Opening nominations for the GREATEST METAL SONG CUP - Submissions due July 30
- Thread starter LooseCannon
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Black Bart
Ancient Mariner
Submitted. 
(EDIT and now, I'll lose some sleep because I haven't had the space to put some Mötörhead, Megadeth, Alice Cooper, Skid Row, Ugly Kid Joe, Extreme, solo Ozzy, or even Scorpions... shame on me!)
(EDIT and now, I'll lose some sleep because I haven't had the space to put some Mötörhead, Megadeth, Alice Cooper, Skid Row, Ugly Kid Joe, Extreme, solo Ozzy, or even Scorpions... shame on me!)
The Sentient
Trooper
Submitted From the top of my head,
I’m just looking forward to looking up and listening to a few things I’ve never heard of once this gets underway.
I’m just looking forward to looking up and listening to a few things I’ve never heard of once this gets underway.
____no5
Free Man
Submitted.
I forgot to put Faith No More, apart from that I’m
happy with my selections.
Oh and there was no room for Twisted Sister sadly.
Black Bart
Ancient Mariner
Faith No More, of course! I think I haven't included "Midlife Crisis" and RATM's "Killing in the Name" either.
JudasMyGuide
The resident reactionary recalcitrant
Faith No More, of course! I think I haven't included "Midlife Crisis" and RATM's "Killing in the Name" either.
I kinda hope that people will be choosing some of the lesser known tracks as well - Midlife Crisis is super famous, but it's not my favourite even on Angel Dust alone and I would hope that people picking RATM would force me to get acquainted with a song I don't know this way.
Though now I realised that both songs were in GTA San Andreas and I might have voted for them just for the nostalgia alone.
Also, I could have feigned ignorance, but I want to ask @LooseCannon - is there any limit as to the length of the songs? Since it's quite likely there will be many people participating who like bands like Symphony X, Dream Theater, Opeth or various power metal bands, I would guess there's going to be a lot of 10 or even 20 minute tracks nominated. Now, I personally wonder how will the battles between short and long tracks look like (might be interesting, even if a bit strange with the assessment), but I just wanted to make sure - anything goes?
(I promise I don't intend to troll and send some example of 20 minutes of Sunn O))) droning or songs with ridiculous lengths, this is genuine interest)
____no5
Free Man
Faith No More, of course! I think I haven't included "Midlife Crisis" and RATM's "Killing in the Name" either.
Killing in the Name I forgot as well but I wouldn’t have included it. No space and in my opinion not metal. I also didn’t include Alice in Chains, Soundgarden all this scene. No GnR either. From FNM I would include Epic due to its breakthrough importance in the metal scene even if Angel Dust has better songs.
Some of my choices were boring and obvious but they felt right. When you have to choose one song from one band you may end up with boring picks.
Black Bart
Ancient Mariner
If you had to pick one for the "parodic metal" category, which would it be?
Diesel 11
As you scream into the web of silence...
To add on this, what about tracks that are usually played as one song? I doubt LC will want me to include the whole "Gettysburg" trilogy from IE as one song, even though to me that's one single half hour piece of music - but on the other hand, there are some famous examples like "The Hellion"/"Electric Eye" where it's clearly one song just split by the tracklist. And there are some other cases like "The Ides of March"/"Wrathchild" or (a non-metal example) "We Will Rock You"/"We Are the Champions" where the songs are clearly distinct but most radio stations play them as one unit because of how iconic their segues are.
Black Bart
Ancient Mariner
To Queen themselves, it seems these songs weren't that inseparable, considering they played "Friends Will Be Friends" between them two during the Magic Tour (1986).
However, the other two inseparable I can think of are ZZ Top's "Waitin' For The Bus" and "Jesus Just Left Chicago". Billy Gibbons said: "The two songs "Waitin' For The Bus" and "Jesus Just Left Chicago" were written separately during sessions that were not too far apart. We were in the process of compiling the tracks for the album Tres Hombres, and that segue was a fortunate miscalculation by the engineer. He had been attempting to splice out some blank tape, and the result is that the two come off as a single work. It just seemed to work."
JudasMyGuide
The resident reactionary recalcitrant
I'm not all that interested in the "inseparable" songs, because it often depends on uncertain criteria (radio stations are not a good argument at all, besides it's mostly a regional thing - I was myself a rock radio DJ and I never played We Will Rock You and Champions or Heartbreaker / Living Loving Maid in sequence, nor have I ever heard it done so, although it's allegedly commonplace somewhere (in the US?)).
Also, this tradition seems to be almost exclusively concentrated on the era of vinyl when it was easier just to leave the needle running and it isn't much done anymore - Angra's Carry On ends rather abruptly in a somewhat awkward manner, obviously meant to segue into the subdued intro of Time on the album (and it even harmonically makes sense), yet I've never heard anyone playing these songs back to back, even if it would have been actually an improvement in this case.
Besides that, I was thinking for about a week how to include both Stratovarius' We Hold the Key and Twilight Symhony, because the songs end the album together, belong together, should be played together, supplement each other in a sublime way and result in my absolute favourite Strato moments, but since this was supposed to be about songs, I (presumably correctly) thought it couldn't be done, so I had to make do without.
