10 musical legends hidden inside popular songs

‘Yeah’ – Eddie Murphy

So, this one might need a bit of an explanation. Eddie Murphy is probably the last person most people think of as a classic artist, given the fact that half of his music career was nothing but a vanity project meant for him to potentially have the number-one movie in the world as well as the number-one song a la Prince. There’s only one ‘Purple One,’ though, but the minute that Murphy achieved legendary status was the moment he got the biggest names in music together to do absolutely nothing.

Love’s Alright was already a departure from his R&B-style music into psychedelic pop, but even with Michael Jackson contributing to a track, the intro ‘Yeah’ is still mystifying. Murphy already had serious connections in the industry working with people like Stevie Wonder and Rick James, but this is the kind of lineup that puts ‘We Are the World’ to shame, featuring everyone from Paul McCartney to Elton John to Garth Brooks to Amy Grant.

What’s even funnier is the fact that the whole song is hardly anything special, only being an intro to the record and hearing everyone in the ensemble singing nothing but the word ‘yeah’ over and over again. And since Murphy is a comedian first, it’s strange that one of his funniest moments came from him getting this much star power to boost his ego for one of the most embarrassing projects he’s ever worked on.

‘All of This’ – Blink-182

Nothing about Blink-182 seemed like you were supposed to take it seriously. This is the kind of band that relied on toilet humour and sex jokes as banter when they performed live, so it was no surprise that most of their fanbase catered more towards teenage boys than anyone remotely associated with the punk community. They did have more diverse tastes than most people thought, though, and bringing in one of the founders of goth rock was certainly a unique way to change things up.

While the band’s self-titled album is already a strange trip compared to all of their adolescent albums, the stretch of songs towards the end of the record is where things start congealing together. ‘Easy Target’ is a nice piece of nervy punk rock, but after the track dies down, ‘All Of This’ starts off with Robert Smith’s voice shaking throughout the verses, practically turning the whole track into a Cure song before Tom DeLonge’s vocals come back in.

Although the band have tried at various points to produce the song live, there’s hardly anyone who can match what Smith did on the track, especially on the bridge, where it sounds like a sequel to ‘Lovesong’ half the time. It’s easy to look at this record as Blink finally discovering what feelings are for the first time, but the amount of heart in this one track is enough to win over even the most brain-dead fan who wanted them to return to the fart jokes.

‘XXX’ – Kendrick Lamar

Kendrick Lamar’s Damn has always been a fairly complicated listen. The entire record was a result of him dealing with the fame that came from records like Good Kid Maad City, but whereas To Pimp A Butterfly saw him try to rise above everything, this was him slowly falling back down to Earth and facing reality. That meant dealing with both sides of his heart, and while ‘Love’ and ‘Lust’ had already been covered, bringing in U2 for ‘XXX’ is one of the most insanely inspired choices he could have made.

Because looking at this on paper, this makes negative sense. Bono is the last person who should be on an album that has songs like ‘Humble’ on it, but it’s all about how he is placed in the context of the record. The song is, in essence, over at this point, but hearing the U2 frontman talk about a city being overtaken by drum and bass feels like he’s inside Lamar’s heart and desperately trying to find that mild-mannered kid behind everything.

And given the fact that Mr Morale came after this, it’s nice to know that Bono’s verse wasn’t in vain. K-Dot did learn to overcome his demons, and even if he had to take time to work on himself, it was better for him to heed Bono’s words and not become a casualty like so many of the icons that have come before him.

‘Sabbra Cadabra’ – Black Sabbath

No metal band should have to play heavy riffs for the rest of their lives. There are moments when artists have a change of heart, but even when Tony Iommi picked up a guitar, he was always in a good mood when writing the most demented guitar part he could think of for Black Sabbath. That doesn’t always equate to the best song, and when something was missing on ‘Sabbra Cadabra’, one of the icons of prog-rock stepped up to the plate.

Despite the song being a great vehicle for Osbourne’s high vocals, the strangest part of the song comes when Rick Wakeman of Yes comes in with those keyboards, sounding like a spirit from another dimension when he played. While Iommi had played the piano on previous Sabbath albums, there’s no way that he could have pulled this off, especially those arpeggios that he put towards the back end of the track.

The whole thing managed to go a little too well, almost, given the fact that Wakeman was asked to join the band but elected to remain in Yes. The idea of the prog giants continuing on without Wakeman already made for a decent experiment with Drama, though, so would it really have been too much to ask for ‘Owner of a Lonely Iron Man?’

‘Bust A Move’ – Young MC

The golden age of all hip-hop usually comes back to getting the right sample. Even though there had been thousands of people spitting over the drum break to James Brown’s ‘Funky Drummer,’ it was worth it to look a little harder for the right groove if you wanted to be original. Young MC already had a bulletproof sample when working out ‘Bust a Move,’ but that juicy bass lick in between everything was a bit more modern than everyone thought.

Though the rest of the song relies on that funky guitar lick and Mr. MC’s Dr Seuss-esque rhymes, it’s worth it to listen to Flea play bass on the track. This was before Red Hot Chili Peppers were even a big name, too, so this was a lot of people’s first exposure to what the funky monk could do, especially since his other collaborations with bands like FEAR and Jane’s Addiction didn’t exactly set the world on fire.

Projects like Mother’s Milk and Blood Sugar Sex Magik were probably going to sell in droves regardless, but this is a hell of a way for someone to get their foot in the door. After all, the basis behind Flea’s career was always funk, and getting on a groove that sounded this tight made way too much sense.

