The Script - Breakeven

Frontman Danny O'Donoghue admitted to The Daily Star July 30, 2008: "Our songs are from therapy sessions. One track called 'Break Even' is about how someone is always left with the lesser piece in life. The worst day for him would be his girlfriend's best day."

The Rasmus - In The Shadows

The best song of the Finnish band The Rasmus. It is featured on the group's fifth studio album Dead Letters. The song currently holds the record for performance royalties received abroad on a Finnish composition (overtaking the works of Jean Sibelius). It was nominated for the Kerrang! Award for Best Single in 2004.

Lady Antebellum - Need You Now

This is the first single from Country trio Lady Antebellum's sophomore album. Group members Dave Haywood, Charles Kelley and Hillary Scott, along with co-writer Josh Kear wrote this song about yearning for companionship in the middle of the night. Scott explained in publicity materials that the song, and many others on their sophomore album, "are about what we are learning as we go through the ups and downs of different relationships." She added: "All three of us know what it's like to get to that point where you feel lonely enough that you make a late night phone call that you very well could regret the next day. But you do it anyway because it's the only thing that's going to give you any relief in that moment."

Linkin Park - Waiting For The End

Linkin Park's Chester Bennington told MTV News that this is one of his favorite tracks on A Thousand Suns. He said: "I think that 'Waiting for the End' and 'Iridescent' are probably tied at #1 [for my] favorite song on the record. I just think they're really beautiful." He added: "I like the summertime vibe of 'Waiting,' and I like the lyrical content of it all, and the dynamic, too."

Tom Jones - She's A Lady

"She's a Lady" is a million-selling gold-certified hit song written by Paul Anka, released at the beginning of 1971. In the United States, it is Jones' highest-charting single to date. It hit #1 in Cash Box magazine and #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The original version of the song was re-written for commercial release in 1971 by Jones and Anka due to the explicit lyrics.

Tom Jones - It's Not Unusual

This song was written by the classical music arranger and conductor Les Reed along with Tom Jones' manager Gordon Mills. They wrote it for the British singer Sandie Shaw, but she turned it down. Tom Jones saw the song's potential, recorded it, and it became his first hit single. Jones recalled to The Mail On Sunday February 6, 2011: "I did the demo on this song when it was being offered to Sandie Shaw. I was just starting out and, God bless her, she said: 'Whoever's singing this, it's his song.' Finding great new songs is never easy, and back in those days, finding one that would fit me – the way I felt and sang anyway – was difficult. I'm indebted to Sandie for being so generous."

The Blue Hearts - Train Train

The Blue Hearts were a Japanese punk rock band active from 1985 to 1995. In 2003, HMV Japan ranked them at number 19 on their list of 100 most important Japanese pop acts. They have been compared to such bands as the Sex Pistols, The Clash and the Ramones. Two of their most well-known are "Train-Train" and "Linda Linda", which can be found on many karaoke machines.
This fan made video contains English translation of the Japanese lyrics.

Sugarcult - Killing Me

Sugarcult's second album, Wrap Me Up in Plastic, was released in 2000. In May 2002, the band re-released Wrap Me Up in Plastic with a new tracklisting that included songs from both Eleven and the original Wrap Me Up in Plastic, as well as new artwork.

The Airborne Toxic Event - Gasoline

Songwriter Mikel Jollet introduces this rocker onstage as "a hymn to teenage sex."

Switchfoot - Meant To Live

This is a song about finding fulfillment through God. The lyrics talk about imperfection of the world we live in, and why people were "Meant to live for so much more." This song is a highlight of an ongoing theme of Switchfoot, which is that the nihilism and entropy people feel in everyday life is due to a loss of identity and faith. The lyrics were written by their frontman Jon Foreman, who said in an interview to Songfacts: "I'm thinking of life maybe a little bit more lyrically than a computer programmer or someone like that. But the good songs I always feel like they have very little to do with me."

Sugarcult - Crashing Down

Sugarcult released their debut album, Eleven, in 1999, featuring also this song. Not amongst their best songs but already shows promising signs of the talent these guys have, which later led them to success with songs like Memory.

 

Santana - The Game Of Love (feat. Michelle Branch)

The song was launched as single in 2002, and won a Grammy Award for "Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals", as well as peaking at #5 in on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. The vocal performance on the song is by Michelle Branch.
Tina Turner originally recorded the track for Santana, though this version remained unreleased until October 16, 2007, where it featured on Ultimate Santana, with the Branch version also appearing on the effort.

