this was the only song on the band's first album where he used his real voice. He was insecure about how his voice sounded on tape, so for the other songs, he tried to sing a bit lower and sound more like soul artists, such as James Brown.[citation needed] The song is also famous for its building climax to showcase Tyler's trademark screams. The main riff and chorus of the song were sampled in the 2002 song "Sing for the Moment" by rapper Eminem on The Eminem Show that also features a solo from Joe Perry.
Won't Get Fooled Again" is a song by the English rock band The Who, written by Pete Townshend. It was released as a single in June 1971, reaching the top 10 in the UK, while the full eight-and-a-half-minute version appears as the final track on the band's 1971 album Who's Next, released that August.
Townshend wrote the song as a closing number of the Lifehouse project, and the lyrics criticise revolution and power. To symbolise the spiritual connection he had found in music via the works of Meher Baba and Inayat Khan, he programmed a mixture of human traits into a synthesizer and used it as the main backing instrument throughout the song. The Who tried recording the song in New York in March 1971, but re-recorded a superior take at Stargroves the next month using the synthesizer from Townshend's original demo. Ultimately, Lifehouse as a project was abandoned in favour of Who's Next, a straightforward album, where it also became the closing track. The song has been performed as a staple of the band's setlist since 1971, often as the set closer, and was the last track drummer Keith Moon played live with the band.
As well as a hit, the song has achieved critical praise, appearing as one of Rolling Stone's The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. It has been covered by several artists, such as Van Halen who took their version to No. 1 on the Billboard Album Rock Tracks chart. It has been used for several TV shows and films, and in some political campaigns.
The song was originally intended for a rock opera Townshend had been working on, Lifehouse, which was a multi-media exercise based on his followings of the Indian religious avatar Meher Baba, showing how spiritual enlightenment could be obtained via a combination of band and audience. The song was written for the end of the opera, after the main character, Bobby, is killed and the "universal chord" is sounded. The main characters disappear, leaving behind the government and army, who are left to bully each other. Townshend described the song as one "that screams defiance at those who feel any cause is better than no cause". He later said that the song was not strictly anti-revolution despite the lyric "We'll be fighting in the streets", but stressed that revolution could be unpredictable, adding, "Dont expect to see what you expect to see. Expect nothing and you might gain everything. "Bassist John Entwistle later said that the song showed Townshend "saying things that really mattered to him, and saying them for the first time."
Townshend had been reading Universal Sufism founder Inayat Khan's The Mysticism of Sound and Music, which referred to spiritual harmony and the universal chord, which would restore harmony to humanity when sounded. Townshend realised that the newly emerging synthesizers would allow him to communicate these ideas to a mass audience. He had met the BBC Radiophonic Workshop which gave him ideas for capturing human personality within music. Townshend interviewed several people with general practitioner-style questions, and captured their heartbeat, brainwaves and astrological charts, converting the result into a series of audio pulses. For the demo of "Won't Get Fooled Again", he linked a Lowrey organ into a EMS VCS 3 filter that played back the pulse-coded modulations from his experiments. He subsequently upgraded to an ARP 2500. The synthesizer did not play any sounds directly as it was monophonic; instead it modified the block chords on the organ as an input signal. The demo was completed by Townshend overdubbing drums, bass, electric guitar, vocals and handclaps. Overall, the song ran at a slower pace to the version later recorded by the Who.
The Who's first attempt to record the song was at the Record Plant on W 44 Street, New York City, on 16 March 1971. Manager Kit Lambert had recommended the studio to the group, which led to his producer credit, though the de facto work was done by Felix Pappalardi. This take featured Pappalardi's Mountain band mate, Leslie West, on lead guitar.
Lambert proved to be unable to mix the track, and a fresh attempt at recording was made at the start of April at Mick Jagger's house, Stargroves, using the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio. Glyn Johns was invited to help with production, and he decided to re-use the synthesized organ track from Townshend's original demo, as the re-recording of the part in New York was felt to be inferior to the original. Keith Moon had to carefully synchronise his drum playing with the synthesizer, while Townshend and Entwistle played electric guitar and bass. Townshend played a 1959 Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins hollow body guitar fed through an Edwards volume pedal to a Fender Bandmaster amp, all of which he had been given by Joe Walsh while in New York. This combination became his main electric guitar recording setup for subsequent albums. Although intended as a demo recording, the end result sounded so good to the band and Johns, they decided to use it as the final take. Overdubs, including an acoustic guitar part played by Townshend, were recorded at Olympic Studios at the end of April.[11][12] The track was mixed at Island Studios by Johns on 28 May. After Lifehouse was abandoned as a project, Johns felt "Won't Get Fooled Again", along with other songs, were so good that they could simply be released as a standalone single album, which became Who's Next.
Guns N' Roses is an American hard rock band from Los Angeles formed in 1985. Their classic lineup, as signed to Geffen Records in 1986, consisted of vocalist Axl Rose, lead guitarist Slash, rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin, bassist Duff McKagan, and drummer Steven Adler. The current lineup consists of Rose, Slash, McKagan, keyboardists Dizzy Reed and Melissa Reese, guitarist Richard Fortus and drummer Frank Ferrer. The band has released six studio albums, accumulating sales of more than 100 million records worldwide, including shipments of 45 million in the United States, making Guns N' Roses one of the world's best-selling bands of all time.
