My favorites

I’ve been meaning to do this for years: a list of my music-related favorites. So here goes…

Favorite artist/band: Queen

I am not saying that Queen are the most important band of the 20th century: that would be the Beatles. I am saying they are simply my favorite: their unique blend of subtle melodies imbued with classical references, heavy (almost hard) rock power when they needed to and otherworldly sense of theatrics make them my all-time favorite. Since the age of 8 or 9, i.e. when Freddie was still alive (that’s how old I am).

Favorite singer: David Bowie

Interestingly, while I am an absolute Queen fan, if one focuses solely on vocals, I would actually pick Bowie over Mercury. Perhaps because I can mimic Bowie, but there’s no chance I will ever be able to do that with Mercury. In any event, there is something grandiose about Bowie’s singing, the expressiveness of his tone, his incandescent vibrato… Just listen to him perform near-classical music here and you’ll get it.

Favorite operatic singer: Luciano Pavarotti

Talking about singers and classical music, I must mention the best of his kind, Pavarotti. He (and Maria Callas) singlehandedly made classical music popular, with good reason: his tenor voice is simply spotless, in many ways the benchmark in the field. The best example is perhaps him performing Puccini’s “Nessun Dorma” at any stage in his career: indomitable…

Favorite guitarist: David Gilmour

Another hard choice to make, perhaps for one song alone: the incredible “Comfortably Numb” with its two insane guitar solos that made Pink Floyd’s The Wall. Interestingly, most of the songs on that album were written by bassist Roger Waters, yet this one stands out for so many reasons. The musicality of his playing is absolutely unmatched: what Hendrix did was unique, what Page did was clinically perfect, yet Gilmour’s playing is so distinctively melodic that you just have to give it to him…

Favorite bass player: James Jamerson

One of the most incredible discoveries of my young adult life was realizing what made the complexity and fullness of great music — the bass. Jamerson was the resident bass player at Motown Studios, playing with everyone from the Jackson 5 to Stevie Wonder and the Supremes. To say he reinvented bass playing is an understatement: he made it a major instrument. Just listen to the instrumental of the Four Tops’ “Bernadette” to get a feel for his genius…

Favorite drummer: Keith Moon

This is another contentious one: many will cite Led Zeppelin’s John Bonham. While that man was an otherworldly machine, capable of performing musical tricks with arrhythmic tempos and complex structures only musicologists truly understood, Moon was the exact opposite: all feel, very little technique. Yet, he is all you can hear on The Who’s seminal Tommy: his drumming is so dynamic and present that he is simply not there to keep up the tempo anymore — he is absolutely part of everything.

Favorite composer: Freddie Mercury

Again, many will say Lennon & McCartney were the best composers of our time: to that I say — there were two of them. Jokes aside, Mercury is the man who decided to add an “operatic bit” in “Bohemian Rhapsody”, thus bridging the gap between classical and popular music. He is the man who also wrote “We Are the Champions” and “Don’t Stop Me Now”. And “Killer Queen” and “Love of My Life”. I could go on…

Favorite lyricist: Bob Dylan

While Mercury had the best melodies, Dylan undoubtedly has the words. The only (professional) musician to get a Nobel Prize in Literature, he made folk music into a social weapon that transcended the Civil Rights movement. He wrote so many songs over so many years that it’s even hard to keep track. He made it look easy too: having tried to write songs myself, I simply cannot understand it…

Favorite album: The Wall, Pink Floyd (1979)

The whole concept album phase culminated with this incredible rock opera delivered to our (then-)doorsteps by one of the most innovative bands in music history. What makes this album stand out so distinctly is that it tells a full, cohesive story, one that is utterly compelling too: a thinly veiled version of Waters, rising from the ashes of post-war Britain to become a rock god, albeit of the troubled variety. The movie version, featuring Bob Geldof as the titular Pink character, doesn’t hurt either: a middle school teacher showed it to us in class when I was 12, and I spent the rest of the year drawing bloody crosses…

Favorite song: “March of the Black Queen”, Queen II, Queen (1974)

While many would probably go for “Bohemian Rhapsody” (or “Stairway to Heaven” or “Yesterday” if you are so inclined), I will go for this lesser known insane mountain of a song. Standing at over 6:30, in many ways the blueprint for what would become “Bohemian Rhapsody”, it is even crazier, more complex, more in-your-face than its illustrious cousin. I still remember hearing it for the first time in my teenage room with my audio system playing the Queen II CD I had recently managed to save up to buy. Breathtaking then and now…

Favorite music video: “Thriller”, Michael Jackson

That one is simple: when the time came to show my then-3-year old daughter a music video, it was “Thriller”. I didn’t quite take into account the spooky nature of the storyline: my bad (pun intended). But she came out of it (largely) unscathed: the fact that there is a story being told, incredible production, choreography that people try to replicate all the way to prison… It was the definitive MTV video and that is that.

Favorite live performance: Nine Inch Nails, Rock en Seine festival, Paris, 2013

This one surprised me the most: while I appreciate Nine Inch Nails (who wouldn’t) and celebrate Johnny Cash’s version of “Hurt”, I was not necessarily a bona fide fan of Trent Reznor’s going into this. What unfolded was 90 minutes of sonic perfection. I distinctly remember a sequence with an intense guitar solo ending in complete silence in a split second. Haven’t heard anything like it before or since. And this was an outdoor venue…

Now, what are your favorites?