10 songs where the guest stole the show
Sometimes, an artist just doesn’t have the right skill set to bring across the music they’re hearing in their head. No matter how many times you might try to throw together the best series of notes for a guitar solo, there’s no point in hoping that one pass in the studio will magically turn you into Satriani in one fellow swoop. There’s no shame in bringing in a guest to help flesh out a song, but artists like Kate Bush managed to steal the spotlight away from these iconic acts.
Then again, that’s probably not the intention of any musician when they come into the studio. More often than not, it’s just about making the track better, but even if they fulfilled their duty to make everything leap out of the speakers, they may have done their job a little too well by taking the shine off some of their peers.
Because for all of the great players in the band, they may as well be a backing group for the guests half the time, usually working off them and seeing where the song would go next. Without realising it, a lot of them ended up becoming honourary members of the group without even noticing it half the time.
Even if some of them managed to showboat a little too much, they did at least leave the audience with some of the greatest lines, leads, or musical fragments that would be running through their head the minute they heard them. Whether they were hidden in the mix or placed front and centre, something as simple as playing a couple of chords made it impossible for fans to take their ears off them.
10 classic songs stolen by the guest:
10. ‘Stolen Prayer’ – Chris Cornell (Alice Cooper)
By the start of the 1990s, Alice Cooper had become a much different figure than the one people bowed down to in Wayne’s World. Sure, there were still people worshipping him as one of the founders of heavy metal, but that didn’t exactly hold much water in the era of alternative rock. Other grunge purists were more than willing to return the favour, though, and as Cooper got spiritual, Chris Cornell took every hard rocker to school with ‘Stolen Prayer’.
Since the entire Last Temptation album is meant to be about a man’s slow descent through a world of sin, Cornell plays opposite Cooper on each chorus of the tune, almost like the devil on his shoulder telling him that everything’s going to be alright. Even though Cooper eventually performed the Cornell song ‘Unholy War’, this is the duet that no one realised they wanted until they heard it in context, especially when Cornell talks about feeling like he’s confined in some emotional straitjacket.
But being a glorified backup singer isn’t what someone comes to Cornell for. No, if you’re going to use him, you need to let him soar, and when he jumps up the octave on the final chorus, people start to put the pieces together. As much as Cooper can rest on his laurels as a hard rock icon, Cornell was the new school of rockers were working with.
9. ‘Day After Day’ – George Harrison (Badfinger)
Anyone who was working under the Apple label in the late 1960s was going to be looked at with at least a little bit of musical nepotism. Whereas most people had to worry about slogging away their days trying to nab a record deal, becoming friendly with The Beatles was like getting an honourary golden ticket to stardom. And while Badfinger was from Fab standards in their prime, getting a boost from George Harrison probably didn’t hurt.
‘Day After Day’ already had a fine chorus, but the minute that Harrison comes in with his lead guitar, the whole track comes alive. By comparison, Badfinger seemed to be a bit too overeager to show their stuff, so bringing this kind of solo saves the track from going too far into 100% sugariness.
If anything, this just puts an extra sheen on Harrison’s pedigree for writing fantastic solos. From playing over the changes perfectly to making his slide sound like he’s crying, ‘Day After Day’ wasn’t a great song with a guest guitar solo. It was Badfinger working with another lead vocalist who happened to be playing guitar instead of singing.
8. ‘Money For Nothing’ – Sting (Dire Straits)
Dire Straits never claimed to be the most en-vogue band in the world. From the minute that they got started in the midst of the punk movement, they seemed like the archetype dad band years before that was even a proper term. That didn’t mean that they couldn’t still write great hooks, even if they were recycled from completely different hits.
Since Sting had parted ways from The Police during the making of Brothers in Arms, his vocal on ‘Money For Nothing’ is one of the most singularly weird pairings in 1980s music. The Police and Dire Straits were far from being on opposite ends of the spectrum, but hearing the melody of ‘Don’t Stand So Close To Me’ twisted around to be a weird critique on MTV feels all the more strange when paired up with Mark Knopfler’s signature guitar fills.