Guns N' Roses' debut album, Appetite for Destruction (1987), reached number one on the Billboard 200 a year after its release, on the strength of "Sweet Child o' Mine", the band's only single to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100. The album has sold approximately 30 million copies worldwide, including 18 million units in the United States, making it the best-selling debut album of all time in the US, as well as the eleventh best-selling album in the United States. The success of the debut was followed by the eight-song album G N' R Lies (1988) which reached number two on the Billboard 200. The twin albums Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II (1991) debuted at number two and number one on the Billboard 200 respectively and have sold a combined 35 million copies worldwide, including 14 million units in the United States. The cover album "The Spaghetti Incident?" (1993) was the band's last studio album to feature Slash and McKagan.
After more than a decade of work and several lineup changes, Guns N' Roses released the long-awaited album Chinese Democracy (2008) which, at an estimated $14 million in production costs, is the most expensive rock album to ever be produced in music history. It debuted at number three on the Billboard 200 but undersold industry expectations, despite mostly positive critical reception. Classic era members Slash and McKagan both rejoined the band in 2016.
Guns N' Roses has been credited with reviving the mainstream popularity of rock music, at a time when popular music was dominated by dance music and glam metal. Its late 1980s and early 1990s years have been described as the period in which the group brought forth a "hedonistic rebelliousness" reminiscent of the early Rolling Stones, a reputation that had earned the group the nickname "the most dangerous band in the world". The band's classic lineup, along with later members Reed and drummer Matt Sorum, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012, in its first year of eligibility.
"Moneytalks" is a song written by Malcolm and Angus Young and produced by Bruce Fairbairn for the hard rock band AC/DC. Originally released on 21 September 1990 on the album The Razors Edge, it was later released as a single in December later that year. A live version of the song recorded on the band's 1990-1991 Razors Edge World Tour appeared on AC/DC's 1992 live album, Live.
The song is one of AC/DC's biggest hits, breaking the top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100, the UK Singles Charts, and the Australian ARIA Singles Chart. It is still the band's highest charting single in the United States, at number 23 (no other AC/DC single has even cracked the top 30). During their subsequent world tour, thousands of "Angus Bucks" were dropped on the audience during the song. A music video of the song, directed by David Mallet, was also released, featuring a live performance during the tour.
The song appears in the trailer to the 2011 film, Moneyball.
"School's Out" is a 1972 song first recorded as the title track single of Alice Cooper's fifth album and written by the Alice Cooper band: Cooper, Michael Bruce, Glen Buxton, Dennis Dunaway and Neal Smith.
Cooper has said he was inspired to write the song when answering the question, "What's the greatest three minutes of your life?". Cooper said: "There's two times during the year. One is Christmas morning, when you're just getting ready to open the presents. The greed factor is right there. The next one is the last three minutes of the last day of school when you're sitting there and it's like a slow fuse burning. I said, 'If we can catch that three minutes in a song, it's going to be so big.'"
Cooper has also said it was inspired by a line from a Bowery Boys movie. On his radio show, "Nights with Alice Cooper", he joked that the main riff of the song was inspired by a song by Miles Davis. Cooper said that guitarist Glen Buxton created the song's opening riff.
The lyrics of "School's Out" indicate that not only is the school year ended for summer vacation, but ended forever, and that the school itself has been blown up. It incorporates the childhood rhyme, "No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers' dirty looks" into its lyrics. It also featured children contributing some of the vocals. "Innocence" in the lyric "...and we got no innocence" is frequently changed in concert to "intelligence" and sometimes replaced with "etiquette." The song appropriately ends with a school bell sound that fades out.
Later performances saw Alice Cooper incorporate parts of the first verse in "Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2", a song by Pink Floyd (also about school, and produced by Bob Ezrin) into "School's Out."
"I Swear" is a ballad written by Gary Baker and Frank J. Myers that became a hit for two acts in 1994. Initially, it was a number-one single on the U.S. Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart for American country music artist John Michael Montgomery at the beginning of the year. His version crossed over to pop radio and climbed to number 42 on the Billboard Hot 100. A few months later, American pop group All-4-One covered the song and achieved great success in many countries. In Latin America it has been translated "Juraré" performed by the Costa Rican group Centinelas Vocal Band. In 1998, the Mexican country band Caballo Dorado recorded a Spanish version called "Ya sé".
"Felicità" (pronounced [felitʃiˈta]; Italian for "Happiness") is a song by Italian duo Al Bano and Romina Power, released in 1982. It was an international commercial success and remains arguably their best-known song.
The duo participated with the track in the 1982 Sanremo Music Festival and finished second. The song appeared on their 1982 album Felicità (also known as Aria pura). The closing track from the album, "Arrivederci a Bahia", was released as the B side. For the Spanish release, both songs were re-recorded in Spanish, and the single received a different cover image.
"Felicità" was met with a great commercial success, topping Italian singles chart and eventually selling in millions of copies internationally in march-june of the 1982.
