Can you imagine Patrick Swayze striding into the room, looking at Baby’s father and not uttering the words: “Nobody puts Baby in a corner?” Or Leonardo DiCaprio living his best life on the Titanic and not yelling out: “I’m the king of the world!”

Iconic movie lines serve to highlight a feeling or elevate a scene and leave a lasting impression on viewers. Some of them have been thought up by brilliant writers while others have been improvised by ingenious actors. While there definitely isn’t enough space on this list to add all of the memorable lines movies have given us throughout the years, there are quite a few on this list that may just inspire you to rewatch those scenes in which they are uttered.

Or the whole movie, for that matter.

10 Famous Quotes Everybody Knows—And Gets Wrong

10 “Hasta la Vista, baby.”

It’s impossible to watch Terminator 2: Judgment Day and not listen for Arnold Schwarzenegger’s famous “Hasta la Vista, baby” line.
Co-writer of the film, William Wisher, revealed in 2017 that this line was something he used to say to James Cameron over the phone when hanging up. At the time neither of them knew just how iconic the words would become.

Cameron also said in 2017 that ‘Hasta la Vista, baby’ is a line from a Tone Loc song and the rapper approved of the use of it in the movie.

Schwarzenegger’s other iconic line “I’ll be back”, didn’t sit well with the actor at the beginning and he tried several times to persuade Cameron to allow him to say “I will be back” instead. He felt that his accent made the abbreviated line sound strange, but Cameron wouldn’t accept any adjustment to the line whatsoever.

9 “I’m walkin here! I’m walkin here!”

Midnight Cowboy was released in 1969 and became the only X-rated film to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. After all these years, the film still has the ability to bring viewers to tears, especially during the bus scene at the end. In the film, Dustin Hoffman stars as Ratso Rizzo and Jon Voight as Joe Buck. Before the movie’s release, Hoffman was convinced that it would ruin his career after a preview saw droves of people leave the theatre during Jon Voight’s gay sex scene. Voight on the other hand was fully convinced that the film would be a success and also become a classic.

In one, now iconic, scene, Ratso and Joe are talking while walking across a street, when Ratso hits the hood of a taxi and yells, “I’m walkin here! I’m walkin here!” This scene was completely improvised, as there was no budget to close a busy New York street. It was also a real struggle to get the scene done in one shot and director John Schlesinger became annoyed when the actors kept stopping at the curb to avoid being bumped by cars and people. The yellow cab bore down on them during one attempt at shooting the scene, trying to beat the signal, and Hoffman slapped his hand down on the hood of the cab and uttered the infamous line. Schlesinger decided to keep the scene because he loved the improv so much.

8 “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”

The ominous score together with Bruce the shark are probably the most memorable parts of the Jaws movie, released in 1975. However, there is one line that became so iconic, it has been parodied and referenced in several other films. When Roy Scheider finally gets a full view of Bruce, he says, “You’re gonna need a bigger boat,” with his cigarette never leaving the spot between his lips.

This was even funnier when uttered for the first time during filming, as that particular line was something of an inside joke before it made its way into the movie. It was well known that Jaws’ producers were quite stingy and refused to get a bigger boat to support the barge housing the Jaws equipment. Whenever something went wrong with the small boat they hired, someone would say the line. Even when lunch ran late, someone would mumble the line and everyone within earshot would burst out laughing. Scheider improvised the line based on this inside joke.

7 “I see dead people.”

M. Night Shyamalan doesn’t always get it right, but he made something special out of The Sixth Sense. The movie is not only creepy, it’s also succeeded in pulling off one of the biggest twists in movie history (before twists became commonplace, that is). Of course, it’s easy after 21 years to see the camera zoom in on Bruce Willis’ face just as the little boy says, “I see dead people”, but at the time, audible gasps were the order of the day in theatres during screenings worldwide after the twist revealed that Willis’ character had in fact been dead the whole time.

In 2019 Haley Joel Osment, who plays Cole Sear, spoke during an interview about how amazed he was that the now infamous line was never thought to be the tagline for movie during filming, or even part of the call sheet. It was simply a small part of the dialogue that had to be spoken during the scene with Willis’ Dr Malcolm to highlight the moment that Sear shares his secret for the first time.

6 “You hit me in the ear?!”

“The first rule of fight club is you don’t talk about fight club.”

This rule apparently extended to the director of the movie as well, who devised a plan to get a genuine reaction out of Brad Pitt during the filming of a fight scene between him and Edward Norton. The scene was originally supposed to include Norton punching Pitt lightly on the shoulder.

Director, David Fincher, apparently walked up to Norton moments before shooting was due to start and whispered to him to hit Pitt in the ear instead. Norton was understandably hesitant but proceeded to do exactly as he was told anyway. The reaction from Pitt was the surprised “You hit me in the ear?!” line that stayed as is during the now iconic fight scene.

10 Quotes The Founding Fathers Never Said

5 “Hakuna Matata.”