Then again, when listening to the lyrics that aren’t homophobic slurs, are we sure that this wasn’t a way of insulting Sting? After all, the song is about how vapid pop stars can be and the mindless idiots that listen to their music, so getting the guy who made ‘Every Breath You Take’ to sing on the track is either a work of genius or one of the single gutsiest moves any band had ever done.
7. ‘What’s That You’re Doing’ – Stevie Wonder (Paul McCartney)
It was going to take something major to outshine someone like Paul McCartney on his own track. Macca is practically the entire concept of music in human form, so any kind of major piece he worked on would feature any of his backing musicians competing for second place. When Stevie Wonder walked into the room, though, they used their collective powers mainly for good when putting together ‘What’s That You’re Doing’.
Despite this also being the sessions that put the diabetic coma ‘Ebony and Ivory’ into the world, ‘What’s That You’re Doing’ is the kind of quasi-psychedelic freakout that no one realised they needed in their lives. The 1960s had come and gone, but Wonder seemed intent on beating Jimi Hendrix at his own game with his keyboard, almost sounding like his setup was being run through a distortion pedal half the time.
There are pieces where McCartney can be heard loud and clear, but as soon as Wonder opens his mouth, there was no real use in trying to put that signature whimsy into the tune. This is just pure funk-rock bliss, and even if their next collaboration was jaw-droppingly saccharine, playing this tune almost makes it all worth it.
6. ‘The Garden’ – Alice Cooper (Guns N’ Roses)
By the time the 1990s started, Guns N’ Roses were everyone’s archetype for what a great rock and roll outfit should sound like. They were far from the first band to play down-and-dirty rock, but between the boom of hair metal and the emergence of grunge, no one stood for the moniker of sex, drugs, and rock and roll than Axl Rose or Slash. Then again, musical heroes are only as good as their villains, and when putting together ‘The Garden’, Rose got Alice Cooper in to bring his signature macabre side out to play.
While Use Your Illusion may have a concept so convoluted that it causes one’s eyes to roll into the back of their head, the idea of being sucked into a world of debauchery is something that anyone who gets off the bus in Los Angeles has felt at some point. Everything seems like a bold new adventure, but as soon as Cooper’s voice comes in, you’re dropped into a hellscape from which there is no escape.
And once Cooper says, ‘Bye-bye’ towards the end of the track, it feels like being thrown into the depths of hell that will lead you to either be feasted on by demons or wind up in the gutter of a sleazy strip bar right off of Sunset Strip. It might sound like a nightmare, but leave it to Cooper to make it feel like a nightmare you want to have.
5. ‘Control’ – Kendrick Lamar (Big Sean)
Everything about hip-hop has been about trying to have some sort of competition within the game. No matter how many people like to play it friendly every time they hop on each other’s tracks, there isn’t one rapper that doesn’t claim to want to leave a trail of their fellow MCs in their wake after they’re finished. And before he even had multiple classics to his name, Kendrick Lamar came for damn near everybody when working with Big Sean.
Then again, Big Sean isn’t exactly one of the GOATs of hip-hop or anything. No disrespect meant to the man, but there were already legions of people doing the same kind of straight-ahead hip-hop he made his wheelhouse, but ‘Control’ felt different strictly because of how vicious Lamar was when calling out several rappers by name and then threatening to murder them on whatever beat he comes across.
Also, given the fact that Lamar talked about murdering artists like Drake all the way back in 2012, this can only be seen as a self-fulfilling prophecy more than a decade in the making. Lamar was staking his claim as the absolute greatest of his peers, and if hindsight is any indication, he came, saw, and slaughtered anyone else who took issue with him.
4. ‘Beat It’ – Eddie Van Halen (Michael Jackson)
The entire world of guitar was shaped by Eddie Van Halen, whether people liked it or not. From the minute that ‘Eruption’ first reached the airwaves, there were two camps when it came to guitarists: those who wanted to be Eddie and those who wanted to move in a completely different direction from him. Then again, no one can outrun the fastest guitarist ever, and even for just less than an hour in the studio, Eddie found his way onto one of the greatest pop tracks of all time.
