The Final Solution

By now, you have either had the opportunity to listen to my top ten, or you have completely ignored it. Either way, you’re finding out today what the best song I have ever heard is.

The criteria were diverse and strictly followed. The research was long, arduous, and many, many times, very tedious. But no expense is spared for a song that I will bear in my heart as my most favorite song, EVER.

The winner is here.

“Orion” is by far my favorite. It is a masterpiece, and symphonic in nature. It starts out with a growling intro, which gives us the measure and beat of the first movement, a good mid-tempo to get the blood up.

Soon the second movement, introduced with a rhythm break and staccato guitar, comes in thundering, with a fast stop-start riff, and a recapitulation of the first movement’s primary riff.

The third movement follows a trio (or is it scherzo? I could never tell them apart), with Cliff’s bass playing a soft melody, the guitars floating over it slowly with bluesy bends and one of Kirk’s most understated, controlled, and best performances (more on his solos later). The three-part harmonization between the two guitars and the bass on the same line is so tight and so smooth it is amazing that the producer was able to keep their voices distinct; had he not, we would have missed out on Cliff’s amazing bass lines that run under the guitar work in the third movement. It is in this song, and especially the third movement, that shows us how much of a genius the world lost when Cliff died in 1986.

It is fitting that it is Cliff’s incredible solo, so essential to the mood of the third movement and the best I have ever heard recorded for bass, that takes us to the bridge between the third and fourth movement: Kirk’s solo. Not enough can be said of Kirk’s performance during this piece, but this solo is everything that he is capable of. It is the signature solo of his career.

The song ends with its fourth movement being a recapitulation of the second movement’s riff, with a much faster drum performance by Lars, his fills coming frenetically, and just when you think he will be unable to get back on beat, he cracks his snare right on the four count.

This song is great for any and every event in my life, big or small. It fits any mood I may be in, either by enhancing it or changing it. It is the best song I have ever heard. If you have never heard it before, give it a listen; if you have, hear it again. It may surprise, but it does not disappoint.

So what’s yours?

-Zeepdoggie

The Penultimate Entry

With everything that's been going on (school, family stuff, money concerns, porn getting boring), you would think that I forgot about The Project, where I try to determine what the best song I ever heard is. While it is true that I have been quite busy, I have been sticking to The Project with a devotion that holy men should have to their parishioners, or politicians to democracy.

So I have, at last, figured out what is the best song I have ever heard. My favorite song of my life, up to this point, and most likely for the rest of it.

In the beginning, I figured it would be an instrumental of some sort. Lyrics tend to steer you towards a feeling or thought, and I wanted a song that was everything to me: happy, sad, energetic, angry, contemplative. It would have to be a song that I could listen to after I got a new job; after the first kiss from a new woman in my life; and, of course, it would have to work after I was fired from that job and the bitch left me.

That puts Mozart out of the running right there. His genius is in the creation of mood; if Wolfie wanted you to cry, you'd cry; he could make you laugh, hate, grow tense, even fall in love, in his compositions. While his power is great, it doesn't serve the need I have.

So, that left about one hundred twenty instrumental compositions to go through. Not easy.

I do want to point out one anomaly: "Lateralus" by Tool. It is, far and away, my favorite Tool song, and the best song with lyrics that I have heard. It soothes me when I am troubled, and energizes me when I am tired. When first dating M, I listened to it constantly, as if Maynard was telling me what to do in order for this thing to work out. It did, for a time. It works in just about every situation that I have listened to it, and it certainly lives up to the top criterion of being all things to me.

But it has lyrics. It is the honorable mention in the group, and worthy of great praise. Check it out, if you haven't. If you're a math geek, you'll love the hidden Fibonacci sequences in the song.

Back to task. I got it down to ten, and here they are:

1. Symph. no. 7 im Emaj, 2nd Movement - Hans Bruckner (he made cathedrals of sound, and this is the best example)
2. Midnight - Jimi Hendrix (it may have been mostly improvised, but without Jimi, every guitar solo that i love wouldn't exist)
3. Miami Vice Theme - Jan Hammer (sure, you laugh, but you know it's a JAM, baby!)
4. Orion - Metallica (the song that proves that Metallica once had talent and can compose, not write, a truly epic piece)
5. Lemminkainen's Return Op. 22 No. 4 - Jean Sibelius (this was the composer whose music led to the founding of a nation; no one else in music can make that claim)
6. Treadstone Assassins - John Powell (music score is the real child of "classical" music; it must evoke a mood, complement the images being seen, stand on its own without being distracting, and do this in less than three minutes: and i love it when a composer marries more than one genre, here it's groove rock, great string composition, and a thumpin' bass beat)
7. Medulla Oblongata - The Dust Brothers (another soundtrack entry, and a great one: first, it's the only album with The Dust Brothers on their own; it's for my favorite movie of all time; and it just fucking grooves, man! that bass line! those bells!)
8. Suite for Solo Cello No. 1 in G, BWV 1007: I. Prélude - Yo-Yo Ma (the most recognized cellist ever playing a challenging piece so flawlessly you forget you're listening to anything, the whole world swims and you're in it, totally; it's like beauty singing)
9. Battle Without Honor or Humanity - Tomoyasu Hotei (what a groove this is; nothing more to say)
10. Amazing Grace - Massed Pipes and Drums of Caledonia (every time i hear this song, i weep; it's the sound of hope in the face of defeat; it's a mother's cry whose son has gone to peace for following his dream; it is perseverance and holiness and strength; it is Scotland)

