In the realms of science and medicine, new research often undergoes review by peers before it becomes widely accepted. As such, I would like the present Chris’s Universal Music Theorem #572 for peer review by the esteemed body that is the AW.
Chris’s Universal Music Theorem #572 states that “Firth Of Fifth” by Genesis is the most “complete” piece of music in existence. This is based of the following widely accepted facts (see attached video for reference)….
– it has the best piano introduction of any song courtesy of Mr Banks (A): (reference 0.00 onwards obviously)
– it has the best keyboard riff / solo in a piece of popular music, also courtesy of Mr Banks (A); (reference 4.35 to ~5.45)
– it has the greatest guitar solo courtesy of Mr Hackett (S): (reference ~5.50 onwards)
Given that any song with a singular best drum / guitar / tambourine / etc solo is deemed to be in the upper echelons of popular music, for a song to THREE such distinctions surely elevates it to supreme greatness.
With the proposal of the above theorem, peers now have a period of 60 days in which to counter propose, before this theorem becomes law. Alternate theorems / law proposals are welcome.
First Bellows, then this.
That’s Mr. bellows to you!
So a song needs solos?
This!
Genesis possited their theory later with their 1981 album.
The theory suggests ABACAB, where:
A = Verse
B = Chorus
C = Middle Eight
Bit rich considering what came before.
1981 was the point Mike Rutherford found the Guitar riff he would use on every subsequent song, so maybe it was a Mission Statement
“ACACACUCUBUBUGA” surely?
Yes it is a great tune. But it’s not a “one size fits all” thing, music. That song may be great for air piano wigging out, but If I need some life-affirming get up and go shit I often turn to this one.
There are times I think it’s the greatest song ever made. It’s got a dynamic range, great drums AND a guitar solo. And all in one minute seventeen seconds.
I’m definitely in Pixies team, though I prefer more bass and harmonic keening, so this. (At twice the length it’s almost prog):
I’d never heard the OP song before. (The piano opener was almost as long as the whole of Allison). It wanders all over the place – doing nothing and going nowhere but showing off musicians’ virtuosity’. The only thing I like at all is the drumming that at least tries to give a bit of structure and rhythm to the soggy trifle.
If I was a Martian who came to Earth and was played this as the most complete piece of music, I wouldn’t need “Indian Love Call” for my head to explode.
If I was a Martian who came to Earth and was played this as the most complete piece of earth music, I’d conclude that the human race was a waste of oxygen and reach for the big red button marked “Nuke ’em From Orbit”.
Are you dissing Genesis or Pixies, VV?
😂😂😂
Three chuckles with admiration.
More cowbell …
The crumhorn is way down in the mix on the remastered albums, too. Tony ‘Pebblé’ Banks’s baleful influence, I expect. . .
😂😂😂
It’s a good theory, but a bit of a reductionist one. Great songs are more than the sum of their parts. Yes, this song contains great elements – some of the best bits anywhere in the Genesis catalogue. And it’s certainly up there, among their best songs. But outside of the glorious instrumental sections, the song itself – “He rides majestic …” etc – is a bit of a dirge, and the arcane lyrics go nowhere. I think The Musical Box is a better demonstration of their overall powers, with incredible dynamics and more accessible lyrical themes (well, it deals in lust and longing, even if the context is a bit bizarre). I’d also take Cinema Show above Firth of Fifth from SEBTP.
“The arcane lyrics go nowhere”
You say that like it’s a bad thing …
Have you ever managed to work undinal into a conversation?
No, but I did once manage to work “urinal” into a conversation. And “diurnal”.
Sadly, my sea nymph lexicon is not up to scratch, betraying my lowly comprehensive education.
😂
I agree with what Martin Hairnet says about Firth of Forth. It’s got great instrumental bits, but the lyrics were by Adrian Mole I suspect, especially the ‘majestic’ bit.
Then again, when it was released, I was just an average spotty, useless, great-coated, loon-panted, dim teenager (probably dimmer than the average!) and I just loved it… and Cinema Show… and Watcher…and, well, pretty much all their early stuff. I, of course, didn’t have a clue what the lyrics meant but do now thanks to the interweb thingy.
So my ‘theorum’ would be that what sounded great years ago probably sounds less great now as people’s tastes change/develop/recede. The opposite also applies. For example, I just couldn’t imagine the teenage me listening to, say, John Coltrane, and thinking that’s kinda neat.
Lastly, a good thread opener all the same, not least as it got me thinking/reminiscing. So thanks to Chrisf.
The song contains elements. Many elements. Tremendous elements, as perhaps the Orange Overlord may say.
9:37 … hmmm … really should be on track four by then.
Group’s gotta be good looking, great hair, bright clothes, has to be a single, has to be Golden Age, has to be clever but pop, has to have been and gone in 3 minutes.
“Penny Lane.”
I’d set up a lying machine to find out who, over the age of 18 in February 1967, didn’t buy “Penny Lane,” and if negative, I’d shoot them.
I’d suggest that one of the more interesting things about Firth of Fifth is that it can be turned into the worst piece of music in existence by simply substituting one “musician” – Daryl Stuermer – for another – Steve Hackett – and letting the new guy make up his own unlistenable replacement for that peerless guitar solo.
Here’s the evidence https://youtu.be/hYZyDnQhxbA
Who was it said something along the lines of ‘Songs are like children. You bring them into the world, but then they grow up and leave you and you are no longer in charge of them.’
