Tracks That Stopped Me In My, ehm… Tracks - 10 incredible pop songs

Since I was young - and especially after I took an interest in the music that was playing on popular radio - there have been certain tracks which literally stopped me in my tracks the first time I heard them and I made every effort to find out what they were called and by what artist. Some of these I still listen to over 50 years since I first heard them and some are much more recent. And of course the age at which you got stopped in your tracks can have a huge influence on you at that particular time and the musically memorable event may not have ever happened at a previous or later juncture. It had to be in the right ear (or the left one) at the right time. So I made a list of songs (with lyrics as opposed to instrumentals) which did just this for me. I’ve decided to start at 1965 and go on up to the present - almost. Of course, some of them I didn’t hear until years after they came out. And they are all songs I first heard on the radio.The thing that stops you in your tracks, musically, is normally and appropriately called ‘the hook’. Sometimes it’s a lyric line, sometimes a beat, sometimes a unique-sounding harmony change, sometimes a beautiful melody, sometimes the production and sound of the record. Or it could be all or none of these!

For me , as I would imagine is the same for most music lovers, the time when you're most open to musical influences is when you're in your late teens and early twenties, your formative years musically, but you don't stop listening and being caught off-guard just because you mature.

When making my list, I came up with about sixty I could think of, remembering that when these songs I'd heard for the first time stopped me from what I was doing (or tried to). Out of this I've picked thirteen (ten entries but three of them are from the same band so I've cheated and called that a single entry - otherwise it'd take too long to read the post - don't want you getting bored) and posted them here to invite comment. I have to confess, none of these are in the rap/hip hop genres because a) my formative years predated these genres and b) I'm only really concerned with songs which have melody, harmony and structure as opposed to being 'beat-based'. Shows my age I guess.

So in no particular order, here are those 10 incredible pop songs:

Black Hole Sun - Soundgarden (1995) (Soundgarden)

I discovered this track only a few years ago and almost thirty years after the track was first recorded. I was transfixed when I heard it and had completely missed it when it first came out. (Had I been a teenager back then, I’m sure I wouldn’t have). The time signature changes are as unique as the chord changes. But for me the, band’s performance makes magic, especially Matt Cameron’s drumming and the late Chris Cornell’s incredible vocal power and accuracy. It’s been a firm favourite ever since.

The Seven Seas of Rhye - Queen (1974) - Killer Queen - Queen (1974) - Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen (1975) (Freddie Mercury)

I became a fan of Queen after hearing 'Seven Seas' on the BBC’s Top of the Pops early in 1974. It was one of the few songs on TOTP that once I heard the first few bars, I was rooted to the TV. I was desperate to know what it was called. My cousin bought the single and I borrowed it from him. I had never heard rock like this before. I was hard, heavy, but not without wit and poignancy. It was an unlikely hit with it’s Sci-Fi lyrics, but the energy, rhythm and delivery for me indicated Queen were going to big. Very big. I was never very artistic, but I remember spending time writing out the lyrics in coloured pencil and developing a coloured fantasy theme border and pinning it to my bedroom wall. I can’t recall another song that motivated me to do that!

Then came Queen’s first No.1, the lyrically and rhythmically unique Killer Queen. Mercury’s song writing and piano playing, giving the impression of something high class was then punctuated by the opening lines, “She keeps her Moet & Chandon in a pretty cabinet, “Let them eat cake”, she says, just like Marie-Antoinette….”. And Brian May’s incredible guitar work? OMG, I’d never heard anything like it before. I was transfixed. This band had hit the top with a unique and perfect swagger song. And still, the best was yet to come………

Kenny Everett had been playing Bohemian Rhapsody on Capital FM radio back-to-back for a few weeks before the BBC finally decided to play it as it was creeping into the Top Twenty. I remember Andy Peebles, (the BBC radio DJ afterwards famous for conducting the last interview of John Lennon) telling the nation that he was going to play the new Queen single on the BBC Top Twenty show on Sunday night in it’s entirety, almost six minutes, something which was unprecedented, and there would be no interruptions. Already a Queen fan, I prepped my cassette recorder and at the prescribed moment clicked record. When I clicked ‘stop’ I don’t think I could quite believe what I’d just heard. I played that recording over and over and over again during the twelve weeks the single was at No. 1. Then I bought the single and played it until the grooves were worn and scratched. Then I bought the album. The rest is well-known history, enough to make an Oscar-winning biopic more than forty years later. Queen produced other great hits after Bohemian Rhapsody, but this was their zenith IMHO.

