Like all of us, rock stars go through highs and lows, peaks and valley, just when you have the world you lose it all and just when things can’t go get any worse, everything clicks into place… for awhile. Here are some career peaks!
1. Even Better Than The Real Thing – U2 – Not only were U2 uncool, they were also overwrought and uncool. They were out of touch and out of town and then they reinvented themselves in this slick Bowie Lowish Berlin uber Kraftwerk meta band with this plastic soul sex work track and never got any better. It took three producers to bring it to life.
2. The Scientist – Coldplay – The definition of a U2 wannabe but the sterile public school popstars couldn’t get the balance right till they recorded this song on their second album. It is central to their live sets till this very day.
3. I Can Change – LCD Soundsystem – The problem with James and his band is they were too meta, they weren’t ever quite a band and more like a modern dance conquest. But this song, near the end of their career was a big time romantic ballad -the real thing.
4. Juicy – The Notorious BIG – With this song, Biggie’s humor and his rapping powers, his myth and his pop sensibilities, the whole lot came together in this autobiographical greatest moment. It might well be out greatest rap song ever.
5. Losing My Religion – REM – Their greatest moment is also their watershed moment, before they were a big indie band and after they were a biggest band in the world but they could never re-capture this moment: this deep, strange, depression.
6. It’s Not Unusual – Tom Jones – Whatever Tom Jones is, he is in this swinging horn blasting sexy as hell 60s pure pop song. A signature tune at the very least.
7. There’s A Light That Never Goes Out – The Smiths – This is a little different. It didn’t feel like a peak at the time but the song has been so embraced by indie rock and by all other Smiths fan, and even those who don’t care for em, still this song is the one for them.
8. A More Perfect Union – Titus Andronicus – A little too early to be giving Patrick Stickles career peaks, so let’s hope the next album (30 song double album rock opera I hear) but till then this is the perfect match of personal history and historic artifact and civil war sign off.
9. Miss You – The Rolling Stones – AT the time it felt like somewhere between a sell out and a farewell and today it feels like the greatest riff Keith ever wrote.
10. What’s Going On – Marvin Gaye – More than any one ever before or since, Gaye grasped the soul of the political moment and raised a musical question we may never really answer. Only love can conquer hate indeed.