Ryan Adams & The Cardinals - Breakdown Into The Resolve

The Cardinals were an American rock band that were formed in 2004 by alternative country singer-songwriter Ryan Adams and fronted by him until 2009. Regarding the band's name, Adams states that he "suggested the Cardinals because it was my high school football team."

R.E.M. - It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

Explaining this song to Q magazine in 1992, lead singer Michael Stipe said: "The words come from everywhere. I'm extremely aware of everything around me, whether I am in a sleeping state, awake, dream-state or just in day to day life. There's a part in 'It's The End Of The World As We Know It' that came from a dream where I was at Lester Bangs' birthday party and I was the only person there whose initials weren't L.B. So there was Lenny Bruce, Leonid Brezhnev, Leonard Bernstein... So that ended up in the song along with a lot of stuff I'd seen when I was flipping TV channels. It's a collection of streams of consciousness."

Stereophonics - Traffic

"Traffic" is the fourth single from Stereophonics, it is taken from their debut album Word Gets Around and was released in October 1997. It reached #20 on the UK Singles Chart.

Shinedown - Sound Of Madness

This rant about self-involved drama queens was chosen to be the album's title track after some road testing on a short run of dates.

The album was produced by multiple Grammy Award winner Rob Cavallo (Kid Rock, Green Day, My Chemical Romance).

This topped the Mainstream Rock chart. It was the third single from The Sound of Madness, following "Devour" and "Second Chance" to top that tally. Shinedown were the first act to collect three Mainstream #1s from an album since Three Days Grace from One-X in 2006-07.

Keane - She Has No Time

This song was written by Tim Rice-Oxley (piano) for Tom Chaplin (vocals). Tom had a crush on this one girl, that just didn't seem to care about him. So Tim, the good friend he is, wanted to help him out, so he wrote this song for him.

K's Choice - Dad

In 1993 the band had five more or less permanent members: Sarah and Gert Bettens, Jan van Sichem, Jr. (guitar), Bart Van Der Zeeuw (drums) and Erik Verheyden (bass). These five toured Germany and the United States in support of the Indigo Girls. When they learned of another group in the U.S. named The Choice, they changed their name in order to avoid legal problems; they decided upon "K's Choice" by going through the alphabet to see which letter would sound best in front of the word choice. Since they thought they needed a story behind the new name, they used to tell that the K referred to Joseph K. from Kafka's the Trial, but later the band revealed the arbitrariness of choosing the "K".
In 1995 they released Paradise in Me, featuring also the following song.

Imogen Heap - Can't Take It In

In late 2005, Heap was asked to write a track for the soundtrack of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe entitled "Can't Take It In", when a track that fellow Brit singer Dido submitted was deemed unfitting. Heap's track is played at the end of the film in an orchestral version produced by Heap and Harry Gregson Williams, who scored the movie.

Hole - Teenage Whore

Courtney Love wrote this song about how she supported herself by working as a striper in Portland, Oregon. "When I was a teenage whore, my mother asked me baby what bores?" and "Baby why you are teenage whore?" are two simple verses that explain how the relation between Courtney Love and her mother, Linda Carroll, was not good. Love was sent to a youth correctional facility by her mother, and she stayed there until she was 16.

Seabird - Falling For You

Seabird is an American alternative rock band from Independence, Kentucky. The band formed when Aaron Morgan, Micah Landers, and Aaron Hunt began playing songs with each other in 2004. The band soon added accordion player David Smith. After playing together for a little under a year both Landers and Smith left to pursue other interests. Soon after Chris Kubik joined the band to take the place of Landers on bass and Morgan began playing two keyboards to make up for the loss of the accordion. After adding Morgan’s brother (Ryan) to play guitar, the band recorded their debut EP in one of the band members' rooms.

Robbie Williams - Supreme

Williams had to fight to become a solo artist. His contract with Take That prevented him from releasing solo material until the group dissolved. Newspapers and talk shows in the UK chronicled his journey to go solo. He was constantly photographed hanging out with other popular artists like Oasis and George Michael. He finally cut his ties with Take That in 1996 but had to pay the group $200,000 in lost commission to do so.