‘Time Out of Mind’ – Steely Dan

The jury’s still out whether that was every any proper members of Steely Dan during their prime. They had a touring band during their first iteration, but the more Donald Fagen and Walter Becker fell in love with the studio, the idea of the group felt more like a session project than a proper rock and roll outfit. Anyone could have been in Steely Dan if they had the right feel for the song, but if we’re talking “hidden” music legends, Mark Knopfler is the best example of being tucked away in ‘Time Out of Mind.’

Granted, Steely Dan was already at their wit’s end when making this album anyway. During this time, Becker would get hit by a car, watch his girlfriend pass away, and see one of their favourite tracks get completely wiped out by accident, so being cordial with one of their session musicians was the last thing on their minds. And despite Knopfler being a legend, even he admitted to struggling to find what they wanted for the solo.

After a few agonising days, though, they finally got the right track from Knopfler, only to use a small snippet of it in the final version that came out. While most artists would consider that a slap in the face to their hard work, they weren’t trying to offend. They were after a specific sound, and even if they only got it for ten seconds, they knew where it would fit within the context of the song.

‘Mama’ – My Chemical Romance

It’s almost expected for every rock opera to have a few guest stars. After all, every character has their own speaking role, and it would be ridiculous to ask for one singer to take on the role of thirteen different people and try to make them all sound different from each other. My Chemical Romance may not have had that much of a problem on The Black Parade, but for all its theatrics, you’d think that a band that fell under the emo tag wouldn’t have the guts to go full-on Broadway.

For ‘Mama,’ though, the band needed to have a few moments where ‘The Patient’ hears from his mother back home while he’s at war. But right as the chaos dies down, hearing Liza Minnelli on the track is slightly surreal, practically turning the tune into a jazzy number you’d hear in a smokey cafe before Gerard Way comes back in to talk about the horrors he suffered through that led him to being a dying cancer patient.

And while there aren’t many recurring themes on the album, hearing Minnelli pile on the melodrama by echoing the ‘carry on’ chorus of ‘Welcome to the Black Parade’ and weeping at the end tells the listener everything they need to know. This was not going to have a happy ending, and if the protagonist is going to hell, he’s going to make sure to have a front-row seat for his family members crying over him.

‘Black Gives Way to Blue’ – Alice in Chains

The thought of Alice in Chains continuing on without Layne Staley felt impossible circa 2002. While he didn’t write all of the songs, the way that he and Jerry Cantrell’s voices blended together on their signature harmonies made them the heavy metal version of Simon and Garfunkel for the alternative generation. There would never be anybody who sounded like that, and while it’s understood that the William DuVall version of the group is totally different, they couldn’t help but look back a few times on their comeback album.

Then again, Black Gives Way to Blue feels like a triumph over defeat half the time. ‘All Secrets Known’ and ‘Last of My Kind’ feel like the band has finally overcome the shadow of Staley and has learned to move on, but the title track was always supposed to be a different beast, dominated mostly by piano as Cantrell talks about the struggles he had dealing with the loss of his musical soulmate.

And by getting Elton John to play the piano on the track, Cantrell brought everything full circle, checking one of his idols off his bucket list and giving Staley the send-off that anyone would be proud to have. It still had all of the signature darkness of a classic Alice tune, but it’s a touching tribute to a musical legend who, as John is wont to say, burned out long before his legend ever did.

‘You Can Still Change Your Mind’ – Tom Petty

Tom Petty never saw himself as strictly a live act. The Heartbreakers could still dominate when they wanted to, but their best moments came from them creating textures in the studio once they started hooking up with Jimmy Iovine. Damn the Torpedoes had seen them go from a garage band to a rock institution, but Hard Promises was where a lot more of the depth came in, complete with ‘The Gold Dust Woman’ in tow.

While Stevie Nicks had been lobbying hard to join the Heartbreakers on several occasions, she was always destined for a solo career once Petty offered up ‘Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around.’ That was never going to be enough, though, and despite her performance on ‘Insider’ going over incredibly well, ‘You Can Still Change Your Mind’ is a more subtle way of utilising her talents, practically creating a one-woman choir behind Petty’s voice as he talks about leaving his old flame behind.

Rumours wasn’t even considered classic yet, but this was the kind of production that could stand side-by-side with what Fleetwood Mac had created a few years earlier. It might have been softer than Petty’s usual ballads, but with Nicks acting as his anchor, he created the kind of song with Bruce Springsteen’s heart and Brian Wilson’s ear for production.

‘Vegetables’ – The Beach Boys

After Pet Sounds, Brian Wilson could pretty much do whatever he wanted. He had grown tired of the road, and even if the rest of The Beach Boys were happy to go on tour without him, he felt he was better off turning the studio into his personal playground with The Wrecking Crew at his disposal. But when you make a watershed record like that, where are you supposed to go next once everything dies down?

Whereas most musicians knew Pet Sounds was genius, the road to making Smile was always going to be tough, culminating in Wilson shelving the project for years. A lot of the songs were released on other Beach Boys albums, but the fact that he got Paul McCartney to chew different vegetables for a track is absolutely hilarious. The whole tune was supposed to be silly by nature, but Macca’s chewing is only available on the special editions, with Wilson cutting him out of the version on the album.

So while McCartney doesn’t need to worry about his career being intact, it’s insane to think he missed out on two of the biggest artists of all time. He was more than happy to make his own hits, but it must sting to be a part of an unfinished Beach Boys and then be pushed out of the room when Pink Floyd were asking for people to answer questions in between the songs on Dark Side of the Moon.