The four hundred and fourth song: Only Women Bleed - Alice Cooper
Rather than a shocking rock song that you'd expect from Alice Cooper, this is a slower ballad, still with slightly more visceral imagery, but mostly just about an abusive relationship. While somewhat grand, it's quite sensitive as well, and that's what sounds impressive here. It does tug at your heartstrings and pulls it off well.
The four hundred and fifth song: Jive Talkin’ - Bee Gees
As we're seeing more of the rise of disco out of funk, the Bee Gees bring out Jive Talkin', a song drawing on black influences coming from a band out of north England. It's hard to argue that there wasn't something here about it becoming adapted to become appropriate, but the smooth sound and relatively subdued vocals give a calmer thing to listen to while having been ideal to dance to, which makes it good to listen to on its own merits.
The four hundred and sixth song: Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet - Gavin Bryars
At a length of twenty-six minutes, we've been dreading this one. It certainly takes its time building up, taking about four minutes for the first instrument to start playing. The fragment of song comes to life with that music, a classical composition that adds emotion to the entire thing. I think you need to approach it as that, the man's song another instrument in the composition, that this makes sense. The downside of the length is that it doesn't change it up quite enough and starts getting repetitive. There's some enchantment to the repetition, but it feels like it sometimes takes a bit too much time to shift. Even so, the piece is affecting and gets to you, especially knowing there's an anonymous homeless man who sang this and the place he must have been in. Still, it was good, just not twenty five minutes good.
The four hundred and seventh song: Boulder to Birmingham - Emmylou Harris
We're staying with sad songs, although not affecting in the same way, Boulder to Birmingham is about saying goodbye to someone who has passed. The story behind it is just as sad and the emotions here feel real too, it has a real feeling of loss. The emotion goes through it and the more you listen to the ballad, the more it gets to you.
The four hundred and eighth song: Fight the Power (Parts 1 & 2) - The Isley Brothers
For a shift in emotion, Fight the Power is not a sad song, but contains a lot of anger instead. There is still a lot of anger in the air and this funk song is a lot angrier than the genre usually is, a big protest song where it feels the music has shifted, giving a different tone. It's catchy in its own way, thrilling and tempting with a clear and ambigious meaning - anti-authoritarian without addressing a specific authority.