Robbie Williams - Feel

At 16, Williams became the youngest member of Take That. His mother encouraged him to try out for the group after seeing an ad in the local newspaper. He performed on hits with the band but constantly argued with Nigel Martin-Smith, the band's manager, about his lack of creative input. These arguments led to the beginning of Williams' long battle with drug and alcohol abuse.

Robbie Williams - Angels

Williams had previously been a member of boy band Take That, but quit the group in 1995. His solo career had stalled until this song was released on Christmas 1997. The main songwriter and fronton of Take That was Gary Barlow. His solo career started well, (his song "Love Won't Wait" being co-written with Madonna), but it soon dried up, which is sort of the opposite of what happened to Williams. Barlow went on to become a professional songwriter and wrote songs for other artists.

There was a lot of press rivalry with Williams and the Gallagher brothers from Oasis, one of their more printable insults of Williams being "That fat dancer from Take That". Many Britpop fans felt that "Angels" was an attempt to cash in on the then huge Britpop craze by writing a mainstream song in a similar style.

Heaven Street Seven - Ez a szerelem

During the summer of 1995, sound engineer Bernhard Hahn from Stuttgart offered a helping hand to the band, and together they worked together on HS7’s debut album Tick Tock No Fear. The album was made independently, and released privately, as the band did not yet have a recording deal. Around this time the band starts to play their first “serious” gigs. The band is born!

"Ez a szerelem" was released almost ten years later, in 2004.

Heaven Street Seven - Mozdulj

After several years of planning, and playing acoustic teahouse gigs, as well as several ametuer demo recordings made in the girls showers at the college, the band known as Heaven Street Seven came into being in 1995 in Hungary. The founding members of the band are Krisztián Szucs and Robert Németh, who were college classmates in the city of Esztergom. Soon Gyula Orbán and Endre Kiss joined the band as well (both former members of the Paks based band Houdinis).

Garbage - Only Happy When It Rains

In a 1995 interview with Addicted to Noise, Steve Marker, the band's guitarist, said, "It's really just us poking fun of ourselves... We're poking fun at the alternatrock angst, wearing your heart on your sleeve thing and at ourselves for writing such dark songs." This is a similar sentiment to the sarcasm behind The Smith's 1984 single "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now."

Demjén Ferenc - Jöjj vissza vándor

After starting as a bassist in bands Számum, Liversing, Dogs, Meteor, Sakk-Matt, Tűzkerék and Szabadság Szálló Kulcsár, he met István Bergendy in 1970, who invited him to play in his band. He debuted as a song-writer with Jöjj vissza vándor, scoring his first success, resulting in weekly performances in the popular E-Klub and Ifjúsági Park. 

This is a live performance of the song from 1991.

Demjén Ferenc - Jégszív

Ferenc Demjén was born on 21 December 1946 in Diósgyőr. His father was an engineer at the Diósgyőr Steel Company, and after he was fired because of political reasons, the family moved to Budapest, where he got a ministry job. Demjén, who graduated as a chemist technician, was inspired by his fathers singing talent, and started to study music, largely on his own.

Demjén Ferenc - Szerelem első vérig

Ferenc Demjén is a Hungarian pop singer-songwriter and bassist. Besides a solo career, he was the member of bands Bergendy and V'Moto-Rock, and played an important part in the pop culture of the country, contributing to nearly 150 albums since 1965.

His song for the film Szerelem első vérig (1987) topped the Hungarian charts for 8 months. 

Queen - Under Pressure

According to Queen bass player John Deacon, Freddie Mercury did most of the songwriting on this, although everyone contributed. The lyrics deal with how pressure can destroy lives, but love can be the answer. The lyrics are characteristic of Mercury's songwriting.

Deacon however did come up with the iconic two-note bass riff, although it came very close to vanishing: according to Roger Taylor in the Days of our Lives documentary, Deacon came up with the riff, then the band went for pizza before coming back to continue rehearsals. Upon returning, Deacon had completely forgotten his idea! Luckily, Taylor eventually remembered how the bassline went.

David Gray - This Year's Love

This was played in the film The Girl Next Door. After a geeky kid named Max brings a hot new girl to a party, bullies intervene. Max decides to make his move and pushes the bully away from the girl to snatch a kiss. This song plays as they make out.

