Songs That Seemingly Have No Precedent

I would venture that nothing like this had ever made the pop charts before. (Keep in mind that even "Hey Jude" was four months away).

 

Del Shannon-"Runaway"

 

Zappa, but you specified pop music.

 

That is hilarious. I could definitely see Lennon being influenced by that.

 

The Who were something else, weren't they? Keith Moon was truly one of a kind!

 

So many for me. A lot already mentioned:

Dylan - Like a Rolling Stone / most of Blood on the Tracks
The Band - The Weight / Up on Cripple Creek / Life is a Carnival
Marvin Gaye - I Heard it Through The Grapevine / What's Goin' On / Mercy Mercy Me / Inner City Blues
Beatles - Strawberry Fileds / I am the Walrus / Day in the Life
Beach Boys - Good Vibrations .......and a host of others
Fleetwood Mac - Albatross / Oh Well / Jigsaw Puzzle Blues
Donovan - Sunshine Superman
King Crimson - Schizoid Man / I Talk to the Wind / Moonchild / Cat Food
Frank Zappa - Willie The Pimp / Peaches En Regalia
James Brown - The Payback
The Ohio Players - Skin Tight
Stevie Wonder - Superstition / Livin' for the City / You Haven't Done Nothin'
Kate Bush - Wuthering Heights
Talking Heads - Psycho Killer / Burning Down The House .... and a host of others
Gilbert O'Sullivan - Nothing Rhymed
Tom Waits - The Heart of Saturday Night .......... and a host of others
The Who - Pinball Wizard / Substitute
John Mellencamp - Jack and Diane
Fleet Foxes - Mykanos ........ and a host of others
Bon Iver - Skinny Love / Flume

 

Right...hence the use of the word "seemingly". The point also is to figure out what the influences may have been. I was thinking that Happiness Is A Warm Gun was a precedent, the different songs, sections, in one. But people have given a bunch of examples already.

Then you have different ways in which a song could seem completely new. The production or sound, etc. People mentioned Autobahn...that was new sounding because of the synth sound, right? But the song itself is just the Beach Boys, isn't it? Do the song on surf guitars, call it "Highway", and it's the same old ****.

Walrus, to me, seems pretty unlike anything both production and the song itself.

Bennie and The Jets, I'm still curious if there was a precedent as far as the general feel, the staccato slow maj7 chords in the intro, I don't know of anything like that...but maybe someone does?

 

This is what I came here to post. Given their minimalistic post-punk that proceeded it, this EXPLOSION of afrofunk, avant guitar from Belew and keyboard wizardry from Worrell was seemingly beamed here from another planet. It was a completely new direction for the band, but more, really unlike anything that came before it. It was absolutely groundbreaking. It's one of the few albums in which I vividly remember the first time I played it and how absolutely blown away by it I was.

Another (that's probably been posted already) is Van Halen's "Eruption." Nobody played guitar like that before that track; and entire generation of guitarists would (try to, anyway) after.

 

Weren't they basically copying Fela Kuti?

 

Maybe I've missed all the 23 minute Beach Boys songs? I've just realized the US and UK versions of the single are different, the US version has the melodic flute and guitar section from the album whereas the UK version instead has the weird doppler effect/ traffic noise section - which really didn't sound like anything anyone had heard before.

 

...and Can and Bohannon etc.

 

I Feel Love- Donna Summer, it showed us the 21st century
Theme From SHAFT- Issac Hayes, revolutionised film scores

 

You could play one of their early albums...probably around 23 minutes.

But that's what I was saying...some, or most, songs aren't particularly new, but the production/sound may be. Generally speaking, most music is just all rehash but with newer coats of production paint.

Didn't they say they were doing their version of The Beach Boys?

 

I'm sorry. For teenage me, it was the gateway into the prog nerd world (In The Court Of The Crimson King).

 

I would say they were obviously influenced by him and other afrofunk artists, but if you listen to that album, that's just one layer of a much larger, more complex soundscape.

So influenced, yes, copied, no.

 

Blackmore (in his own words) borrowed the riff for "Black Night" via Ricky Nelson's "Summertime" cover , and added an important break which IMO actually improved the riff a ton. After years of knowing Black Night, it's funny that when I finally heard Ricky's Summertime riff...it sounded way too repetitive. Bravo Ritchie!

 

That effect, yes. The song itself though . . . not new-sounding at all at that time.

 

Great choice. Funky but just utterly unlike any other funk I had ever heard up to that point. Love it.

 

Manu Dibango-- "Soul Makossa"

 

Another nod to Are Friends electric?

Fade to Grey by Visage should get an honourable mention.

.sjb

 

Outkast-- "B.O.B. (Bombs Over Baghdad)"

 

The chorus borrows a couple of measures from The Bee Gees' "Words" which had only been a hit a couple of months earlier:

 

I would have posted Hate My Way had I thought of it:

 

Still sounds unique in the pop world to me -

Sonny and Cher, Baby Don't Go:

 

'I Can Take You to the Sun' by the Misunderstood (late 1966)