The song was performed by Laislavo 'Lado' Kravanja and Léa Seydoux at the end of the 2009 film Lourdes.
"You Win Again" is a 1987 song written by Barry, Robin & Maurice Gibb and performed by the Bee Gees. Released as a single in late 1987, it marked the start of the group's comeback, becoming a number one hit in many European countries, including the UK—their first to do so in over eight years, and made them the first group to score a UK number-one hit in each of three decades: the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.
As songwriters, the Gibb brothers received the 1987 British Academy's Ivor Novello award for Best Song Musically and Lyrically. In 1988, the band received a Brit Award nomination for Best British Group. In a UK television special on ITV in December 2011, it was voted second (behind "How Deep Is Your Love") in "The Nation's Favourite Bee Gees Song".
Barry Gibb wrote the melody while brother Maurice conceived the drum sounds (in his garage) that open the track. On "1000 UK #1 Hits" by Jon Kutner and Spencer Leigh, Robin Gibb said "We absolutely thought that 'You Win Again' was going to be a big hit. It took us a month to cut it and get the right mix.
Maurice Gibb explained "You Win Again" in a May 2001 interview with Mojo magazine:
"When we get together and write, it's not like three individuals ― it's like one person in the room. Usually, we have a book of titles and we just pick one. I loved 'You Win Again' as a title, but we had no idea how it might turn out as a song. It ended up as a big demo in my garage, and I recorded stomps and things. There was just one drum on there. The rest was just sounds. Then, everybody tried to talk us out of the stomps at the start. They didn't want it. 'Take it off. Too loud! Can we have them not on the intro, just when the music starts?' All this stuff, but as soon as you hear that 'jabba-doomba, jabba-doomba' on the radio, you know it's us. It's a signal. So, that's one little secret ― give people an automatic identification of who it is."
"Poison" is a single by the New Edition spinoff group, Bell Biv DeVoe. This song—in the style of new jack swing, a late-1980s/early-1990s hybrid of R&B and hip hop—was the group's most successful, and sings of the dangers of falling in love. "Poison" was the first single taken from Bell Biv DeVoe's debut album of the same name.
The song was written and produced by Elliot Straite, AKA DJ Freeze. Straite had originally planned to feature the song on his own album, but plans changed when the members of Bell Biv DeVoe heard his demo version. "When the guys heard it, they went nuts. I didn’t think that record was going to be that big because it was a personal love letter to my ex-girlfriend at the time. It wasn’t a song at first. It was a letter. When I wrote it as a song, I let a lot of my friends hear it, and they said it was weird. After that, I put the music together. I was thinking I wasn’t going to be on the album because such heavyweights were already on it. I ended up having two songs on the album: “Poison” and “She’s Dope!”.
Interestingly, Straite cites Kraftwerk as an influence on his production of Poison, as well as Latin music. In a 2015 interview with Chris Williams for the Red Bull Music Academy, Straite says, "When I made “Poison,” I was studying Kraftwerk. When I heard Kraftwerk’s Trans-Europe Express album and their “Numbers” record, it made me want to change my whole style and approach to music. It gave me the musical inspiration to do “Poison.” I’m also mixed with Black and Puerto Rican. I had uncles that played with big Latin bands like Tito Puente and Mongo Santamaria. You could hear the Latin elements in “Poison.” I wanted to bring the Latin element into that record by using timbales. When you hear them say “poison” at the end of the record? That came from Kraftwerk. It brought a futuristic element to the track as well. I didn’t want it to be a regular R&B record."
"Paranoid" is a song by the British rock band Black Sabbath, featured on their second album Paranoid (1970). It is the first single from the album, while the B-side is the song "The Wizard". It reached number 4 on the UK Singles Chart and number 61 on the Billboard Hot 100.
"Paranoid" was the first Black Sabbath single release, coming six months after their debut album was released. Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler (from Guitar World magazine, March 2004):
A lot of the "Paranoid" album was written around the time of our first album, Black Sabbath. We recorded the whole thing in about 2 or 3 days, live in the studio. The song "Paranoid" was written as an afterthought. We basically needed a 3 minute filler for the album, and Tony came up with the riff. I quickly did the lyrics, and Ozzy was reading them as he was singing.
Paranoid was also used as the name of the album, and somewhat unusually, the word paranoid is never mentioned in the lyrics. Originally the band had wanted to call the album War Pigs after the song of the same name, but the record company persuaded them to use Paranoid instead because it was less offensive.
Legacy
"Paranoid" was ranked No. 1 on VH1's 40 Greatest Metal Songs.[4] In March 2005, Q magazine placed it at number 11 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks. Rolling Stone ranked it number 250 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
The original Black Sabbath recording has been used numerous times in various films and television shows including Sid & Nancy, Dazed and Confused, The Stoned Age, Any Given Sunday, Almost Famous, We Are Marshall, The Angry Birds Movie, and Suicide Squad. The song was used in the Sega Mega Drive game Rock n' Roll Racing in 1993, and WWE 2K17. The song was covered by industrial rock group The Clay People for the various artists compilation album Shut Up Kitty, released in 1993.