Placebo - Battle For The Sun

Click Music asked bassist Stefan Olsdal about the meaning and inspiration behind this song's lyrical content. He replied: "Well, Brian (Molko) is the main writer for this band, so the only way I can answer is by offering you my own interpretation. There's always a bit of a conflict going on in the characters that are there in the songs that he writes. I think 'Battle For The Sun' works in the same way that 'Without You I'm Nothing' did as the title track on the second album. 'Battle For The Sun' kind of puts a little umbrella over what the characters are going through in the other tracks, in the sense where the moon is in front of the sun, and when the moon is there like the umbrella, it's dark but when it moves away there is light and you can choose whether to be in the dark or in the light. You can choose to lead a happier life, it might not be easy, but you should hold on to the hope and the optimism."
Drummer Steve Forrest added: "It's the idea that if you love something, it's worth fighting for."

Placebo - Ashtray Heart

"Ashtray Heart" is the third official single from Placebo's sixth studio album, Battle for the Sun. It was released in all of Europe, except for the United Kingdom and Norway, while "The Never-Ending Why" was released in these countries a week before, on 14 September 2009.

"Ashtray Heart" was also the name of the band that would become Placebo. Ashtray Heart was a duo consisted of Molko and Olsdal, before they decided to try out as a serious band and began the search for a drummer.

Bad Religion - American Jesus

This was written in response to US President George H. W. Bush's comment that the US would win the Gulf War (the first one) because God is on their side. It's pretty much a satirical view on the general American thought that the United States is the most powerful nation in the world because it is "One nation under God." 

Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam sang backup on this track.

 

Andrew W.K. - Let's Go On A Date

As a one-man show,  Andrew W.K. played a couple of opening slots for Foo Fighters in the early 2000's. Early shows featured no more than Andrew onstage with a CD player, keyboard, and microphone.

When he finally formed a band, it was with three guitars, a bass and a drummer. One of the guitarists is Jimmy Coup, who played with thrash band Coup de Grace. The drummer, Donald "D.T." Tardy, was in the death-metal group Obituary.

Upon the release of his debut album, NME (a popular British music magazine) dubbed Andrew "The Saviour of Music."

 

 

Andrew W.K. - We Party (You Shout)

Andrew W.K. was born in California, he was raised in Michigan, around the Detroit area. He began his classical piano lessons at age four. Unlike most, he never quit, but moved on to drumming in death-metal groups as a teen.

His sound is basically death-metal with pop melodies. He feels that he shouldn't limit his taste in music and writes what he feels.

 

 

Neil Diamond - I'm a Believer

There is a popular misconception that Neil Diamond wrote and composed these songs specifically for the made-for-TV quartet, The Monkees. In reality, Diamond had written and recorded them for himself, but the cover versions were released before his own. Diamond's version was released on his 1967 album Just For You. The Monkees version benefited from exposure on their television series.

Adele - Rolling in the Deep

Much of 21 including this song is about Adele's life after a tumultuous relationship in the years following her success. "I was angry!" she told Spinner. "I was really, really angry with my personal life up to about a year ago. I've grown up a little as well, and I like to think I've blossomed into who I'm going to become. I'm not really willing to be walked all over like I was with the relationship that the first record is about. I have the upper hand now, so yeah, the whole record is a bit bitter."

Adele described the song to Spin Magazine as a kiss-off to an unfaithful dude. "It's me saying, 'Get the f--- out of my house instead of me begging him to come back. It's my reaction to being told my life was going be boring and lonely and rubbish, and that I was a weak person if I didn't stay in a relationship," she said. "I wrote it as a sort of 'F--k you.'"

 

Sugarcult - Memory

Sugarcult is an American rock band from Santa Barbara, California formed in 1998. The band currently consists of Tim Pagnotta (lead vocals, rhythm guitar), Airin Older (bass guitar, backing vocals), Marko DeSantis (commonly known as "Marko 72") (lead guitar), and Kenny Livingston (drums, percussion).

Tim Pagnotta met ex-drummer Ben Davis during a cigarette break at school. Davis (who then played bass) and Pagnotta started to play together on a regular basis. Pagnotta met Airin Older in a music class where Pagnotta was copying Older's work. They became good friends and Pagnotta invited Older to join his band. Davis moved to the position of drummer and Older filled in for Davis on bass. Marko DeSantis was added into the band after meeting Pagnotta backstage at a Superdrag concert. The pair apparently met because Pagnotta was wearing a suit that resembled the one DeSantis wore to the show. Pagnotta asked DeSantis to join the band before even hearing him play a single note on the guitar.

