Sunday Selector: Guitar Hero Edition

So, I finally got Guitar Hero. Tragic, but true. And, of course, dear reader, I am utterly obsessed with it. Actually, "obsessed" doesn't do it justice.

There is no Jimi Hendrix on Guitar Hero. You can do Paint it, Black, but again, Genius cannot apparently deal with that (really? The effing Stones? How rubbish IS this program?). Nonetheless, I was in the mood for some serious guitar music, and so I listened to that on the way home from football and thought, who better to start off a genius top ten? So here it is - the Guitar Hero edition stemming from All Along the Watchtower.

1. White Room - Cream. I love this song, although in my mind, nothing ever beats Sunshine of Your Love which you can do on Guitar Hero, and is by far my favourite thing to play on it. And really is the best thing they ever did - sexy, genius guitar and fab. But I do love this, too.
   
2. Somebody to Love - Jefferson Airplane. Oh, how Grace Slick rocked. I'm sort of named in homage to her, if not entirely after her. Rocking. If only they could have seen "They Built This City." That's tragic.
3. Gimme Shelter - The Rolling Stones. I've been trying to work out what my favourite Stones song is, and I just can't. Under My Thumb is bizarrely, sadistically sexy; Paint It, Black is hypnotic and a wonderful description of a disturbed individual; You Can't Always Get What You Want is just fab. But if I'm in the mood for overwrought, haunting, dramatic and sexy, Gimme Shelter always wins. I just love that beginning, as the layers of sound and the volume build up.
4. About a Girl - Nirvana (MTV unplugged version). The more I think about it and listen to them, the more I am amazed at just how great Nirvana were. I took them for granted, I think, and still do, but the melodies are spectacular and they just seemed to meld the Pixies' gift for melodies and songs with Sonic Youth's sensibilities on dischordant songs.
   
5. Evil Ways - Santana. He's cheesy, but I still really enjoy it. The guitar is too smooth to really get to me - I know he's extremely gifted, but it's almost loungey to me - I prefer something a bit rougher. But, like I say, I still enjoy it, and this is much closer to the sort of stuff I like - more latin sounding.
   
6. Old Man - Neil Young. I absolutely, 100% fricking LOVE this Neil Young album - it's from Harvest, and although I tolerate his other stuff, I just really love this whole album - it's amazing from start to finish. Theatrical in some places (There's a World), political (Alabama, Are You Ready for the Country?) and just plain weird in others (A Man Needs a Maid). This is just lovely - the guitar is so pretty and folksy, and the chorus and its harmonies suck you in so that it's really, really hard to not sing it.
7. A Town Called Malice - The Jam. The start is so nicked from You Can't Hurry Love, but it's so exuberant, and I love the way that it takes a motown sound to talk politics. This is definitely one of my favourite Jam songs.
8. Highway Star - Deep Purple. I definitely prefer the more hippiefied Deep Purple - Hush, Smoke Along the Water. This is a bit too headbanging without anything else going on.
   
9. Voodoo Child - Jimi Hendrix. Sweet!
10. Roxanne - The Police. This remains in my top 5 songs of all time. I just love it. I know, I know, it's The Police. But how could you resist those pleas to her, the way his voices gets strangled with the emotion? And I fricking love the backing to this - the guitar is just genius. I just don't understand how someone couldn't love this song. It is, also, my karaoke song, but that's a whole other, truly terrifying story.