Bloc Party | Helicopter The Song That Refuses Explanation Bloc Party’s “Helicopter” is built on paradox: a title disconnected from its lyrics, a political anthem that isn’t political, and a riff borrowed from a band they got compared to but never actually listened to. Here’s a song where the title never appears in the lyrics. […]
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Foo Fighters | Everlong The Song That Wasn’t a Hit “Everlong” never charted on the Billboard Hot 100 and only peaked at #3 on Alternative Airplay. By any normal measure, it wasn’t a hit. But it crossed a billion Spotify streams, tops practically every “Best Foo Fighters Song” list ever made, and somehow became the
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Arctic Monkeys | Do I Wanna Know? The Weight of a Riff Arctic Monkeys wrote the most-streamed rock song in history on a guitar Alex Turner bought as a joke, and when he first played the riff for the band, he was worried they’d gone too far. Here’s what gets me about the making of
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Velvet Underground | Pale Blue Eyes A Sealed Envelope A reel-to-reel tape sealed in 1965 held the earliest recording of “Pale Blue Eyes”, and sat unopened for over fifty years. When archivists finally cracked it open, they found the origin of a love song built almost entirely on beautiful lies. The eyes weren’t even blue.
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Television | Marquee Moon The Take Nobody Planned In the fall of 1976, Television recorded their ten-minute guitar epic in a single take at A&R Studios. The drummer thought it was a rehearsal. The engineer, Andy Johns, who’d worked with Led Zeppelin and the Stones, initially thought they couldn’t play, then took the finished tapes
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Coldplay | Yellow A Letter and a Phone Book Jon M. Chu wrote a careful letter asking Coldplay to license ‘Yellow.’ Chris Martin got the title off a phone book. The tension between those two truths defines the song. On December 8, 2017, a filmmaker sat down at a typewriter and wrote a love letter
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Tame Impala | The Less I Know The Better The Almost-Gift Kevin Parker tried to give his best song to Mark Ronson. Ronson sent it back, and it went on to outstream everything else Parker ever made. Kevin Parker spent days pacing a hallway somewhere in America, rehearsing a conversation he kept trying to talk
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Nirvana | Nevermind (album) The Accidental Revolution On January 11, 1992, Nevermind knocked Michael Jackson’s Dangerous from #1 on the Billboard 200, a result nobody at the label saw coming, least of all the band that made it. On January 11, 1992, a record that nobody expected to matter very much climbed to number one
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Royel Otis | Artist Feature The Sexy Sword Royel Otis have a billion streams but are best known for two covers, a paradox that says more about them than any hit single could, and one that keeps getting stranger the closer you look. Here’s a fun exercise. Name the two biggest Royel Otis moments. Not
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Foster the People | Pumped Up Kicks The Slap in the Face “Pumped Up Kicks” is a first-person monologue from a kid plotting murder. It went Diamond, hit a billion streams, and most people were dancing to it before they caught a single word. “It took people a while to let the lyrics get into
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