Over the years, some songs have stuck in my head and my heart for specific occurrences of musicality—aside from the lyrics—that effect me so viscerally, I typically find myself anticipating them from the second I start listening to the track. When the special moment comes while I’m listening, I’ll often clap my hands over my headphones, pressing them tight against my ears to keep out all other sound. Here are the top 10 music moments that have made the most impact on my memory cells.
10: Space Lord – Monster Magnet
I like change ups. One such change up that sticks with me is the one that comes at 1:30 in the track Space Lord, from the 1998 album, Powertrip. The video adds special emphasis to the moment, but I don’t need to watch the video to appreciate the sudden transition. Other songs do something similar, but this is one that sticks in my head.
9: Big Love – Fleetwood Mac
I love so many Fleetwood Mac songs, and some I love overall more than Big Love, from the 1987 album, Tango in the Night. But Big Love has a memorable moment in which Lindsey Buckingham does an “ooh-ah” exchange—with himself, according to Wikipedia. I’d initially assumed the “ah” was a woman, maybe Stevie Nicks, but Wikipedia says Lindsey sampled his voice doing the “ah” and altered it to sound feminine. Well, he did a good job with it. Sure got my attention. While there’s a bit of the “ooh-ah” exchange happening earlier in the song, it’s the stretch at the end, starting at 3:04, that sticks in my head the most.
8: Pure Inspiration – Siobhan Magnus
Many of the tracks mentioned in this post don’t have official videos. But they can be heard on YouTube. For those who don’t know, Siobhan Magnus was the sixth place finalist on season nine of American Idol. She was one of my favorites that season, and I was so disappointed she and Didi Benami didn’t go further in the contest, I gave up on the show and haven’t watched it since. I’m glad for the tracks that both artists released after their stint on American Idol, and I still listen to them on occasion. My favorite track from Siobhan is Pure Inspiration from her album, Moonbaby. My memorable moment in this track comes at 3:32.
7: Rocky Mountain Way – Joe Walsh
I’m showing my age with this pick. From the 1973 album, The Smoker You Drink, the Player You Get by Joe Walsh, Rocky Mountain Way is a classic. The whole song is great, but the moment in the song that puts the track on this list starts at 3:10. It pretty much keeps going until the end of the song, I guess, because I can’t define any one place where the special moment stops before that.
6: Frankenstein – Edgar Winter Group
I’m also showing my age with this one. I occasionally if rarely hear this track played on rock radio stations these days, and I’m grateful for YouTube and streaming services that make older music available to its fans. From the 1972 album, We Only Come Out at Night, this track, Frankenstein, is an instrumental that hit number one on the Billboard charts. We don’t get many of those. If you’ve heard this track, you can probably guess where my favorite moment is. There’s a pretty great moment at 2:22, but it’s the stretch from 3:16 to 3:54 that I’m always in anticipation of.
5: Creep – Radiohead
When it comes to specific moments that leave an impression on me, well, it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who has heard the title track from the album Creep by Radiohead that it left its mark on me. The special moment starts at 2:45, and runs for 16 seconds. If you’ve heard the song, you can probably guess what’s happening at the 2:45 mark without even playing the video. It’s epic.
4: Alone – Heart
Heart is my overall favorite group. I love so many of their songs and so many of their albums. Ann Wilson’s voice thrills me every time I listen to her. She’s still making music, and I’m still in love with her voice. And while my favorite Heart track is Magic Man, which has some great moments in it, my very favorite Heart / Ann Wilson moment comes at 2:04 in the track, Alone, from their album, Bad Animals, one of my favorite albums.
3: The Outsider – Marina
Sadly, there’s no official video for this track from Marina’s album, The Family Jewels. But the audio for the track can be heard on YouTube. The hard-hitting note I so love in this track comes at the 1:30 mark. I’ve listened to her perform this song in recordings of live performances, and she doesn’t always hit the word “wild” the way she does in the released version of the song. Every time I hear a version of this song without her hitting that note as expected, I come away feeling a little hollow inside.
2: Nothing Everything – Mandy Moore
There’s also no official music video for this track, from Mandy Moore’s album, Amanda Leigh, named with the first and middle names she was given at birth. The album isn’t available on every streaming service, but fortunately it’s on YouTube. The moment I so love in this track is at 3:26. Another lovely one follows at 3:41.
1: Get Back – Demi Lovato
There’s a lovely official video for the track, Get Back, from the album, Don’t Forget, by Demi Lovato. As I wrote in a comment on the video’s YouTube page, I vividly remember the first time I heard this track. I can picture myself sitting in the car, my wife driving, and this song coming on the radio. “Who is that?” I asked, just blurting out the question, because I needed to know, and if the radio announcer had said earlier, well, I’d missed it. Of course, my wife didn’t know the singer’s identity. Neither one of us had heard of Demi Lovato before that. Once I discovered the identity of the singer and her song, I listened to this track on repeat for hours, over multiple days. Even to this day, I can play this song on repeat, sit back, close my eyes, and just listen to it, doing absolutely nothing else but soaking it in. It’s by far my most-played track since I started keeping track of my plays on Last.fm. It’s not that I’m only listening to the track for the big moment, but anticipation of it elevates the entire track up to that point, and then savoring it when it occurs seasons the rest of the track and elevates my mood beyond the end of the song.
Right before the 2-minute mark on this track, Demi is singing softly. At 2:05, she goes quiet, and you can scarcely hear any music. The silence is a harbinger, the calm before the storm. Two seconds later, the instruments hit hard, and a split second after that, Demi does, too. Every time I hear it, it sends chills down my spine.
And That’s My Trip Down Memory Lane
I suspect if I thought harder about this subject, I’d come up with some other examples of great moments in songs I love, but the idea here was to not have to think much about it. I’m sure other people have different songs with impressive moments of music more memorable to them. If you’d like to share some of your favorites, I’d love to hear them. Comment below, if the comments are still open, or tag me, @eposic, in a tweet on Twitter.