In Finland, "Paranoid" has the same status as Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Free Bird" in the United States as a song the audience finds great humor to request during a concert. So regardless of a band or the style of music in question, somebody may shout "Soittakaa Paranoid!" ("Play Paranoid!") during a gig.
"Call Me" is a song by the American new wave band Blondie and the theme to the 1980 film American Gigolo. Released in the US in early 1980 as a single, "Call Me" was number one for six consecutive weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, where it became the band's biggest single and second #1. It also hit #1 in the UK and Canada, where it became their fourth and second chart-topper respectively. In the year-end charts of 1980 it was Billboard's #1 hit, and according to Billboard magazine, was the top-selling single of the year in the United States in 1980 and RPM's #3.
"Call Me" was the main theme song of the 1980 film American Gigolo. The song is about a prostitute. Italian disco producer Giorgio Moroder originally asked Stevie Nicks from Fleetwood Mac to help compose and perform a song for the soundtrack, but she declined as a recently signed contract with Modern Records prevented her from working with Moroder. It was at this time that Moroder turned to Debbie Harry and Blondie. Moroder presented Harry with a rough instrumental track called "Man Machine". Harry was asked to write the lyrics and melody, a process that Harry states took only a few hours. Harry stated that the song is about driving, and that "When I was writing it, I pictured the opening scene, driving on the coast of California. "The completed song was then recorded by the band, with Moroder producing. The bridge of the original English-language version also includes Harry singing "Call me, my darling" in Italian ("Amore, chiamami") (Love, call me) and in French ("Appelle-moi, mon chéri") (Call me, darling).
In the US, the song was released by three different record companies: the longest version (at 8:06) on the soundtrack album by Polydor, the 7" and 12" on Blondie's label Chrysalis, and a Spanish language 12" version, with lyrics by Buddy and Mary McCluskey, on the disco label Salsoul Records. The Spanish version, titled "Llámame", was meant for release in Mexico and some South American countries. This version was also released in the US and the UK and had its CD debut on Chrysalis/EMI's rarities compilation Blonde and Beyond (1993). In 1988, a remixed version by Ben Liebrand taken from the Blondie remix album Once More into the Bleach was issued as a single in the UK. In 2001 the "original long version" appeared as a bonus track on the Autoamerican album re-issue.
Harry recorded an abbreviated version of the song, backed by the Muppet Band, for her guest appearance on The Muppet Show in August 1980. It was first broadcast in January 1981.
"Mr. Tambourine Man" is a song written, composed, and performed by Bob Dylan, who released his original version of it on his 1965 album Bringing It All Back Home. The Byrds also recorded a version of the song that they released in the same year as their first single on Columbia Records, reaching number 1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 chart and the UK Singles Chart, as well as being the title track of their first album, Mr. Tambourine Man. The Byrds' recording of the song was influential in initiating the musical subgenre of folk rock, leading many contemporary bands to mimic its fusion of jangly guitars and intellectual lyrics in the wake of the single's success.
This song has been performed and recorded by many artists, including Judy Collins, Odetta, Melanie, and William Shatner. The song's popularity led to Dylan recording it live many times, and it has been included in multiple Dylan and Byrds compilation albums. It has been translated into other languages, and has been used or referenced in television shows, films and books.
The song has a bright, expansive melody and has become famous in particular for its surrealistic imagery, influenced by artists as diverse as French poet Arthur Rimbaud and Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini. The lyrics call on the title character to play a song and the narrator will follow. Interpretations of the lyrics have included a paean to drugs such as LSD, a call to the singer's muse, a reflection of the audience's demands on the singer, and religious interpretations. Dylan's song has four verses, of which The Byrds only used the second for their recording. Dylan's and The Byrds' versions have appeared on various lists ranking the greatest songs of all time, including an appearance by both on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 best songs ever. Both versions also received Grammy Hall of Fame Awards.
"Redemption Song" is a song by Bob Marley. It is the final track on Bob Marley & the Wailers' ninth album, Uprising, produced by Chris Blackwell and released by Island Records. The song is considered[who?] one of Marley's greatest works. Some key lyrics derived from a speech given by the Pan-Africanist orator Marcus Garvey entitled "The Work That Has Been Done".
At his concert in Westfalenhallen, Dortmund, Germany, on 13 June 1980, Bob Marley introduced this song with the words: "This song is called 'The Pirates Yes They Rob I, Sold I to the Merchant Ship'."
At the time he wrote the song, circa 1979, Bob Marley had been diagnosed with the cancer in his toe that later took his life. According to Rita Marley, "he was already secretly in a lot of pain and dealt with his own mortality, a feature that is clearly apparent in the album, particularly in this song".
Unlike most of Bob Marley's tracks, it is strictly a solo acoustic recording, consisting of him singing and playing an acoustic guitar, without accompaniment. The song is in the key of G major.
"Redemption Song" was released as a single in the UK and France in October 1980, and included a full band rendering of the song. This version has since been included as a bonus track on the 2001 reissue of Uprising, as well as on the 2001 compilation One Love: The Very Best of Bob Marley & The Wailers. Although in live performances the full band was used for the song the solo recorded performance remains the take most familiar to listeners.[citation needed]
In 2004, Rolling Stone placed the song at #66 among "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time". In 2010, the New Statesman listed it as one of the Top 20 Political Songs.