My Chemical Romance - Sing

Frontman Gerard Way explained to the British newspaper The Sun that the song takes its title from a 1991 Blur song, which later appeared on the Trainspotting soundtrack. Said Way: "Just listen to the track 'Sing' - the notion of singing it out to followers. And I gave it the title because I loved the Blur track 'Sing' and Damon Albarn was so important to me when I was growing up."

Metallica - Fuel

This is about how people sometimes like to drive their cars, or even their lives, too fast. It was written by James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, and Kirk Hammett.
Avril Lavigne performed this on Metallica's MTV Icon special in May 2003.
This track was used as the official theme song for NASCAR on NBC and TNT from the mid-2001 to the 2003 seasons.

Apocalyptica feat. Doug Robb - Not Strong Enough

Brent Smith of Shinedown is the guest vocalist on this Diane Warren penned track. Apocalyptica drummer Mikko Siren explained the hook up: "We met Brent two years ago and we saw Shinedown live. We were really impressed with his voice. So when we had the song we remembered him, we asked him in and we were lucky enough that he agreed."

The song was released as the third single from 7th Symphony. However Smith doesn't appear on the US release of the single because the band didn't do the paperwork. Instead, the American single, which came out on January 18, 2011, features Doug Robb of Hoobastank.

Jimmy Eat World - Coffee And Cigarettes

This story of moving west is a duet between vocalist Jim Adkins and folk singer-songwriter Courtney Marie Andrews, who is on five Invented tracks all together. "She plays around Phoenix," explained guitarist Tom Linton to Chart Attack. "She's a folk artist. Jim met her at a show and started talking to her. He had her come down to the studio and it ended up working out."

The reference to Grateful Dead in this song does not mean Jimmy Eat World are fans of the legendary rockers. Lead singer Jim Adkins said in a track-by track on the Friends or Enemies website: "I can't stand the Grateful Dead. But, I just really thought the character in this song would have one of their bootlegs as they drove across country looking for something new."

 

 

My Chemical Romance - Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)

The music video for this generational call to arms was co-directed by Roboshobo and Gerard Way and premiered on MTV on October 14, 2010 and is an expansion of the pre-release trailer. The clip, which is a homage to camp movies like Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! features the band fighting evil "draculoids" (white-masked characters) in a post-apocalyptic desert in the year 2019. Grant Morrison is featured in the clip and members of the band Mindless Self Indulgence also make appearances, with guitarist Steve, Righ? as the DJ, "Dr. Death Defying", and vocalist Jimmy Urine as the "main, tall Draculoid . In an interview with KROQ, Gerard Way revealed that Urine was originally intended to play the roller skater "Ladyboy", but was changed to a Draculoid as he cannot skate.

Guitarist Ray Toro told Spin magazine the concept happened accidentally: the group decided to expand on the theme for the trailer only after seeing an enthusiastic response from their fans. "It was never intended to be a video," he explained. "[But] the response we got was so big that we were like, 'Oh s--t, now we have to do a full video for this thing.' We came up with some more ideas to flesh out the trailer."

The band spent a 15-hour day in the desert filming the video in September 2010, arriving at 6 A.M. and finishing around 9 P.M. that night. "We were shooting out in the desert heat so it was tough," Toro said. "But it was fun."

Metallica - Until It Sleeps

James Hetfield wrote this song about his mother who died from cancer. He was struggling with his mother's death and was looking for a way to cope with his loss and deal with the pain. It has come to mean much more to many people, who relate to the message of general internal pain and loss and the inability to make sense or cope with it.

U2 - Beautiful Day

The lyrics were inspired by Bono's experience with Jubilee 2000, a benefit urging politicians to drop the Third World Debt. Bono describes the song as about "a man who has lost everything, but finds joy in what he still has."

Train - Hey, Soul Sister

Guitarist Jimmy Stafford told music writer Annie Reuter the original inspiration for the lyrics: "Pat wrote that with a couple other guys. The story lyrically, I've heard Pat talk about this in interviews. He's always heard of Burning Man. Somewhere in the Californian desert (it's actually in Nevada), they do it every year. It's this whole city in the desert that gets built for a festival that happens every year. They build a huge man out of wood and at the end of the festival they burn it. Pat had never been to Burning Man, but he had an image in his head of what it must be like. All these beautiful women dancing around the fire. That was the imagery he conjured up when he was writing the lyrics to, "Hey, Soul Sister." It's a pretty big deal. Thousands and thousands of people go to it every year. People run around naked and I guess it's a total crazy deal."

