Jeff Beck is surely the only guitar hero of his generation — a former Yardbird and the man who lit the fuse of 1970s fusion — who now makes records like a Chemical Brother: wildfire-instrumental affairs set in fat, dirty jungles of looped percussion and synth licks. He's damn good at it, too. Some of the vocal-sample high jinks ("Seasons," "Hot Rod Honeymoon") wear after repeated plays; this is, after all, a guy who wisely dispensed with singers after 1974. But Beck rules machine parties such as "So What" with a knockout brutality — cutting through the programming with feedback-tipped spears of lyricism and big-cat growls of distortion — while his biting, acrobatic elegance in the album's closing ballads highlights the beauty and melody inside the violence.

“(We're Not) The Jet Set”

George Jones and Tammy Wynette were still married when they recorded the tongue-in-cheek "(We're Not) The Jet Set." The lyrics, written by Nashville songwriter Bobby Braddock, who also penned Wynette's "D-I-V-O-R-C-E" and Jones' "He Stopped Loving Her Today," make fun of the good life by declaring, "We're not the Jet Set/We're the old Chevrolet set." Braddock recalled that while writing the song, he needed the name of a city that evened out the rhyme he had with "Riviera" and "Missourah." “I got out a Rand McNally atlas," he said. "In the first part are the maps. The last part is an alphabetical listing of cities. I wanted a rustic, small-time sound. I went to the listing for Missouri. And I found 'Festus.' I loved the sound of it."