God Only Knows - The Beach Boys (1966) (Brian Wilson)

The world’s greatest pop song, perfect in its construction and sufficiently unique in its presentation and production. Songwriting luminaries like Paul McCartney and Jimmy Webb agree that it's the best pop song ever written. The genius who was Brian Wilson wrote and produced many other Beach Boys hits such as Good Vibrations, California Girl’s, I Can Hear Music and the super melodic Darlin’, but for me nothing could outdo God Only Knows. Even as I write this on the sad day of Brian Wilson’s departure from this mortal coil, I still think this is song is the timeless gift from Wilson to the world and particularly The Beatles' Paul McCartney who used it as inspiration to write another outstanding pop ballad, 'Here There and Everywhere' and used the sister songs on the Beach Boy's album 'Pet Sounds' to help forge the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album which changed the face of modern popular music. You may disagree, but I think it would taken something super spectacular to come very close to this timeless heartfelt composition. RIP Brian Wilson, you really were the American Mozart.

We Can Work It Out - The Beatles (1965) (Lennon-McCartney)

Although I didn’t know it at the time because I was five years old, I later knew that this song was a kind of departure from The Beatles’ current style. Being a kid, I couldn’t understand why the song seemed to stutter in the chorus. I found it transfixing. Of course years later, when the Beatles’ catalogue of singles were being re-released and I was attending music lessons (as well as being a Beatles fan), I was able to work out that this particular song had a a few bars of the chorus in 3/4 time as opposed to the rest of the song in 4/4 time. Lyrically, it was quite different to what they’d done before; dark, foreboding but hopeful that McCartney’s relationship with his then fiancée, Jane Asher would work out eventually. You could feel a lot of John Lennon’s influence in the song too. McCartney’s genius showed through; it was effectively an experimental work which would pave the way for all the songs on their future albums and in effect change the course of popular music. Still one of my fave Beatles tracks.

My Cherie Amour - Stevie Wonder (1970) (Stevie Wonder)

I had an older cousin (about eleven years older) who was a Motown fan and she made me a cassette tape of Motown classics for me, including this one. I remember it as having this really complicated set of chord changes. I played it over and over. Little did I know it would be my introduction to complex chords, starting with the major seventh.

More Than A Feeling - Boston (1976) (Tom Shultz)

Guitar production. It was the track that changed rock production forever. The first time I heard all these multi-tracked guitars I was was a teenager and I couldn’t understand what I was hearing. But I knew it was phenomenal. The song was also expertly executed with light and shade in the appropriate places. But those guitars! I still listen to the track when I can.

Sultans of Swing - Dire Straits (1978) (Mark Knopfler)

A very left field track when it came out, it was so different to the distorted guitar offerings of the rock bands of the time. I first heard it in my father’s car one day on a trip to Glasgow. Knopfler’s clean reverb guitar with what I thought was a Spanish feel and a virtuoso style I’d never heard before. I went out and bought the single and played it and played it…. Of course, the two guitar solos in this song made Knopfler and overnight guitar hero and every guitarist wanted to learn them. Pure genius and a fresh approach.

Flames - David Guetta & Sia (2018) (Furler/Guetta/Braide/Tuinfort/Van Wattum)

The world had become used to an overused I, V, VI minor, IV chord progression in pop music as streaming and short attention spans became the norm. When I heard the unusual and diverse chord sequence which I couldn’t quite follow, I became hooked. Sia’s vocal is intense and brings urgency to the song. It was so nice to hear something fresh and different coming out of the ‘Dance’ scene.

Chelsea Dagger - The Fratellis (2006) (Jon Fratelli)

Chelsea Dagger, Cockney Swagger! The playground chant as the main theme - da da dah, da da dah, da da da de da da dah - as a childish, mocking quality to it and is unbelievably hooky. The triplet da da da - dum, da da da - dum rhythm punctuates the song throughout the pre-chorus and it’s the perfect party sing-a-long. No wonder it became popular with football fans. A guitar-driven, London-centric sound, it’s one of the happiest, highly energetic alternative rock tracks I’d ever heard. I was sure the band was from London, but no. They’re Glaswegian!

What A Fool Believes - The Doobie Brothers (1978) (McDonald/Loggins)

The Doobies output pre-Michael McDonald was a broad church. But when McDonald joined them they became a tour de force with his jazz-inspired keyboard work and his signature tenor blue-eyed soul vocal. I loved the complication in the voicing and the chord changes which I couldn’t quite get to grips with. Every time the song came on the radio, I’d stop what I was doing just to listen.

Feel free to drop a comment. I may post some of the other 'tracks that stopped me in my tracks' soon.