Metallica - One

The lyrics are based on the novel Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo, which is about World War I. A specific passage that inspired the song is: "How could a man lose as much of himself as I have and still live? When a man buys a lottery ticket you never expect him to win because it's a million to one shot. But if he does win, you'll believe it because one in a million still leaves one. If I'd read about a guy like me in the paper I wouldn't believe it, cos it's a million to one. But a million to ONE always leaves one. I'd never expect it to happen to me because the odds of it happening are a million to one. But a million to one always leaves one. One."

James Hetfield was introduced to the book by his older half brother, David Hale, who was also in a band. (thanks Vesa - Tampere, Finland and Bertrand - Paris, France)

In 1971, Johnny Got His Gun was made into a movie which was directed by Trumbo. The video for the song uses images and monologues from that movie.

 

 

Tim McGraw - Live Like You Were Dying

This Tim Nichols and Craig Wiseman penned song was the longest-running country #1 of 2004 remaining at the summit for seven weeks. It was also named as the #1 country song of 2004 by Billboard.

The song tells the story of a man who gets the news that his father has a life-threatening illness. His dad's message is to live life to the fullest. When the demo was played to McGraw, it struck a chord with him as his own father, former Major League baseball pitcher Tug McGraw, was dying from cancer at the time. 

 

Tim McGraw - Just To See You Smile

This song was released in August 1997 as the third single from the album Everywhere. Having spent 42 weeks on the Billboard chart, "Just to See You Smile" also set what was then a record for being the longest-running single on the Billboard country charts since the inception of Nielsen SoundScan in 1990. This was also the longest chart run for any country single in the 1990s.

The Wallflowers - Sleepwalker

The Wallflowers are a rock band from Los Angeles, California, fronted by Jakob Dylan, the son of Boby Dylan. Formed in 1989 and originally known as The Apples, the ensemble has gone through numerous personnel changes but focuses on Dylan.
Their (Breach) album was released in 2000. The first single from it was "Sleepwalker," the video of which poked fun at Dylan's "rock star" status following the success of Bringing Down the Horse, their previous album.

Metallica - Master Of Puppets

James Hetfield in Thrasher magazine: "'Master of Puppets' deals pretty much with drugs. How things get switched around, instead of you controlling what you're taking and doing it's drugs controlling you. Like, I went to a party here in San Francisco, there were all these freaks shooting up and geezin' and this other girl was real sick."

In an MTV Icon special, James Hetfield said that it wasn't until after this song was written that he realized it related to his alcoholism. 

The Divine Comedy - At The Indie Disco

The Divine Comedy are a chamber pop band from Northern Ireland formed in 1989 and fronted by Neil Hannon. Hannon has been the only constant member of the group, playing, in some instances, all of the non-orchestral instrumentation besides drums. To date, ten studio albums have been released under the Divine Comedy name. The group achieved their greatest commercial success in the years 1996–99, during which they had nine singles that made the UK Top 40, including the top ten hit "National Express". The tenth Divine Comedy album, Bang Goes the Knighthood, was released on 31 May 2010. This is one of the singles from that album.

Metallica - Seek And Destroy

An early Metallica track, this is an angry track where the band gets out some of the aggression that years later would lead them into band therapy, as shown in the documentary Some Kind of Monster. Much of the battlefield imagery in the song related to the Los Angeles music scene, where the band played before moving to San Francisco. The L.A. club crowd didn't seem to get Metallica, and the band didn't understand them either.

James Hetfield based the theme of this song on a Diamond Head song called "Dead reckoning." He explained to Guitar World: "The idea of 'Seek' came from a Diamond Head song called 'Dead Reckoning.' I used to work in a sticker factory in L.A., and I wrote that riff in my truck outside work. This was our first experience in a real studio. I used a white Flying V, which was the only guitar I had back then. I still have the guitar in storage. The song is based around a one-note riff that was up a little higher. Though most of my riffs are in E, that one worked off an A."

Kiscsillag - Örökre

Another Hungarian piece. Kiscsillag is an alternative band formed in 2005, their name means “Little star”. Most of the band members, including the singer, are former members of the most popular Hungarian alternative band Kispál és a Borz. The title of this song means "Forever".

