Top Ten Songs that Don't Fit in with the Rest of Their Album
Virtually every musician wants to create an album with no bad tracks on it, an album that has a commonality in texture or theme. However, sometimes, there's one song that doesn't quite fit in with the rest of the album, either because it has a different musical style, a different lyrical theme, or even both. One thing: I'm not necessarily saying that these songs are bad songs (some of them are great), it's just that they don't fit. There is a certain degree of subjectivity here, so keep that in mind. With that, feel free to add more examples.
Most of the stuff on The Who By Numbers is about Pete Townshend's personal struggles and his fear of being too old to be a rock-and roller. Squeeze Box, however, was described by Pete as a "poorly-aimed dirty joke"; listen to it and you will understand what I mean.
Unlike most of the album, it was written by Brad Delp (not Tom Scholz), and the actual band recorded the parts in the studio (the rest of the album is Tom in his home studio layering most of the instruments). The reason they did this is that Tom wanted to trick the record label into thinking they were at a professional studio in LA while he recorded the rest of the album in his home studio.
Most of Rubber Soul is folk influenced and more sophisticated, but What Goes On is a stark country rock two step sung by Ringo Starr. It sticks out like a sore thumb.
Most of the first album is straightforward hard rock, but this song is an Indian sounding piece containing acoustic guitar and tabla.
Musically, Exile on Main Street is all over the map, but what sets this song apart is its murky, lo-fi sound.
The Village Green Preservation Society is a downtempo, more pastoral album about the changes in British society in the Sixties. This one, though, is a heavy psychedelic number about an evil woman named Annabella who I presume to be an evil witch.
Unlike most of the songs (which are full band pieces), this song is an electronic instrumental composition played by Rick Wright on an EMS synthesizer. The other members contributed tape loops and other weird effects. It's the one song on the album that people either really love or really hate.
A weird way to end an album.
This isn't so much a song as a freaky psychedelic poetry piece. It has a noisy background atmosphere, and by the end, Jim Morrison is screaming the lyrics. It freaked me out when I first heard it.
Unlike the other songs on the album, this song is mostly acoustic (with an electric bass underpinning the arrangement). However, this suits the song well, and it's regarded as one of his finest poetic works.
This is a cover of a blues song by Bull Moose Jackson about a guy who's girl really loves his big ten inch... record. (What did you expect me to say? ) It's the one respite of comedy on the album.
Again, this isn't a bad song itself - just not suitable to be on a thrash metal album, moreover 80s Metallica. The song has a too sleek, radio-friendly and kinda poppy sound that is in contrast to the angry raw energy of the rest of the album. As a result, nobody seemed to like this song - fans, Metallica themselves, their producer and engineer, critics... And the song was meant to become the most popular song on the album... Lesson learned - if you do metal, don't try to please anyone, especially more mainstream labels and audiences.
A song with a more commercialized sound, made by Metallica to provide a more accessible song for the album now considered a metal masterpiece (Ride the Lightning,1984).
Their producer and engineer Flemming Rasmussen explained the reason for making this song:
"Metallica were on this small, independent label, so that was [the song 'Escape'] their way of pleasing a major label, so they could get signed. Luckily, they went away from that whole pleasing-a-record-label thing."
Ironically, the song Escape is the least known song on the album. It isn't a bad song, to be honest, but Metallica played it live probably only once (or twice) - the first time was in 2012, 28 years after its release.
While most of Out of Time is more downtempo and introspective, Shiny Happy People is more uptempo and happy-sounding, with seemingly inane lyrics that were inspired by a Chinese propaganda poster.
As far as I remember, the only song in the whole album with an original and unique melody.
I know it’s a short album to begin with. But this is such an awkward cover that feels really out of place.