With Bob accompanying himself on Guitar, "Redemption Song" was unlike anything he had ever recorded: an acoustic ballad, without any hint of reggae rhythm. In message and sound it recalled Bob Dylan. Biographer Timothy White called it an 'acoustic spiritual' and another biographer, Stephen Davis, pointed out the song was a 'total departure', a deeply personal verse sung to the bright-sounding acoustic strumming of Bob's Ovation Adamas guitar.
"Total Eclipse of the Heart" is a song recorded by Welsh singer Bonnie Tyler. It was written and produced by Jim Steinman, and released on Tyler's fifth studio album, Faster Than the Speed of Night (1983). The song was released as a single by Columbia Records on 11 February 1983 in the United Kingdom and on 31 May 1983 in the United States.
"Total Eclipse of the Heart" became Tyler's biggest career hit, hitting number one in several countries including the UK, where it was the fifth-best-selling single in 1983, and the US, making her the first and only Welsh singer to reach the top spot of the Billboard Hot 100. It was Billboard's number-six song of the year for 1983.
Worldwide, the single has sales in excess of 6 million copies and has been certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for U.S. sales of more than one million copies.
After her contract with RCA Records ended in 1981, Tyler found a new manager in David Aspden and after seeing Meat Loaf perform "Bat Out of Hell" live on The Old Grey Whistle Test, approached Meat Loaf's producer Jim Steinman and asked him to be her producer.[2] Tyler visited Steinman in his apartment in New York in April 1982 with her manager, where she was presented with two tracks: "Have You Ever Seen the Rain?" and "Goin' Through the Motions". She stated that had she not liked the songs Steinman played for her, he would have rejected Tyler. She returned to his studio apartment weeks later, where Steinman and Rory Dodd presented "Total Eclipse of the Heart" to her. He also hand-picked the recording band for the song.
"Total Eclipse of the Heart" had to be shortened for radio play. Tyler did not believe that the song was radio-friendly at its full length; the song was reduced from seven minutes and two seconds to four minutes and thirty seconds.
The power ballad remains Tyler's most successful song, peaking at No. 1 in the United States, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United Kingdom. At its peak, it sold 60,000 copies per day, and approximately 6 million copies in total. It won the Variety Club award in the UK for best single of 1983. The song also made number 82 of VH1's top 100 love songs.
Steinman said in an interview with Playbill:
with Total Eclipse of the Heart, I was trying to come up with a love song and I remembered I actually wrote that to be a vampire love song. Its original title was Vampires in Love because I was working on a musical of Nosferatu, the other great vampire story. If anyone listens to the lyrics, they're really like vampire lines. It's all about the darkness, the power of darkness and love's place in dark...
He also told People magazine that he thought Tyler sounded like John Fogerty, and wrote the song "to be a showpiece for her voice. "Tyler described the song as "a challenge [to sing]," stating that she "[doesn't] like songs that anybody can sing. I like songs that need a lot of energy." After Steinman presented her with the song she told The Times, "I just had shivers right up my spine. ... I couldn't wait to actually get in and record it."
According to Meat Loaf, Steinman had written the song, along with "Making Love Out of Nothing at All", for Meat Loaf's album Midnight at the Lost and Found; however, Meat Loaf's record company refused to pay Steinman and he wrote separate songs himself. "Total Eclipse of the Heart" was then given to Bonnie Tyler and "Making Love Out of Nothing at All" to Air Supply. Tyler has denied this claim. "Meat Loaf was apparently very annoyed that Jim gave that to me," Tyler stated. "But Jim said he didn't write it for Meat Loaf, that he only finished it after meeting me."
The song's melody originally appeared as part of the soundtrack for the 1980 film A Small Circle of Friends.
"Bridge over Troubled Water" is a song by American music duo Simon & Garfunkel. Produced by the duo and Roy Halee, the song was released as the follow-up single to "The Boxer" in January 1970. The song is featured on their fifth studio album, Bridge over Troubled Water (1970). Composed by singer-songwriter Paul Simon, the song is performed on piano and carries the influence of gospel music. The original studio recording employs elements of Phil Spector's "Wall of Sound" technique using L.A. session musicians from the Wrecking Crew.
It was the last song recorded for their fifth and final album, but the first fully completed. The song's instrumentation was recorded in California while the duo's vocals were cut in New York. Simon felt his partner, Art Garfunkel, should sing the song solo, an invitation Garfunkel initially declined. Session musician Larry Knechtel performs piano on the song, with Joe Osborn playing bass guitar and Hal Blaine closing out the song with drums. The song won five awards at the 13th Annual Grammy Awards in 1971, including Grammy Award for Record of the Year and Song of the Year.
