10 Best Experimental Rock Songs Of All Time
4. Can - Vitamin C
Arguably the finest Krautrock band of the bunch, Can were a group who refused to ever stop evolving. From personnel to musical style, they shifted things up constantly, meaning there’s a Can for all tastes, from mellow, jazzy compositions to the truly avant garde.
For many, their golden period fell somewhere in the middle, culminating in the one-two punch of Tago Mago (1971) and Ege Bamyasi (1972), which fused longer, more technically daring pieces with catchier rock tracks. The latter features “Vitamin C”, one of the band’s most accessible and enjoyable tracks in the Can canon. With a skippy bassline, typically locked in beat, and Damo Suzuki’s frenzied vocals, this is a three minute distillation of early ‘70s Can at their finest.
It’s a song with plenty of catchy sections but a tough one to get a handle on structurally. The album as a whole was recorded quickly due to tight deadlines, and that’s audible here - a collection of ideas thrown against the wall, and due to the sheer quality of the group, they somehow stick together.