Bloodhound Gang - Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo

The song's title is military alphabet for the word "F--k". "Foxtrot" is military alphabet for "F," "Uniform" for "U," "Charlie" for "C," and "Kilo" for "K." The song is all about euphemisms for sex.

In the video, it is Bam Margera driving the banana-shaped car.

The tunnel you see in the music video is the Ray Hills Tunnel in Pennsylvania. 

 

 

Switchfoot - Dare You To Move

Lead singer Jon Foreman said in an interview: "I love to write songs. I've been at it since I could play the piano. It's one of my favorite ways to pass the time. Music helps me sort out who I am, so my songs usually end up being somewhat autobiographical. I've always felt the deepest connection with honest songs, so I try to write with sincerity."
Foreman went on to say that this song, "is an attempt to honestly face the gap between who I am and who I want to be; between the way the world spins and the way it should be. I've heard that we only use a small part of our brain. Maybe our soul is the same way. And maybe we're half asleep most our lives, simply reacting to the stimulus our brain receives. Action, true action, is rare indeed."

The song was originally called "I Dare You to Move," and was included on Switchfoot's 2000 album Learning to Breathe. It was this version that appeared on the soundtrack to the film A Walk To Remember. The band decided to remix it with heavier electric guitars and stronger vocals for their album The Beautiful Letdown, this time released as "Dare You To Move."

Hinder - All American Nightmare

When bands finish recording albums, they sometimes take a final listen and realize that something is missing. This was definitely the case for Hinder with their All American Nightmare album. This song - which shares the album's title - was the last song the band recorded for the disc, and drummer Cody Hanson says the tune was meant to show a different side of the band - the side that didn't play power ballads like "Lips Of An Angel." In our interview with Hanson, he said, "There was a lot of s--t talked about us in the Rock world. We wanted to come out with something a little more heavy, a little more edgy, a little more tough, so we wrote 'All American Nightmare.' As soon as we came up with the title, that very last line of the first chorus, we knew that that had to be the title of the album, so we went with it. That's probably one of my favorite songs, just because it's so f--kin' mean sounding. I mean, it's cocky, it's got attitude."

Guster - Do You Love Me

Guster is an American alternative rock band from Boston, Massachusetts. Formed in 1991, the group is known for its live performances and humor. 
Easy Wonderful is their sixth studio album, released on 5 October 2010, on Universal Republic. From 24 August to 18 October 2010, videos for all of the tracks on the album were posted to Vimeo. The first single from the album, "Do You Love Me", was released on iTunes and through the band's website on 3 August 2010.

Suede - Animal Nitrate

This anthem to suburban romance sees vocalist and lyricist Brett Anderson desperate to convince himself that there's an escape from council estate gloom. He recalled to Q magazine April 2011: "I had this schoolboy-ish idea to sneak an overtly sexual song with the framework of pop. I was amazed it got daytime radio play, considering the title is a play on amyl nitrite. To me, it's set in suburbia, in a council estate in Haywards Heath. I was brought up as a white, working-class English boy, and that's what I wrote about. If you're born in a dump you aspire to something better."

Amyl nitrite is employed medically to treat heart diseases such as angina and also to treat cyanide poisoning. It is also used as an inhalant drug that induces a brief euphoric state, and when combined with other intoxicant stimulant drugs such as cocaine or ecstasy, the euphoric state intensifies and is prolonged. However, its use as a recreational drug is risky as once its effects have worn off, a common side effect is a period of depression or anxiety.

 

 

Suede - Beautiful Ones

"Beautiful Ones" is the second single from the album Coming Up by Suede, released on October 14, 1996. on Nude Records. The song became a Top Ten hit in the UK, peaking at #8.
Billboard wrote: "like a fast-mangled Oasis song, Suede succeeded in making sounds of pop/rock that are definitely unique. The painfully true lyrics and vibrant sounds have already proved to be a hit in the U.K."

British female singer Kim Wilde recorded a version of the song for her 2011 album "Snapshots".
In Chile, "Beautiful Ones" was plagiarized and used the song Cachureos called "Los Ancianos".

Good Charlotte - The Anthem

This is about kids in school who are not popular. The song is meant to give them confidence.

A month before this was released, it was used in the football video game Madden 2003. The game sold over 5 million copies and provided the exposure the song needed to become a hit. With songs becoming more difficult to get on radio and MTV, many artists began using non-traditional methods to get their songs heard. This proved that a video game can break a song.

