TOP FIVE BANDS’ SELF-TITLED SONGS
I have long felt that doing a Top Five treatment of bands’ self-titled songs would be a fun exercise, and now, dear reader, you shall see that come to fruition. You’d be surprised how many bands give their own name to a song: Slipknot, Samhain, Jodie Foster’s Army, Pennywise, Body Count, Iron Maiden, Kajagoogoo, Youth of Today, Brand Nubian, Kool & the Gang, Negative Approach, Talk Talk, and way too many more to name. There were so many quality choices for this list, narrowing it down to a top five was extremely difficult; beyond some strong selections in the aforementioned list, the top few that just missed the cut would be Motorhead, Bad Religion, Black Sabbath, and Green Day. As a quick note, in this Top Five, we'll be excluding name variations (ie, The Clash-"This is Radio Clash," Public Enemy-"Public Enemy No. 1," etc.). Without further ado, we now turn to Eric Roberts The Best of the Best:
5. Living In a Box
No bonus points for the album the song appears on also being self-titled, but the song itself is such a great vintage 80s throwback, with some of the instantly-recognizable hallmarks of the decade’s pop music, such as those synths and the prominent snare. Living In a Box is in the same vein as bands like Go West: very much products of their time, but if you have an ear for this sound—which I obviously do—then it’s paradoxically timeless. I call "Living In a Box" power cheese—the song is actually quite over-the-top (which is a good thing in my view), but it’s also a legitimately great pop tune, particularly thanks to the vocals.
4. Cruel Hand
"Cruel Hand" is equal parts catchy and made for the pit. It’s a banger from the band’s Ride the Lightning-core phase, really epitomizing one of the dominant sounds of that era of hardcore as melodic hardcore was giving way to more beatdown and death metal-influenced hardcore. The whole album this appears on (Lock & Key) is really good, but 2008’s Prying Eyes is even better: one of my favorite hardcore albums of all time, in fact.
3. Ramones-R.A.M.O.N.E.S.
Okay, I know I said no variations, but this doesn’t fall under that umbrella if they’re just spelling the name of the band, right? "R.A.M.O.N.E.S." is such a simple yet catchy song. It’s a fitting anthem for the Ramones and a perfect encapsulation of what made them one of the greatest punk bands of all time.
2. Minor Threat
Catchy isn’t the first thing that typically comes to mind with hardcore or punk, yet like the previous two selections—Minor Threat is of that era where hardcore and punk were still more or less synonymous and not yet two fully separate scenes—that is precisely what this song is. It’s also dripping in run-through-a-wall aggression, yin and yang: "Minor Threat" is the hardcore punk Golden Ratio.
1. Bad Company
Like "Living In a Box," this is another song that epitomizes its era, yet unlike that song, it isn’t one that needs contextualizing. I’m sure the Five Finger Death Punch cover helps its recognizability among younger audiences, but most people, even if they weren’t around back then, probably know the original anyway, standing on its own two feet as a rock n roll classic with attitude.