Right after Timon tells Simba that he needs to learn a new lesson in the original The Lion King movie, he asks him to repeat the now infamous words, “Hakuna Matata.” Pumbaa then repeats the line and adds, “It means no worries.” Then follows one of the catchiest tunes in Disney history.

There are many unforgettable quotes and songs in this animated classic, but for a lot of fans “Hakuna Matata” tops the list.

Hakuna Matata really does mean “no trouble” or “no problems” in Swahili and was included in the lyrics by Tim Rice who found the term in a Swahili book.

Disney filed to register “Hakuna Matata” as a trademark in 1994, but this stirred up quite the controversy as the phrase is commonly used by those who speak Swahili. Before the remake of The Lion King was released in 2019, an online petition signed by over 100,000 people called for Disney to drop the trademark rights, which it called an assault on Swahili people and Africa as a whole.

4 “I got a jar of dirt!”

Captain Jack Sparrow swaying drunkenly, falling down, and running through shallow sea water, arms flailing comically, is one of the main reasons for the success of the Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise. Of course, there is also Keira Knightley, Orlando Bloom, zombie-looking sailors, the fantastical Black Pearl, and a whole lot of “Savvy.”

Captain Jack is responsible for some of the funniest moments of the franchise, including calmly stepping onto a dock out of a rapidly sinking ship, practically crying over wasted rum, judging Barbossa’s wig, falling over a wall and highlighting his father’s age in the best way possible. One of Jack’s funniest moments was completely unscripted but ended up being used in the second film because the character reactions were genuinely great. Johnny Depp was completely in character, filming a scene in which he calls out ‘Oi fish face’ to Davy Jones before accidently tumbling down the steps of the ship he was standing on.

The fall may have been unscripted, but Depp made it work by jumping up quickly and singing, “Look what I got. I got a jar of dirt, I got a jar of dirt, and guess what’s inside it!” Depp’s changing facial expression, as Jones prepares to launch an attack on his ship, rounds out the scene perfectly.

3 “Welcome to prime time, bitch!”

Freddy Krueger was one of the scariest horror movie villains of the 80s. He brutally killed people by pulling them into their mattresses and creating a blood fountain, slashing them with the blades on his glove and dragging them across ceilings, and even bursting out from their bodies after possessing them. In total there are 9 movies featuring Freddy, with the third film boasting one of the killer’s most iconic lines which also happened to be improvised.

In Dream Warriors, Freddy is about to kill Jennifer who is a teenager with big dreams of becoming a star in Hollywood. Jennifer’s death is the second one in the movie and comes after she tries not to fall asleep by sitting and smoking in front of the TV late at night. She even puts out the cigarette on her hand in an attempt to stay awake. Unfortunately, she gets too close to the TV after she sees Freddy’s face on the screen, only to be grabbed by Freddy himself. His head then emerges from the top of the TV set as he growls “Welcome to prime time, bitch!” This line was completely improvised by Robert Englund and director Chuck Russell decided to keep the line as well as the original one that Englund says before it: “This is it Jennifer, your big break in TV!”

2 “You better hide that big-ass forehead!”

The Fast And The Furious franchise is jam packed with one liners. Some great, others not so much. They include: “It don’t matter if you win by an inch or a mile. Winning’s winning” and “I don’t have friends, I have family.” Who could forget Letty’s catty “I smell skanks. Why don’t you just pack it up before I leave tread marks on your face?” Or Hobbs exclaiming “I will beat your ass like a Cherokee drum.”

Dwayne Johnson also came up with one of the best one-liners for his Hobbs character when he took out Roman who tried to get a dig in at him. When Hobbs arrives at the barbecue in Furious 6, Roman shouts that Mia should hide her baby oil. Without missing a beat, Hobbs retorts “You better hide that big-ass forehead.” Johnson improvised the line on the spot, causing Ludacris to spit out his drink and Tyrese being at a loss for words, mumbling “I was just joking,” both genuine reactions to the pithy line.

1 “Wakanda Forever” – Black Panther

In the age of superheroes and supervillains, could there be a more iconic line than the two words: “Wakanda Forever?” There has been cheering and clapping in packed theatres across the globe during the screening of Marvel movies whenever this line was spoken. The cheering also had much to do with late Chadwick Boseman, aka Black Panther.

During an appearance of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Boseman confirmed that the salute done in conjunction with uttering “Wakanda Forever” was always done with the right arm over the left. The salute, according to director Ryan Coogler, came from various cultures and languages and has been popularized as a gesture of black excellence. Wakanda, a fictional East African country in the movie Black Panther, was and still is a name for God.

Both the phrase and the salute have been adopted by celebrities worldwide after the release of the movie in 2018. Tennis players have flashed the salute and mouthed the words after victories on the court, soccer players have gotten in on the action after scoring goals as have rugby players after scoring tries.

“Wakanda Forever” is also the lasting legacy of T’Challa who vocalizes the phrase as a battle cry in fight scenes, and Chadwick Boseman, who expressed the salute and words on multiple occasions beyond the movie.