The song became Simon & Garfunkel's biggest hit single, and it is often considered their signature song. It was a number one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 for six weeks, and it also topped the charts in the United Kingdom, Canada, France, and New Zealand. It was a top five hit in eight other countries as well, eventually selling over six million copies worldwide, making it among the best-selling singles. It became one of the most performed songs of the twentieth century, with over 50 artists, among them Elvis Presley and Aretha Franklin, covering the song. It was ranked number 48 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
"Bridge over Troubled Water" was composed by Paul Simon very quickly, so much so that he asked himself, "Where did that come from? It doesn't seem like me. "The chorus lyrics were partly inspired by Claude Jeter's line "I'll be your bridge over deep water if you trust in me," which Jeter sang with his group, the Swan Silvertones, in the 1958 song "Mary Don't You Weep. "According to gospel producer and historian Anthony Heilbut, Simon later acknowledged his musical debt to Jeter in person, and additionally handed Jeter a check as compensation. Simon wrote the song initially on guitar but decided to transpose it to the piano, to both better reflect the gospel influence and to suit Garfunkel's voice.
When Simon showed the song to his partner, he informed him that he felt Garfunkel should sing it by himself, the "white choirboy way. "Garfunkel declined, feeling it was not right for him and believing that Simon should sing it. Garfunkel reportedly liked Simon's falsetto on the demo and suggested that Simon sing. He and producer Roy Halee also thought the song needed three verses and a 'bigger' sound toward the end. Simon agreed and penned the final verse, though he felt it was less than fully cohesive with the earlier verses. The final verse was written about Simon's then-wife Peggy Harper, who had noticed her first gray hairs ("Sail on, silvergirl"). It does not refer to a drug abuser's hypodermic needle, as is sometimes claimed. The verse was Garfunkel's idea, and Simon has never cared for it.
"Bridge over Troubled Water" was the final track to be recorded but the first one fully completed, with an additional two weeks of post-production. Simon initially composed the song in G major, but arranger and composer Jimmie Haskell transposed the song to E-flat major to suit Garfunkel's voice. The song was recorded in California, to make it easier for Garfunkel to go to Mexico to film Catch-22. Simon wanted a gospel piano sound, and so he hired session musician Larry Knechtel. The song was initially two verses long, but Garfunkel felt the song was too short, and asked Knechtel to play a third verse, to which Simon would write more lyrics. Joe Osborn played the two bass guitars, one high and the other low. A horn section rounded off the song. The drums were played by Hal Blaine in an echo chamber to achieve a hall effect and Los Angeles session percussionist Gary Coleman played the vibraphone. Due to a series of factors, the duo had to work on a new tape; an arranger falsely labeled the song as "Like a Pitcher of Water", wrote Garfunkel's name incorrectly and the string part was unsatisfactory.
Simon and Garfunkel then returned to New York to record the vocals. The vocal style in "Bridge over Troubled Water" was inspired by Phil Spector's technique in "Old Man River" by The Righteous Brothers.[19] After two months the song was finalized. Simon himself admitted that it sounded like the Beatles' "Let It Be", stating in a Rolling Stone interview: "They are very similar songs, certainly in instrumentation ..."
As their relations frayed preceding their 1970 breakup, Simon began to feel jealous that he allowed Garfunkel to sing it solo:
He felt I should have done it, and many times on a stage, though, when I'd be sitting off to the side and Larry Knechtel would be playing the piano and Artie would be singing "Bridge", people would stomp and cheer when it was over, and I would think, "That's my song, man..."
Born in the U.S.A. is the seventh studio album by American rock singer-songwriter Bruce Springsteen. It was released on June 4, 1984, by Columbia Records. It was written by Springsteen and recorded with his E Street Band and producers Chuck Plotkin and Jon Landau at The Power Station and The Hit Factory in New York City.
When Born in the U.S.A. was first released, it was met with positive reviews and massive commercial success. It produced seven top-10 hit singles and was promoted with a worldwide concert tour by Springsteen. Born in the U.S.A. became his most commercially successful album and one of the highest-selling records ever, having sold 30 million copies by 2012. It has also been cited by critics as one of the greatest albums of all time.
Born in the U.S.A. showed Springsteen embracing a livelier mainstream sound than on his previous records but continued to express progressive themes and values in his lyrics. According to Roger Scott, it was a "defiantly rock 'n' roll" album, while Rolling Stone's Debby Bull said Springsteen incorporated "electronic textures" with music he "kept as its heart all of the American rock & roll from the early Sixties". Although Springsteen's previous record Nebraska had darker songs, he said Born in the U.S.A. was not entirely different: "If you look at the material, particularly on the first side, it's actually written very much like Nebraska – the characters and the stories, the style of writing – except it's just in the rock-band setting."Springsteen considered leaving "No Surrender" off of the album, explaining that "you don't hold out and triumph all the time in life. ... You compromise, you suffer defeat; you slip into life's gray areas." E Street Band guitarist Steven Van Zandt convinced Springsteen otherwise: "He argued that the portrait of friendship and the song's expression of the inspirational power of rock music was an important part of the picture."
