Top 5 group features that marked rock

Put two bands in the same room and you get two drum kits, two basses, two singers, and only one track to share. On paper, it’s unmanageable. That’s exactly why cross-band collaborations can be counted on one hand throughout rock history: ten musicians have to agree at the same time to play less than usual. When it works, it doesn’t add another song. It revives a career, opens a genre, sometimes both in the same month.

5. U2 and Green Day on "The Saints Are Coming" (2006)

One year after Katrina, two bands who apparently had nothing to say to each other cover a 1979 Scottish punk track, "The Saints Are Coming" by the Skids. The single was released on October 31, 2006 and topped the charts. A month earlier, the two bands played it together on the lawn of the Superdome in New Orleans, for the first game held there since the hurricane.

What makes this story interesting for us is where the money went. All proceeds went to Music Rising, the association founded by The Edge after the disaster, whose mission was summed up in one sentence: to put instruments back in the hands of musicians in the region. Thousands of guitars and amps drowned in studios and schools in Louisiana were replaced one by one.

The AC30 name is a landmark of British sound, and the one The Edge has carried for forty years: all-tube architecture, EL84 tubes, and that jangly brightness that cuts through a mix without effort. Two channels, Normal and Top Boost with Treble and Bass EQ, plus a global Tone Cut. Built-in tremolo and spring reverb, true bypass effects loop to place delays after distortion. A classic in the guitar amps section.

4. Motörhead and Girlschool united under the name Headgirl (1981)

Late December 1980, Phil "Philthy Animal" Taylor breaks his neck and Motörhead is left without a drummer. Producer Vic Maile has an idea: since the band can’t record an album, why not record a single with Girlschool, four London women Lemmy loves because they play fast, loud and tight. The two bands locked themselves in Jacksons studios, Hertfordshire, and Denise Dufort, Girlschool’s drummer, held the sticks on the three tracks.

Lemmy chose "Please Don't Touch", by Johnny Kidd & the Pirates, one of his old loves. On the B-side, each band covers the other: Girlschool plays "Bomber", Motörhead plays "Emergency". The EP was released on February 13, 1981 under a common name, Headgirl, and climbed to fifth place in the UK sales charts. It’s the best chart position either band ever reached. Lemmy’s sound, that bass played like a rhythm guitar, went through heavy gauge strings: his signature 50-105 strings are still in the catalog.

3. Nirvana and the Meat Puppets on MTV Unplugged (1993)

November 18, 1993, Sony studios in New York. MTV expected hits and guests the general public would recognize. Director Alex Coletti told it bluntly: the channel wanted to hear the “big” names, Eddie Vedder, Tori Amos, anyone of that caliber. Kurt Cobain stood firm and brought up Cris and Curt Kirkwood, the Meat Puppets brothers, an Arizona band almost nobody listened to at the time.

They played three tracks, "Plateau", "Oh Me" and "Lake of Fire", and all three were Meat Puppets songs. The world’s best-selling band devoted a quarter of their most-watched show to introducing another band’s repertoire. Cobain’s guitar that night was a 1959 Martin D-18E, a rare electro-acoustic model with an estimated production of three hundred units.

Introduced in 1934, the D-18 is the reference dreadnought in mahogany, and it’s still made in Nazareth, Pennsylvania. Solid Sitka spruce top, solid mahogany back and sides, advanced and scalloped X bracing that frees the top, ebony fingerboard and bridge, dovetail neck joint. The top of the folk guitars range.

2. Anthrax and Public Enemy on "Bring the Noise" (1991)

During the recording of Persistence of Time, Scott Ian suggests to Anthrax to cover "Bring the Noise" by Public Enemy. The whole band is a fan, but no one knows Chuck D. Ian records a demo on cassette and sends it to him with the idea: what if Chuck and Flavor Flav came to lay down their vocals on this version? Chuck D listens and says yes without hesitation. Joey Belladonna, Anthrax's singer, is kept out of the project for quite a while.

The track is released in June 1991 on Attack of the Killer B's, then in October on Apocalypse 91, on Public Enemy's side. It earns a Grammy nomination for best metal performance. Shortly after, the two bands go on a joint tour with Primus opening, a decision made in less than five minutes after a photo session in Salt Lake City. It's 1991: nu metal doesn't exist yet, and two New York bands have just laid the first stone.

1. Run-DMC and Aerosmith on "Walk This Way" (1986)

Rick Rubin produces Raising Hell and wants a single capable of bringing the Queens trio into middle America. The hitch is that Run-DMC has been playing the break of this record for years without knowing who plays it: the track already lived in hip-hop through its drum intro, four measures that DJs looped. DMC said it straight: they didn't know the band and identified it by what was written on the cover.

One Sunday in March 1986, Steven Tyler and Joe Perry show up at the studio for eight thousand dollars, lay down new vocals and new guitars. The vibe doesn't really click, and on Run-DMC's side panic is real. "If you push this rock-rap thing too far, you'll burn us," says DMC, convinced they're sabotaging their career.

The track climbs to fourth place on the Hot 100, higher than the 1975 version. The video where the wall falls between the two rehearsal rooms plays on loop on MTV, puts Aerosmith back on track and breaks the lock on rock radio. Forty years later, all the tracks on this list descend from that one.

What these group features left behind

Go over the five stories and see what's missing each time: the marketing plan. A drummer breaking his neck, a producer obsessed with a 1975 record, a cassette sent blindly, a singer standing up to a TV channel, a city underwater.

There is also a physical constraint these five sessions share: with two bands, you have to make room. Denise Dufort plays for two bands. Cobain leaves three tracks to others. Maybe that's the real difference with a guest: no one stays master at home.

Sources

• Louder, the story of "Walk This Way" by Run-DMC and Aerosmith
• Louder, Anthrax and Public Enemy on "Bring the Noise"
• Louder, the story of Girlschool and its alliance with Motörhead
• Billboard, Curt Kirkwood looks back on Nirvana's Unplugged
• Guitar.com, the gear used on MTV Unplugged in New York
• Music Rising, U2 and Green Day for New Orleans