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Old 05-08-2010, 06:44 AM   #20 (permalink)
OctaneHugo
Goes back & does it again
 
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"King of the World" (5:03)
This song is incredible.

The guitars, drums and synth combine to create something absolutely magical. Words cannot do this part justice. They play a great opening and then go into the verse. It's an echoey guitar line that's indescribably brilliant, and the drums play a very soft but very extraordinary part that uses snare and cymbal to excellent advantage. The synth is on this whole time and during the chorus and it fits right in the middle of it all.

There's a sort-of guitar solo during the second verse, and then after the chorus here the synthesizers get a solo and it's orgasmically brilliant. It'll be stuck in your head for days. That segues right into some awesome synth-soaked guitars with some keyboards going on in the background, and then Fa‎gen and his awesome vocals.

The vocals are great. They're very out there and smooth and it's something that just sticks with you. It's ridiculously catchy. Takin' things the eeeeasy way. Lyrically I love the theory that it's apocalyptic in theme, about how there's a survivor who's broadcasting news of the area he's in and he's just trying to live and find someone else to live with.

There's more synth solo after some more time and here's where the bass and the drums pick it. The bass has been there the whole time but during the outro it's the most noticeable it's been all song and it's a great line. Then the guitars resume their solo and sounds almost "Siberian Khatru"-like.

So the drums rely on an amazing mix of snare, bass drum and some soft little cymbal hits and it's all great. It's jazzy, and it's a work of genius.

The guitars are brilliant all the way through, from a quiet-to-loud echo to some wah-wah parts that sound like they've definitely been synthed up a bit, and then the solos are great. There's some little plucking stuff going on during the chorus and if you manage to latch on you'll never want it to stop.

The bass, if you can notice it before the ending, are actually really well-done and are definitely played by a confident Becker, finally.

The keyboards and synth might be better than the guitars, but it really depends on the weather. Overall the line is brilliant.

The vocals are awesome as well, really fits with everything else with no question of it's excellence or validity here.

This song is really something that cannot be put into words; as great as bits like "Show Biz Kids" or "Your Gold Teeth" are, this is better. This is 10 times better. This is one of the reasons why Countdown to Ecstasy is so great: it keeps one-upping itself. It just keeps topping it's previous output, even when it seems like it's impossible to do so. This is why Steely Dan is so brilliant: they consistently top their previous output song-to-song.

Final Ranking
1. "King of the World"
2. "Your Gold Teeth"
3. "Show Biz Kids"
4. "My Old School"
5. "Bodhisattva"
6. "The Boston Rag"
7. "Razor Boy"
8. "Pearl of the Quarter"
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