Are there epic songs anymore? What are they?

blaring

do people still listen to radio ?

Have 6 music on most days in the office and honestly can't recall ever hearing Sigur Ros. Suspect i'd remember cos I'd whinge about it.

I can't remember how Knights of Cydonia (which came first, that of Jesus of Suburbia?) goes at all, largely because of the massive and disgusting dynamic range compression.

regarding the "you can't stop after three minutes", I think Timberlake's "what goes around" works since the best part is the final "comes around" !

I don't like Muse at all but I kinda liked Cydonia. mainly for the video, I must say !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_sBOsh-vyI

Green Day was 2004, Cydonia was 2006. They're different things though. Cydonia's not trying to be important, it's trying to be fun. I almost think of it like a dance record, with the big vocal drop halfway through.

xp I'm mentioning radio only because I'm not sure how else a song "weaves its way into the fabric of an entire culture", unless it becomes a YouTube meme. It's still what drives ubiquity imo.

unless it becomes a YouTube meme

You mean like "Trapped in the Closet"? ;)

I mean, maybe it's a US/UK thing, but that song was pretty ubiquitous for a while here. Sigur Ros, on the other hand, I mean, I've never heard that song. Again, probably just me though.

ah, Muse's Cydonia was the one I had in mind !
but was it really a big hit ? (I suppose it was in a way otherwise I wouldn't know the song...).

in the US it was a top 10 alt-rock hit, at a point when they'd only had a couple so far. it was also the lead single for that album in the US, where i know it wasn't for most other countries.

I didn't know that. Interesting choice considering how much more obviously commercial the other two singles were.

So far, I think Cydonia (long, multiple parts, solo guitar !) is the best answer with "what goes around" (long, two parts, biggest popstar of the world at that time !).

Can't believe I've forgotten this, but surely The-Dream: Yamaha-Nikki pt 2-Abyss? Yeah, it wasn't a massive hit (or just a hit...), but it's by far the most epic pop-thing made this century.

only thing about "What Goes Around" and most of these songs is that there were readily available shorter radio edits that were often what people heard. there was never any under-5 minute version of "Bohemian Rhapsody" or "Like A Rolling Stone" because the size of the thing was part of the point. there was a shorter edit of "November Rain" i heard on the radio now and then in the '90s but it was just an impossibly mangled trainwreck of an edit.

yeah, I thought about the dream too but I suppose these weren't big enough to qualify.

"Stan" (6:21) was an omnipresent epic, for a while at least.

xpost

really ? there were edits of "what goes around" without the final ? tss...

LCD Soundsystem has a bunch of them.

iirc the "What Goes Around" edit incorporated the end of the song, it just shorted the whole thing down to about 5 minutes

The first thing that comes to mind is some of the songs on Ys, but I'm not sure that's what you mean.

Godspeed! You Black Emperor just released an album, didn't they?

you just cant escape gybe on the radio or tv can you?

i think "stan" is a good answer.....

Surprised "We Are Young" by Fun. hasn't been mentioned.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5Il3whipgw

Also Drake's Forever fits as far as hip-hop pop 5:50 epic: Kanye, Eminem, L'il Wayne, all in one long song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYJndpsSuwQ

what is so 'epic' about hotel california?

I know it's less than 5 minutes, but Lady Gaga's Bad Romance always struck me as being particularly epic.

Also under 5 minutes but I think "Somebody That I Used To Know" and "We Are Young" are going for the epic thing.

("Hotel California" is my second most hated song of all time, so I'm going to defend its epicness with my tongue in my cheek)

"Hotel California" isn't exactly a multi part epic, but its length makes it so, the whole song builds on that limp reggae beat up to Henley's damning critique of mid 70s California culture - ie the last verse. Then the superb guitar solos and closing interplay sending the listener into a drugged out stupor, or whatever.

It's got a lot of verses and a long solo, as does "Sultans of Swing." Epics.

It's not epic in length, but the one I think got out and known is The White Stripes "Seven Nation Army".

i'm not sure this thread can work without constantly tripping over people's differing notions of 'epic', though i am glad you are trying, i.e. i'm not being dismissive

Surprised "We Are Young" by Fun. hasn't been mentioned.

good point -- "We Are Young" and "Some Nights" are both big hits that, while only 4 minutes long, have tempo/mood changes and feel kind of epic. or at least they feel endless, which is why i try to forget they exist, and didn't think to mention them itt.

if "we are young" is epic then what's "Bad romance"?

I'd say Queen has a bunch of epic songs clocking in under 4 minutes...

xp someone already said "bad romance," i didn't notice.
kanye west "runaway" makes just as much sense for this as "hotel california" IMO.

"What Would I Want Sky?"
"Wulfstan II" ??
"Young Hearts Spark Fire" ??
"Nothing Ever Happened" ??
"Kim & Jessie" ?

Fun sounds like just as much as an epic as "Kids" or "Electric Feel" IMO.

Not quite sure why 'Welcome To The Black Parade' doesn't count here, I was under the impression it was huge when it came out. It hasn't really "woven its way into the fabric of an entire culture" but then again neither did 'Paranoid Android'.

Otherwise, this thread seems weirdly grandaddish.

The Roots' "Water" (on Phrenology).

Not quite sure why 'Welcome To The Black Parade' doesn't count here,

I'm not that clear on how we're defining "epic" here, especially since "Stairway to Heaven" is very different compositionally from the other two examples in the OP, both of which are more like regular verse-chorus songs that are extended by repetition (with more lyrics). Still, at only 5:11, "Welcome..." is shorter than even "Hotel California" and much shorter than "Stairway" or "American Pie".

Big statement and/or long journey +
Sonic ambition and/or structural ambition
Epic Song

Big Statement
Hotel California
American Pie
Sign O' The Times

Long Journey
Hotel California
Taxi
Stairway to Heaven
The Road Goes On Forever

Sonic Ambition (aka Ready for Wembley)
We are Young
The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys
D'Ya Know What I Mean?

Structural Ambition
Suite: Judy Blue Eyes
Bohemian Rhapsody
A Day In The Life

good post!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8a/Eazy-E_Eazy-Duz-It.jpg

plus i gotta love "We Are Young" and "D'Ya Know What I Mean?" being placed in the same basket

"Stairway" = structural ambition, surely?

literal epic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2GLucHdgCI

I'm not gonna read this thread because watching people lazily misuse the word "epic" is one of my all-time least-favorite things, so throw me a bone here: did y'all eventually decide it just means "more than 5 minutes long"?

kinda, kinda not. length has been used as a criteria, but not the only one or even a necessary one.

I like Auerbach(?)'s stuff on epic form: lots of digressions, action slowing to a crawl while the narrator makes hyper-detailed observations about the eight previous owners of this one spear or w/e, slow-moving but unstoppable.

By the broad definitions people are coming up with, there are probably many epic songs in the present day. "21 Guns" and "Wake Me Up When September Ends" are Big Statement songs, for example, and the former is longer than "Welcome to the Black Parade". I'm not saying this because I think these songs should be considered epic songs but because I think these definitions are too broad.

Does "sonic ambition" just mean "sounds bombastic"?