10 Amazing Rock Songs That Are Ridiculously Short

The rules of rock and roll don't really account for flash all of the time. Even though there are people willing to play a million notes per second, there's a beauty that comes with being straight and to the point with every song you put down. And when it comes to these songs, they didn't waste a second of their runtime.

Across every one of these songs, not one of them go over 2 minutes, looking to say their piece and get out of there before the audience even knows what hit them. Then again, limiting yourself to only 2 minutes also has its disadvantages though, right? Like where do you fit a solo or what would you do if you were looking to put a bridge into the song? In this case though, it's not really limiting yourself in the slightest.

Since all you have is a small timeframe to work with, these just serve as compact snippets of fully fleshed out songs, having the same kind of effect on you as an elaborate project that goes on for 15 minutes. Even if some of these end just as they start to get going, going on for any longer would end up hurting the rest of the song most of the time. This is rock music, and there's a very simple formula to these things: you get in, shred minds, and get out.

When pop punk was first coming into its own, Sum 41 always stuck out like a sore thumb. Even though they had the kind of tunes that would have killed with the suburban pop punk crowd, they also had the chops to play some real complex stuff, with Chuck almost being a full on metal album by punk standards. And we should have probably seen it coming from the final moments of All Killer No Filler.

From the first few notes and the over the top music video, Pain for Pleasure isn't necessarily meant to be taken all that seriously, especially considering that Stevo allegedly wrote most of the lyrics while on the toilet. If you judge it just on the actual music, this is by no means a joke, as Dave and Deryck work together perfectly trading different lead licks that wouldn't be out of place on your standard metal release from the likes of Dio or Black Sabbath.

While the song itself only lasts for a few seconds, Stevo also has a pretty decent scream by metal standards, going from the traditional growling register to a full on metal shout that would have made Rob Halford proud back in the day. Things were about to get a lot more serious a few records later, but this was just a fun little goof around that gave us a look at what else Sum 41 could do. For all of their pop punk cred, it sounds like these guys actually did go back and listen to the Maiden and Priest that they talked about on Fat Lip.