10 Best Experimental Rock Songs Of All Time
1. Velvet Underground - Sister Ray
One of the most influential tracks by one of the most influential bands of the 20th century, the Velvet Underground chucked 17 minutes of loose, improvisational garage-jazz on their 1968 album White Light/White Heat and changed the game entirely. The Velvets were confrontational by nature, but never got so brash or oppressive as they do here.
“Sister Ray” starts off with a jangly three chord riff as Lou Reed snarls lyrics depicting his topics of choice - drugs, depravity, drag queens - and John Cale pounds away on an explosively noisy organ. Around the 10 minute mark, the already simple track devolves further, as every instrument turns into a droning buzzsaw, Mo Tucker’s drums pare back to caveman pounding, and the guitars and organ compete to see who can create the most dissonance.
The locked in groove and simplicity were huge points of reference for Joy Division and New Order. Later, bands like Clinic and Broadcast would interpolate the analogue aggression of the Velvets’ blown out amplifiers into their own electronic music. A song that’s simultaneously minimalist and way over the top, it still sounds vibrant and weird in spite of so many direct descendants.