7. All I Need
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9IODJdi3GA Artist: RadioheadAlbum: 'In Rainbows'Year: 2007 Good bands release songs that trigger musicians to hear what they're doing, and find it catchy. Great bands release songs that confuse musicians until they learn how to play them, and realise why they're great. Truly great bands release songs that musicians still can't wrap their heads around, even once they've learnt to play them. 'All I Need' is one of these deceptively simple songs that, excuse the Radiohead pun, two plus two equals five for. It's similar enough in chord structure to a lot of their material, it has a similar soaring melody, and it spirals into a booming outro, via a constellation of glockenspiels and some swirling ambience. But it's in the expertly choreographed structure, the glide of the chorus and the succinct poignancy of lines like "I'm just an animal trapped in your hot car", that 'All I Need' really shows itself to be a great song, rather than a good one. In fact, that lyric, about the animal in the car, it sums up the song completely. Wonderfully towing the line between poetic and sad, and almost impossible to replicate as a piece of art, no matter how much you study it.