And some get murdered by close family friends.
🤣
And someone should boo those close family friends whenever they are seen in public. I know I do.
No. The most perfect piece of rock music ever made is not by ex public schoolboys showing how good they are on their instruments, listened to mainly by spotty guys who can’t get girlfriends.
It has to be one you can jump around to, it has to be one where you try to get the girl, it has to be one that makes you grin every time you hear it, it needs an exciting lyric with nonsense lines about “hemi powered drones” and also great ones about “amusement parks”. It has to be Born to Run:
https://youtu.be/f3t9SfrfDZM
1965. Game over.
You’re just talking about pop music, right?
Because otherwise Tallis, Bach, Allegri, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Shostakovich, Mahler and a few hundred of their mates want a word.
I feel like rock/pop fans are sometimes a bit like those millennials who refer everything back to Harry Potter. It’s great, but there are other books, ok?
(You left out Spinal Tap).
Gotta take the bad with the good.
I like the concept of this question. The “most complete” piece of music recorded……. Hmmmmm. So not the “best” or “closest to perfection” but the most “complete”. That’s a different thing. It doesn’t have to be enjoyable, just “complete”….
Hm, will need to ponder this. But my initial feeling is that “Gimme Shelter” by the Stones might be the one for me. Great intro, stellar guitar playing, a bit of solo-ing, it’s bluesy and classic-sounding as well as futuristic… AND it has a GIRL singing on it. If you wanted to explain rock and roll to an alien in five minutes, you could play that to it.
It doesn’t rock, though. If the question is “explain rock n roll to an alien in 5 minutes”, you need Chuck Berry. Maybellene, Johnny B. Goode or Roll Over Beethoven – all would do the entire job.
I’m guessing Genesis not so much.
They only make sense to illegal aliens.
or an Englishman in New York
I’m with you Arthur. That twerp @hedgepig says ‘it doesn’t rock’. Good grief. I ask you.
In what sense does Gimme Shelter rock? Don’t get me wrong, it’s great, but it doesn’t *rock*. There’s no propulsive drive to it, no irresistible forward motion.
Are we listening to the same song???? 🙂
Well I don’t know. Maybe we mean different things by rocking. But Gimme Shelter doesn’t – it sounds a bit stoned for at least the first minute and even when it gets less syncopated and more backbeaty, the drums aren’t that insistent and the guitar doesn’t drive. The Stones do often rock. They just don’t really do it here.
I love Gimme Shelter, but it’s not exactly a mosh pit burner.
Mid tempo. I think The Stones come pretty close to rock n roll completeness with Jumpin’ Jack Flash.
To be honest I typed Gimme Shelter but I was also hesitating over whether Jumpin’ Jack Flash would be more appropriate. Or Sympathy For The Devil. Or You can’t Always Get What You Want.
The Stones’ imperial period is a real thing to behold. I actually re-bought the double CD Hot Rocks 64-71 recently, just to re-experience the Stones exactly as I first experienced them when that was first released on CD around thirty years ago. It’s maybe my favourite compilation of all time. The twangy, earnest early songs gradually get more sophisticated, until on disc two every track is just a world shaker (possibly with the exception of Midnight Rambler). I was about 16 or 17 when I bought that CD and the only song by the Stones I knew was Satisfaction. Can you imagine hearing all these songs in this order for the first time? Tracklist for disc 2:
– Jumpin’ Jack Flash
– Street Fighting Man
– Sympathy For The Devil
– Honky Tonk Women
– Gimme Shelter
– Midnight Rambler
– You Can’t Always Get What You Want
– Brown Sugar
– Wild Horses
Rolled Gold was my introduction which is at least as good.
A similar theory about Firth of Fifth also appears in this article https://www.theschooloflife.com/thebookoflife/reasons-to-give-up-on-perfection/, written either by Alain De Botton, or one of his Bottonites.
Amazing…. whilst I really do like Firth Of Fifth (and from the recent polls you will see SEBTP is one of my favourite albums), I posted this rather light heartedly after listening to the album on headphones and musing that Steve Hackett never really got the recognition he deserves as a lead guitarist. To think, I’m in such esteemed company………..
I was quite surprised to read praise of this song in two places in short order. It is pretty good I agree, but not relatable enough to be perfect/best song ever. That’s probably something like I’ve Got You Under My Skin. Don’t know really.
Status Quo’s ‘Break The Rules’ contains a guitar solo, a piano solo and a harmonica solo! And The Hollies’ ‘Carrie Anne’ contains a steel drum solo! Possibly the only steel drum solo in the history of pop?
That’s got to count for something, shirley?
Steel drum solo – also in The Jam’s The Planners Dream Goes Wrong.
Not a single though, so Carrie Anne maybe the only hit single with such a solo
Co Co by Sweet.
But yet, still no one has reverted with an example of a singular best tambourine solo…….
Just for you @Chrisf
Given that’s the only tambourine solo I have ever seen, I guess that by default it’s the best…. thanks. My musical education is now complete
I made it to the end. I read every post.
Wow
What, from the beginning of the Afterword????
Just imagine if you did that, and also fed the whole thing into a big data machine. You could create algorithms that generated topical posts from any number of the regular contributors. Even create automatic threads with back and forths between regular sparring partners.
Imagine that…
Imagine it? Our Moderator Overlords – all hail! – have done it, matey!
Surely you don’t seriously believe Saucey, Lodey, KFD and (experimental prototype) Bellows are actual people and not avatars?