"So , which one is it, Zeepdoggie? The suspense is killing us!" is what you would be shouting, were we in some park rally. Well, first, I want you all to have a chance to check out the top ten before I reveal my number one. I do this for two reasons: so that you can groove to some awesome tuneage; and then you can all either agree with me or call me an idiot, not because I usually am and calling me that is like reflex for you all, but because you've heard the evidence and have weighed it accordingly. That, and I would like to hear some guesses from you all as to what is my number one.

I am a worse tease than Cara Tomkins. "Tell me I'm pretty! Oooh, you're hard! I am so excited! Oh, you've touched my boobies...now I go home."
Some wounds never heal...

-Zeepdoggie

Fuckin' Mozart...

So what do I do with the greatest musical talent to ever live? I have his concerti on the iPod, and I am getting to hear them now, and they are perfect. Simply perfect; not a bad note, nothing out of place; tones where there should be tones, silences where there should be silences, not one goddamned thing unnecessary or missing. And you know that the conductor and the orchestra step it up a notch or three when they’re playing Mozart, so I am getting virtuoso level performances from the fourth chair trombone…

So what do I do about old Wolfy? Do I just quit now and claim whatever he writes as the best I’ve ever heard? In a word, no; and here’s why.

First of all, he was so good, that if he wanted to make you cry, you would cry. Mozart makes you feel what he wants you to feel. And that sucks for the purpose of The Project. I want to feel something beyond the purpose of the composition, something that works no matter what mood I am in. And since WA Mozart changes my mood to suit his themes, I can’t consider anything he’s written as the greatest song I have ever heard.

Also, he underutilizes the cello, my favorite instrument in the orchestra. Now Shostakovich, there’s a composer who knows how to work a cello…

While Wolfy will make the top 25, no contest, he won’t take home top honors, which, were he alive and all the rumors about his fantastic ego be true and he actually read my pap, would just piss him off.


-Zeepdoggie

the Project: Progress...

The Project is progressing nicely. I am about 300 songs deep, with roughly one in five earning more than one star. I decided that I would not rate songs until I had it narrowed down to a top 100. With roughly 7000 songs, it's going to take a while.

But like I said, it's going well. It's been a lot of fun, since I am listening not only with an agenda but also with no mind as to the relevance of my choice to my mood or situation. I am listening just to listen. It's also exciting to me to be answering one of the questions that I have always asked myself; it's geeky, I know, but I love to listen to music. Music is God's voice to me.


-Zeepdoggie

Project: 1st Snag

Less than 24 hours into The Project, and I have been bit in the ass with the steely jaws of a cartoonish bear trap of a problem. It's a simple question to ask, but tricky as hell to answer:

In what order do I listen to the songs?

If I do it by band, then the band's particular style will become a baseline for my ear and mind, affecting the judgment of other bands and songs. Obviously, listening by album or genre will have the same effect.

I'll have to do it by song. But how the hell am I going to keep track of the songs? Especially since some of them appear more than once from the same artist, i.e. a live track vs. a studio track.

This is going to be very, very tough.

But thank Jobs for that handy feature of being able to rate songs right on the ol' iPod. Once I listen to a song, i will rate it with one star. Any song I think is very good or better, I will give two stars. This will help to slowly narrow down the possibilities, bottlenecking the selections.

It's good the semester's ending.

-Zeepdoggie

The Project

I have a new project. It’s ambitious, and most likely it’s unrealistic, but I’m going to do it anyway. This is a project I have wanted to do for years, for a long, long time; before I thought of writing a book, before I debated being a sailor, I wanted to take this on. But I didn’t have the tools; the technology, the selections, the opportunity.

But they’re all here now; I have the proper tools, and I have the material and I have the drive.

I am going to descry the greatest song I have ever heard.

Not the greatest song of all time, but the greatest song of all time for me.

The iPod has roughly twenty days worth of music. I’m going to have to listen to everything at least twice. And then there’s the considerations of technical ability, composition, lyrical content, and that ever important “vibe.”

Twenty days. Twenty days. 20. Zwanzig. Vingt. Twintig. είκοσι. Shit...

Aw, hell. It’s not like I haven’t bitten off more than I could chew before. It usually gives me gas, but I'll finish the meal.

-Zeepdoggie