I've a big obsession about music. It's friday night and its time to give a thread about songs that shouldn't have been written. Things that are musically odd but are pure magic. Original masterpieces.
This is not exhaustive but songs I just shake my head and ask how?
This is not exhaustive but songs I just shake my head and ask how?
This is the story of creative genius and songs that are near impossible to write as they follow no normal structure. This is something I admire MASSIVELY. Song that I don't understand how someone thought of them because they are so damned unique.
Starting back in 1959 is Miles Davis Kind of Blue - an entire masterpiece album . The album is top 3 of all time The tempo was creatively bravely neither fast nor slow. It didn't fit in. It was all wrong but so right...
Then we get to someone influenced by Miles but another creative, off-kilter genius in his own right - Sly Stone in 1973. When I first heard this song I played in maybe 50 timers in a row thinking how do you make a song where melody is off kilter too the rhythm? Incredible!
It is also in the top 2 funkiest songs ever written along with As By Stevie Wonder...
A few years earlier we hit a song that everyone knows but it's tempo and its off-kilter genius can't be overstated. It's all wrong but it is SO right. Its also in the top 5 songs for me ever written. The Stones - Gimme Shelter (this is @glastonbury ❤️)
Honestly, how the hell do you write that?
Lets skip to my favourite artist of all time - Bowie. The guy was ludicrously original and also a copier of early trends. He was THE music genius that spans everything. I could have chosen so, so many songs that don't "work" but do, but this one is underrated.
I have no idea how you can write a song this complex!
Chrissie Hynde is known for pretty classic songs with The Pretenders, but she wrote a song of such off-kilter genius that I play it and play it and play it and shake my head at her weird genius. Utter masterpiece in every way.
From the 80's we hit the 90's and out of the UK in Bristol came a phenomenon. A song so weirdly complex and hauntingly beautiful, its impossible to imagine a bunch of 20 year old unknowns created this absolute masterpiece of soundscape....
Unfinished Sympathy by Massive Attack put British music back on the map and at the forefront of music development that went on to create Portishead, Tricky and Banksy (the artist), that led into Blur and Oasis and the new wave of British music.
That kind of bravery gave Radiohead a chance to break from melodic rock and create crazy, odd stuff like this...Feral (with a huge hat tip to Aphex Twin and Burial, also cutting edge, "wrong" artists that broke melodic rules).
These are literally impossible songs to write. They follow no rules. I love people who are open minded and follow no rules but somehow fit in so well. They change the world. Rebels without a cause or a way of connecting, don't.
Finally I've leave you with weirdly talented incredibleness of Black Midi - sort of a bit of Bowie, Radio Head and early Pink Floyd but again there are no melodical rules to adhere to. Off kilter, weird but works so well.
The point is that you too can break rules. Music without typical melodic structure breaks all rules and that is what makes it unique.
Be the ground breaker, tip your hat to others but cut your own path, but in a way that works and you too can create genius. You can not create genius by being like everyone else.
Build on the shoulder of giants, but be different.
Sometimes crazily different.Break the rules.
Build on the shoulder of giants, but be different.
Sometimes crazily different.Break the rules.
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