The title track of the album inspired the Annie Leibovitz photo of Springsteen's backside against the backdrop of an American flag, which was used as the album cover. Springsteen commented on the origin of the concept: "We had the flag on the cover because the first song was called "Born in the U.S.A.", and the theme of the record kind of follows from the themes I've been writing about for at least the last six or seven years. But the flag is a powerful image, and when you set that stuff loose, you don't know what's gonna be done with it." Some people thought that the cover depicted Springsteen urinating on the flag. He denied it: "That was unintentional. We took a lot of different types of pictures, and in the end, the picture of my ass looked better than the picture of my face, that's what went on the cover. I didn't have any secret message. I don't do that very much." According to political writer Peter Dreier, the music's "pop-oriented" sound and the marketing of Springsteen as "a heavily muscled rocker with an album cover featuring a giant US flag, may have overshadowed the album's radical politics."
Bush are a British rock band formed in London in 1992. The band found their immediate success with the release of their debut album Sixteen Stone in 1994, which is certified 6× multi-platinum by the RIAA. Bush went on to become one of the most commercially successful rock bands of the 1990s, selling over 10 million records in the United States.
Johnny Be Good is a 1988 American comedy film directed by Bud Smith, starring Anthony Michael Hall as the main character, Johnny Walker. The film also features Robert Downey Jr., Paul Gleason, Steve James, Jennifer Tilly and Uma Thurman. Former Chicago Bears quarterback Jim McMahon makes a cameo appearance.
Judas Priest, Saga and Ted Nugent, among others, contributed to the soundtrack. The title track, "Johnny B. Goode", originally recorded by Chuck Berry, was re-recorded by Judas Priest for their album, Ram It Down.
Johnny Walker (Hall) is the top high school quarterback prospect who is heavily recruited by many schools. His best friend, Leo Wiggins (Downey), thinks he should hold out for the best offer. His girlfriend, Georgia (Thurman), wants him to go to State with her and get a solid education. The colleges offer him everything he could possibly want — girls, cars, cash, free room and board, etc. One school even buys Leo a car, while another offers to provide him with male companions if he isn't interested in women. His coach, Wayne Hisler (Gleason), who he really can't stand, even tries to sell him out by striking a deal with one of the interested colleges to become their next head coach. Although he has all the skills a coach would want in a quarterback, he is unsure where he wants to go and is tempted by the offers because of all of the praise and attention. His recruitment is followed closely by a recruiting investigator (Downey, Sr.) who is trying to make sure everything is on the "up and up". Although Johnny lives with his mother, grandfather, younger brother and sister, he is offered everything and anything by every interested college except for the local state college, which is where he ends up going when he uses his moral compass to make the decision.
"Gangsta's Paradise" is a song by American rapper Coolio, featuring singer L.V.. The song was released on Coolio's album of the same name, as well as the soundtrack for the 1995 film Dangerous Minds. It samples the chorus and instrumentation of Stevie Wonder's 1976 song "Pastime Paradise".
The song was listed at number 85 on Billboard's Greatest Songs of All-Time and number one biggest selling single of 1995 on U.S. Billboard. In 2008, it was ranked number 38 on VH1's 100 Greatest Songs of Hip Hop. Coolio was awarded a Grammy for Best Rap Solo Performance, two MTV Video Music Award's for Best Rap Video and for Best Video from a Film and a Billboard Music Award for the song/album. The song was voted as the best single of the year in The Village Voice Pazz & Jop critics poll.
The song has sold over 5 million copies in the United States, United Kingdom and Germany alone, and at least 5.7 million worldwide, making it one of the best-selling singles of all time. Coolio has performed this song live at the 1995 Billboard Music Awards with L.V. and Wonder, at the 38th Annual Grammy Awards with L.V., and also with Dutch singer Trijntje Oosterhuis.
The artists co-wrote the song its producer Doug Rasheed, with Stevie Wonder receiving writing credits for the sampling of his song "Pastime Paradise" from his album Songs in the Key of Life.
The Stevie Wonder sample is the reason why this is one of few Coolio tracks without profanity, as Wonder would not allow it. Coolio said, "I had a few vulgarities...and he wasn't with that. So I changed it. Once he heard it, he thought it was incredible."
The song begins with a line from Psalm 23:4: "As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death", but then diverges with: "I take a look at my life and realize there's nothin' left." Adding to some of the religious overtones are choral vocals in the background.
Coolio begins by reflecting on his life in a Biblical fashion: that his partaking in hoodlum activities has drained him of hope, and his damaged relationship with his mother. However, the narrative turns at this point with Coolio threatening rival gangs with certain death in the event that they take verbal liberties or transgress into his territory. He subsequently educates the listener on the history behind his current position in society; explaining the way in which his upbringing has entrapped him by creating his lust for power, money and murder. However it is at this point that he acknowledges the uncertainty of his survival on the street. Coolio therefore begins to lament the cyclical nature of the violence in which he partakes, as well as elucidating the collective chaos created by individual greed, selfishness and a lack of education or role models. He ends his personal journey on a hopeless admission: that his situation and surroundings will never improve.
"True Colors" is a song written by American songwriters Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly. It was both the title track and the first single released from American singer Cyndi Lauper's second album. It was the only original song on the album that Lauper did not help write.
"True Colors" spent two weeks in the number one spot on the Billboard Hot 100, and was the last single from Lauper to occupy the top of the chart. It received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.
