Song of the Night (#18) John Entwistle - Heaven and Hell

Watch any 1969-1970 live concerts of The Who, and you'll no doubt be blown away by the band's ferocious opening number.

If ever there was a song to embody The Who at their most powerful, it would be "Heaven and Hell", penned by John Entwistle, and brought to life kicking and screaming by his energetic bandmates. Anybody unfamiliar with The Who could be shown this performance and by its end, grasp the band's importance. 

But as much as I love the song's live performance, I'm more interested in its lesser known studio form, recorded as part of Entwistle's solo album "Smash Your Head Against the Wall".

"Heaven and Hell" in studio form is an ironic contrast to its live performance. Could you ever picture The Who performing a song of such apathetic lethargy? Entwistle has crafted a bluesy number sounding as if were heavily stoned and then dragged through the mud. 

The lyrics aren't that important: this is nothing more than a childlike description of Paradise and Perdition. The song's power is a result of Entwistle's languid vocals and some fantastic noodling on both electric and bass guitars. Who would've thought that he could craft a song of such cynicism and surprising power?

Song of the Night (#17) Napalm Death - Instinct of Survival

I'm capable of tolerating some fairly extreme music. I regularly listen to bands such as Morbid Angel, Bathory, and Cryptopsy, and I've been blasting my eardrums full of heavy metal for so long that little impresses me.

That being said, I'm not entirely sure what to make of Napalm Death.

Press that play button, and you'll be assaulted with pure brutality: vicious blast-beat drumming, explosive riffing and ferociously nonsensical howling.

Napalm Death are revered as the fathers of the Grindcore movement, and the fact that their sound bamboozles and confounds me (and many, many others) is a testament to their creativity and influence. Heavy Metal is a musical genre that prides itself upon being loud, obscene and mean. Napalm Death simply took these values to their most extreme expression and in doing so, challenged every subsequent metal band to do the same.

I picked "Instinct of Survival", but I could have picked damn well any other song off of Scum to showcase the band's power (the infamous and hilarious "You Suffer" was almost too good to resist). I'm not going to comment on any social commentary present in the lyrics, because... well, I really can't understand the lyrics.

The skeptical might repeat the trite statement that this is more noise than music: but to do so is to misunderstand and start very long debates. Napalm Death are intense, but each song definitely has structure and intent (to shatter the eardrums of its puny listeners, possibly). And to make the assumption that songs like Instinct... can't be music is nothing less than arrogant and close-minded.

Song of the Night (#16) Akira Yamaoka - Last Stop, Windows Up

Akira Yamaoka is a genius.

As the composer for the famed Silent Hill video game series, Yamaoka helped to define the series' nightmarish atmosphere with his equally nightmarish and unsettling soundtracks.

Yamaoka's music is remarkable for being both eclectic and well-crafted. He cites Trent Reznor's harsh industrial rock as an obvious inspiration, but other styles such as trip-hop, alternative rock and jazz have clearly left their mark on him. Last Stop, Windows Up is an example of his music at its most relaxed, and wouldn't sound out of place during the quieter moments of a Silent Hill game.

Only Yamaoka composed the song as part of his soundtrack to Suda 51's Shadows of the Damned, which is, if anything, the anti-Silent Hill.

Shadows Of The Damned is a proudly outlandish game, and its immature stream of curse words and penis jokes can be hard to stomach. The same can't be said of the game's soundtrack, which sticks to the Silent Hill formula of mixing loud, ominous soundscapes with softer, more conventional pieces.

Last Stop is played specifically during the game's level progress screens, and allows for a break from the madcap action composing the rest of the game. Key to the song is its percussion: a jazzy, relaxed groove that gently propels the listener along. The wistful piano (practically a Yamaoka trademark) adds an introspective feel, as if contemplating the insanity that has yet to come.