But it’s not like Michael Jackson didn’t show up to play here, either. The whole point behind writing ‘Beat It’ and ‘Billie Jean’ was because Quincy Jones told ‘The King of Pop’ he didn’t have enough quality tunes in the can, so this was his way of working into the hard rock world. Even though the backing band from Toto does a fine job on the record, there’s a certain excitement that comes with Eddie’s solo that’s more than words can explain.
Right when he hit his first harmonic, everyone knew that they were in for a rollercoast ride, and by the time he hits those massive tremolo lines towards the end, Jacko may as well have stayed at home and ended things right there. Because, really, does anything matter after Eddie demolishes every other artist in the room?
3. ‘Don’t Give Up’ – Kate Bush (Peter Gabriel)
Peter Gabriel never claimed to want to be a pop star; the pop world came to him. While his first handful of solo albums boasted a handful of decent singles that were bubbling up in the pop charts, So was the closest thing to a prog pop album that the world had ever seen, complete with sleek funk like ‘Sledgehammer’ right next to beautiful passages like ‘Mercy Street’. And if you can’t get the voice of Dolly Parton on a tune about overcoming struggle, why not get one of the queens of art pop?
While the country legend never got to hear the demo version of ‘Don’t Give Up’, it’s impossible to imagine anyone other than Kate Bush singing the breaks. Even for a tune that’s all about struggling through adversity and feeling like you’re about to give out, Bush is the kind of comforting voice anyone wants to hear in their time of need, practically grasping Gabriel like she’s doing in the video with every word.
In fact, the whole performance feels less like a song than it does a one-act play between two people, each of them encouraging one another not to give up on their dreams and keep their heads above water. Most people would go to the standard jock-jams or energetic material for a pick-me-up, but this is so hopeful that it could practically be prescribed as a substitute for antidepressants in the right circumstances.
2. ‘Hunger Strike’ – Eddie Vedder (Temple of the Dog)
In a perfect world, Temple of the Dog would have probably never come to fruition. For everyone claiming that Kurt Cobain was the one who brought grunge to the masses, it was really supposed to be Andy Wood’s crown for the taking before he tragically passed away from a heroin overdose. There’s no way for an entire scene to get over that kind of grief, but when Chris Cornell teamed up with the remaining members of Mother Love Bone for a project, ‘Hunger Strike’ wasn’t just a great tribute. It was a torch-passing moment.
While the group were still laying down the basic tracks for ‘Hunger Strike’, Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament were already jamming with the beginning stages of Pearl Jam with Eddie Vedder when they invited him down to the studio. Since they didn’t have another verse written, they figured that Vedder should cameo on the album, almost like a way of welcoming him into the scene with open arms.
But even though Cornell still owns this track with his unhinged screams, Vedder’s baritone croon was a reminder that everything was going to be okay. It’s a tragedy that Wood never got to see the kind of heights that he was supposed to, but with Eddie at the helm, his spirit would continue to be a major part of every show they would play going forward.
1. ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ – Prince (George Harrison/Rock and Roll Hall of Fame)
It was a sad day for the entire music world when it was announced that George Harrison had lost his battle with cancer. He had always been the quiet genius behind so many Beatles classics, and while John Lennon’s death was so abrupt, seeing Harrison slowly fade away meant that a massive celebration would be in order when the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame came calling. So how do you improve on the perfection of ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’? Well, with Prince, that’s how.
Despite being one of the youngest legends on the stage that night, ‘The Purple One’ strutted in amongst his fellow icons and completely took over the solo section of the tune. The whole thing was supposed to be a tribute to one of the least flashy guitar players of all time, and yet Prince came in as if he was going to be giving everyone from Jimi Hendrix to Eddie Van Halen a run for their money.
But never once does the flashiness stop being tasteful. With every bend, Prince is making his guitar squeal as only he can, complete with peddling off the open string and even throwing in the perfect blues lick to bring some dirtiness into the groove. Eric Clapton might have laid down the solo on the record, but this is probably the most accurate version of a guitar weeping actually sounds like. And wherever Prince and Harrison are today, there’s a good chance that ‘The Quiet Beatle’ thanked him for doing his tune proud.