If we're talking about sequences, then I would definitely fight for the inclusion of this particular one, but I don't think we'll be allowed that.
Now, if we're talking about larger wholes/compositions that are split into separate tracks, that's what I'd like to know the answer to as well - I at first assumed these would not be allowed, because they might be a headache to include and do their presentation in the competition, but it's true that CD tracks maybe shouldn't be the definitive judgement on that.
For example: Kamelot's Elizabeth sequence ending the Karma album is about 12 minutes long (the majority of the length of the final track is just silence), the tracks are titled Elizabeth I.-III. and they are quite obviously melodically interconnected (the first and the second part are mostly just variation on the same melody). They also flow nicely into each other. It's true these should for example be considered a single song.
There are, however, trickier things, like DT's A Mind Beside Itself (which I instinctively feel belong together, but apart from isolated quotations the musical connections aren't very strong) or Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence (which despite the band's insistence that it's a single song is more or less a separate concept album made of various tracks with overture and reprises). I wouldn't be surprised if these weren't allowed.
Also, this tradition seems to be almost exclusively concentrated on the era of vinyl when it was easier just to leave the needle running and it isn't much done anymore - Angra's Carry On ends rather abruptly in a somewhat awkward manner, obviously meant to segue into the subdued intro of Time on the album (and it even harmonically makes sense), yet I've never heard anyone playing these songs back to back, even if it would have been actually an improvement in this case.
Besides that, I was thinking for about a week how to include both Stratovarius' We Hold the Key and Twilight Symhony, because the songs end the album together, belong together, should be played together, supplement each other in a sublime way and result in my absolute favourite Strato moments, but since this was supposed to be about songs, I (presumably correctly) thought it couldn't be done, so I had to make do without.
If we're talking about sequences, then I would definitely fight for the inclusion of this particular one, but I don't think we'll be allowed that.
Now, if we're talking about larger wholes/compositions that are split into separate tracks, that's what I'd like to know the answer to as well - I at first assumed these would not be allowed, because they might be a headache to include and do their presentation in the competition, but it's true that CD tracks maybe shouldn't be the definitive judgement on that.
For example: Kamelot's Elizabeth sequence ending the Karma album is about 12 minutes long (the majority of the length of the final track is just silence), the tracks are titled Elizabeth I.-III. and they are quite obviously melodically interconnected (the first and the second part are mostly just variation on the same melody). They also flow nicely into each other. It's true these should for example be considered a single song.
There are, however, trickier things, like DT's A Mind Beside Itself (which I instinctively feel belong together, but apart from isolated quotations the musical connections aren't very strong) or Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence (which despite the band's insistence that it's a single song is more or less a separate concept album made of various tracks with overture and reprises). I wouldn't be surprised if these weren't allowed.
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Diesel 11
As you scream into the web of silence...
Yeah, it’s definitely tricky to make arguments for some of them, but I did grow up with US rock radio and I can’t really listen to “Heartbreaker” by itself without “Living Loving Maid”; it just works like one unit, or a double punch sequence. Some others off the top of my head:
Pink Floyd - “Brain Damage”/“Eclipse”
Pink Floyd - “Speak to Me”/“Breathe” (although depending on your copy of the album these are just one song)
Pink Floyd - “The Happiest Days of Our Lives”/“Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2”
The Beatles - “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”/“With a Little Help From My Friends”
Queen - “Bicycle Race”/“Fat Bottomed Girls” (although this has not been commonplace for decades)
Def Leppard - “Bringing on the Heartbreak”/“Switch 625”
Van Halen - “Eruption”/“You Really Got Me”
Van Halen - “Spanish Fly”/“D.O.A.”
Van Halen - “Intruder”/“(Oh) Pretty Woman”
Black Sabbath - “Bassically”/“N.I.B.”
Yes - “Long Distance Runaround”/“The Fish (Schindleria Praematurus)”
Journey - “Feeling That Way”/“Anytime”
Alan Parson Project - “Sirius”/“Eye in the Sky”
srfc
Ancient Mariner
Saw Leppard last night and they played these back to back
Black Bart
Ancient Mariner
We can add:
Queensrÿche - "Waiting For 22"/ "My Empty Room"/ "Eyes of a Stranger"
Ugly Kid Joe - "Intro"/ "God"
Bumblefoot - "Intro"/"Go"
Dream Theater - "Hell's Kitchen"/ "Lines in the Sand"
Dream Theater - "Through My Words"/"Fatal Tragedy"
Gamma Ray - "Welcome"/ "Lust for Life" (although the intro has functioned for all kinds of openers live)
Angra - "Crossing"/"Nothing To Say"
An association I cannot "unhear", as far as I'm concerned, is Metallica: "The Call of Ktulu"/"Master of Puppets" (because I have listened to S&M a lot) though they were not originally connected.
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Jer
A window to the west, a blazing star above
Strange that you wouldn’t put “I Don’t Believe In Love” on the front of that list, since it rolls directly into “Waiting For 22”…
Black Bart
Ancient Mariner
I think it is overrated, especially while the (to me) superior "Breaking the Silence" is often overlooked. But you're right, it would have been logical.
Black Bart
Ancient Mariner
____no5
Free Man
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