 

 

stellastarr* - Graffiti Eyes

Stellastarr (styled as stellastarr*) is an American indie rock band based in New York City.
The band formed in March 2000 from the ashes of a previous musical effort formed while studying art and design at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.
Their third album, Civilized, was released in July 2009 on their own label, Bloated Wife. The album recovers the speed of the first and the essence of the second. "Graffiti Eyes" and "Numbers" are the singles.

Status Quo - Whatever You Want

This song was written by guitarist Rick Parfitt and keyboardist Andrew Bown who got drunk whilst writing it. After writing, Bown took their work upstairs in order to "Quo it up" by removing some chords, leaving just two during the verses! He came back down and claimed - "I think I've done it!"

P.O.D. - Youth Of The Nation

This song was inspired by the March 5, 2001 shootings at Santana High School in Santee, California. 15-year-old Charles Williams walked into school with his father's gun and fired 30 shots, killing 2 students and wounding 13 others. The shooting was remarkably close to where P.O.D. was working that day, and inspired this song. In our interview with lead singer Sonny Sandoval, he said: "When we were actually writing the record for Satellite, we were two blocks away from the Santee high school shootings. We had taken a break and went out for some coffee, and we see all the fire trucks and the police department and the helicopters and news. And we're like, something's going on. We turn on the TV and all of a sudden there's a young kid who has trapped everybody inside the school and he's shooting. Here we are, glued to the TV and we're literally two blocks away. All this is going down, and here we were supposed to write music. It kind of just set the tone for how we felt that day."

Oasis - Don't Look Back In Anger

Noel Gallagher (from Uncut magazine August 2007): "We were in Paris playing with The Verve, and I had the chords for that song and started writing it. We were due to play 2 days later. Our first-ever big arena gig, it's called Sheffield Arena now. At the sound check, I was strumming away on the acoustic guitar, and our kid (Liam Gallagher) said, 'What's that you're singin'?" I wasn't singing anyway, I was just making it up. And our kid said, 'Are you singing 'So Sally can wait'.'' And I was like - that's genius! So I started singing, 'So Sally can wait."'

"I remember going back to the dressing room and writing it out," Noel continued. "It all came really quickly after that. (The title) 'Don't Look Back In Anger' just popped out. We wrote the words out in the dressing room, and we actually played it that night, in front of 18,000 other people. On acoustic guitar. Sat on a stool. Like an idiot. I never do that now."

Oasis - Wonderwall

The general consensus is that this song is about Noel Gallagher's then girlfriend Meg Mathews, who is compared with a schoolboy's wall to which posters of footballers and Pop stars are attached. Noel later married then divorced Meg Mathews. However, according to Q magazines 1001 Best Songs Ever, this was not about Mathews. Noel is quoted as saying, "The meaning of that song was taken away from me by the media who jumped on it. And how do you tell your Mrs. it's not about her once she's read it is? It's about an imaginary friend who's going to come and save you from yourself."

Good Charlotte - Like It's Her Birthday

Guitarist Billy Martin discussed his contribution to the song during an interview with Unrescuable Schizo: "I got to do a guitar solo in it. I've been pushing to do some guitar solos for years. I got to do a really cool one on that song so that was definitely a highlight for me. It's a fairly pop song for us. It's still rock, it's very guitar-heavy but it's sort of a real pop melody. By putting a big rock guitar solo in the middle of the song, it gives it a nice edge. I like that fine line between being a rock band and writing pop songs."

Fran Healy - Sing Me To Sleep

This bouncy tune is a track from Wreckorder, the debut solo album by Travis lead singer Fran Healy. The song is a duet with alternative country singer Neko Case. Healy explained to American songwriter how he hooked up with Case: "I met her at a gig in Berlin, which is where I live, and after the show I went and said 'thanks for the show, you're brilliant,' I found myself asking her if she would be interested in a duet with me. While I'm' in the midst of saying this, my brain is going, 'Why'd you say that?!? Don't ask her that!!'
And I found myself speaking before my brain would allow me. But she was really sweet. She said, 'What a great idea, I'd love to do that.' And then I realized I didn't have a song, so I had to go and write a song. So I went home and wrote this song, 'Sing Me To Sleep,' and then we went to Vermont, which is where she's based, and we set up a little portable studio, just a microphone and a laptop, and we opened Pro Tools. She sang like a bird. She's amazing. She's so gracious and she looked after us. We were very well looked after."