Alone Again Or – Love
An acoustic guitar opens the door with a Spanish figure, bright and a little formal, and then the trumpets arrive as if a parade had taken a wrong turn into a love song.
This Is Spinal Tap
Marty DiBergi arrives with a notepad and the straight face of a man who believes he is filming a real band.
Porcelain – Moby
The strings move backwards, or seem to, a smear of film music under a voice that does not try to be large.
A Little Respect – Erasure
A bright chord sequence opens like a window in the morning, Vince Clarke's machines already smiling, and Andy Bell comes in with a request so plain it could be missed, which is the daring of it.
It’s Tricky – Run-D.M.C.
The guitar is famous before this song borrows it.
Black Hole Sun – Soundgarden
The guitar does not riff so much as droop, a phrase that bends in the heat and refuses to stand up straight.
Interview of Prince (1985)
Prince's first televised MTV interview, in 1985, arrives in the long shadow of Purple Rain and the deliberate quiet around Around the World in a Day.
Somebody to Love – Queen
The piano states a gospel figure with a rock band's impatience, and then the choir arrives, except the choir is three men who have already sung the last song to death and are now singing this one as if Aretha were in the control room
Off the Wall – Michael Jackson
On 10 August 1979, Michael Jackson released the first album that sounded like a man choosing his own weather, not a boy kept in the family's key.