Billy Steinberg originally wrote "True Colors" about his own mother. Tom Kelly altered the first verse and the duo originally submitted the song to Anne Murray, who passed on recording it, and then to Cyndi Lauper. Their demo was in a form of piano based gospel ballad like "Bridge over Troubled Water". Steinberg told Songfacts that "Cyndi completely dismantled that sort of traditional arrangement and came up with something that was breathtaking and stark. "Other songs they wrote for Lauper include "I Drove All Night" and "Unconditional Love", of which the former went on to be covered by Celine Dion, the latter by Susanna Hoffs.
It reached number 1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, 3 in Australia and New Zealand, and 12 on the UK Singles Chart.
"True Colors" also became a standard in the gay community. In various interviews, Lauper elaborated that the song had resonated with her because of the recent death of her friend, Gregory Natal, from HIV/AIDS. While not directly promoted as a song defending LGBT rights, Lauper is pleased that her song was adopted by that community.[citation needed] Years later, Lauper co-founded the True Colors Fund, a non-profit dedicated to eradicating LGBT youth homelessness.
"'Heroes'" is a song by English musician David Bowie, written by Bowie and Brian Eno. Produced by Bowie and Tony Visconti, it was recorded in July and August 1977, and released on 23 September 1977. A product of Bowie's "Berlin" period, the track was not a huge hit in the UK or US at the time, but has gone on to become one of Bowie's signature songs. In January 2016, following Bowie's death, the song reached a new peak of number 12 in the UK Singles Chart. "'Heroes'" has been cited as Bowie's second-most covered song after "Rebel Rebel".
Inspired by the sight of Bowie's producer / engineer Tony Visconti embracing his girlfriend by the Berlin Wall, the song tells the story of two lovers, one from East and one from West Berlin. Bowie's performance of "Heroes" on June 6, 1987 at the German Reichstag in West Berlin was considered a catalyst to the eventual fall of the Berlin Wall, similar to that of Bruce Springsteen's concert at Radrennbahn Weissensee a year later. Following Bowie's death in January 2016, the German government thanked Bowie for "helping to bring down the Wall", adding "you are now among Heroes".
"'Heroes'" has received numerous accolades since its release, as seen with its inclusion on lists ranking the 'greatest songs of all time' compiled by the music publications; Rolling Stone named the song the 46th greatest ever, and NME named it the 15th greatest. Bowie scholar David Buckley has written that "Heroes" "is perhaps pop's definitive statement of the potential triumph of the human spirit over adversity".
"Out of the Blue" is the third single by American singer-songwriter-actress Deborah Gibson. Written by Gibson herself, co-produced and co-arranged with Fred Zarr, with Douglas Breitbart as executive producer, the single is identical to Track 1 of Gibson's debut album. Released as a single in January 1988, "Out of the Blue" gave Gibson her highest chart placing at the time by reaching number three in the U.S. In the UK, it did slightly less well than her two previous singles, stalling at number nineteen.
As a maxi single, "Out of the Blue," like "Shake Your Love" before it, took number one on the Billboard Hot Maxi Singles chart.
In 2010, Gibson re-recorded the song as an extra track for the Deluxe Edition release of the Japan-exclusive album Ms. Vocalist.
"Personal Jesus" is a song by the English electronic band Depeche Mode, released on 28 August 1989 as the lead single from their seventh studio album, Violator (1990). The single reached No. 13 on the UK Singles Chart and No. 28 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song was the first single to make the US Top 40 for the band since their 1984 single "People Are People" and was their first gold-certified single in the US (quickly followed by the band's subsequent single, "Enjoy the Silence").
In Germany, the single is one of the band's longest-charting songs, staying on the country's singles chart for 23 weeks.
In 2004, "Personal Jesus" was ranked No. 368 in Rolling Stone's list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time", and in September 2006 it was voted as one of the "100 Greatest Songs Ever" in Q magazine.
"Personal Jesus" was re-released as a single on 30 May 2011 for the new Depeche Mode remix album Remixes 2: 81–11, with the leading remix by the production team Stargate.
Since its release, the song has been covered by numerous artists including Gravity Kills, Marilyn Manson, Sammy Hagar, Jerry Williams, Lollipop Lust Kill, Nina Hagen, Richard Cheese, Johnny Cash, and Mindless Self Indulgence.
Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs is the only studio album by the Anglo-American blues rock band Derek and the Dominos. Released in November 1970, the double album is best known for its title track, "Layla", and is often regarded as Eric Clapton's greatest musical achievement. The other band members were Bobby Whitlock on keyboards and vocals, Jim Gordon on drums, Carl Radle on bass, and special guest performer Duane Allman on lead and slide guitar on 11 of the 14 songs.
In the United States, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs peaked at number 16 on the Billboard Top LPs chart. It returned to the US albums chart again in 1972, 1974 and 1977, and has since been certified Platinum by the RIAA. Having failed to chart in Britain originally, it finally debuted on the UK Albums Chart in 2011, peaking at number 68.
In 2000, the album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. In 2003, television network VH1 named Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs the 89th-greatest album of all time, and Rolling Stone ranked it number 117 on its list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". Critic Robert Christgau ranked Layla the third greatest album of the 1970s. In 2012, the Super Deluxe Edition of the record won a Grammy Award for Best Surround Sound Album.