10 Eerie Quotes From Musicians Who Died Before 30

We all know that the Slender Man is nothing more than a pure urban legend created online in 2009 on an Internet forum. However, since then, it has taken on a life of its own, even being connected with several attempted murders as well as a spate of suicides and a possible mass suicide attempt.

While nobody is arguing that the Slender Man is real (at least in the physical sense), the belief in him by some has made the consequences of the legend very real for some. Here are ten very unsettling points about the legend and reality of the Slender Man.

Related: 10 Famous Urban Legends Come To Life

10 Very Definite Origins

Unlike many other legends and myths, the origins of the Slender Man can be traced to the exact date of its creation. At some point on June 10, 2009, the Internet forum Something Awful unleashed two photographs. They were created by user Victor Surge (whose real name was eventually revealed to be Eric Knudsen). He had created them in response to a challenge by the forum’s admin—to create “paranormal images” that might make people believe they were genuine.

The first picture, dating from 1983, showed a group of children looking upset and frightened. In the background is a discreet, extraordinarily tall, faceless man. The caption read: “We didn’t want to go, we didn’t want to kill them, but its persistent silence and outstretched arms horrified us and comforted us at the same time!” That quote was attributed to the unknown photographer, who was “presumed dead.”

The second picture was dated three years later, in 1986. It showed children looking altogether happier while playing in a park. Discreetly, though, the same tall figure can be seen lurking in the background. The caption informed those who viewed the picture that it was “one of two recovered photographs from the Stirling City Library blaze.” It also stated that the photo was taken “the day which fourteen children vanished” and even referenced “Slender Man.” This time the photographer was “named” as Mary Thomas, who had been missing since June 1986.

These two pictures not only gave birth to the Slender Man legends, but they also captivated thousands upon thousands of people almost immediately.^[1]

9 A Legend Made by “The People”

Although Knudsen was responsible for the Slender Man’s creation, it would be the many followers of Creepypasta who would truly bring him to life. As more and more people became aware of Slender Man and added their own details and little pieces of the backstory, the legend grew.

He was often depicted with a white, featureless face and was slim, abnormally tall, and often with tentacles coming from his back. He also became associated with abandoned buildings, often in the wilderness or the woods. Some details added later even claimed that the Slender Man could teleport from one place to another. Those who were interested in the Slender Man even “agreed” signs that he was near and watching you. Such signs as sudden paranoia, nosebleeds, and intense nightmares.

In fact, this creation of a legend by the audience themselves is the subject of our next point. How this growth can be monitored and studied by those who study myths and folklore of the past.^[2]

8 See a Legend Grow and Develop

Many who study legends, folklore, and mythology have looked at the Slender Man legends as a way of being able to document its growth and reach. And in doing so, they look to understand how legends of the past might have developed and grown in a similar way. For example, there is a collective element to the growth of the Slender Man legend, as we examined above. What’s more, slight details change depending on who is telling the tale or who the audience might be. Indeed, the more accounts that were retold of the Slender Man (online as opposed to orally, in this case), the more the legend and the backstory grew.

The Slender Man legend had very quickly taken on a life of its own, much like myths and folklore of the past. However, several years after his creation, the Slender Man became “real” in a much grittier way.^[3]

7 The Slender Man Stabbing

On May 31, 2014, the Slender Man, or at least the consequences of the legend, spilled over into the real world in a very dramatic way. On the morning in question, two 12-year-old girls, Anissa Weier and Morgan Geyser, attempted to murder their friend, Payton Leutner, by stabbing her multiple times in the woods. After being left for dead, she eventually stumbled out and was discovered by a passing cyclist.

The girls were arrested a short time later. When questioned, Weier claimed they had launched the attack in order to please the Slender Man. What’s more, they also believed they knew where the Slender Man lived (an old house in the Nicolet National Forest), a location they were on their way to when they were arrested.

For all intents and purposes, it could be argued that for the attackers and their victim alike, the Slender Man, or the consequences of him, were very real. Incidentally, Weier was released from a mental health facility in the summer of 2021. Geyser, on the other hand, remains incarcerated. Payton Leutner recovered from the nineteen stab wounds she received from her “friends.”^[4]

6 The Copy Cat Cases

Following the attempted murder of Payton Leutner, several copycat cases occurred, all with various connections to the Slender Man legends. For example, only weeks later, in June 2014, in Hamilton County, Ohio, a 13-year-old girl attacked her mother with a knife. In the investigation that followed, it was discovered that she had an “obsession” with the Slender Man.

Several months after that, in September 2014, in Port Richey, Florida, a 14-year-old girl set fire to her family home. According to reports, she was ‘inspired’ by the Slender Man to do so. Incidentally, all of those inside escaped the burning building, and the young girl was arrested the following morning.

Even the murders of two police officers and a member of the public in Las Vegas in the summer of 2014, followed by the suicide of the alleged killer and his wife, was connected to the Slender Man after neighbors told the media that he would often dress up as the Internet legend and parade around his house and yard.^[5]

5 Suicides Connected to the Slender Man

In the summer of 2015, The New York Times published an article detailing the suicides of multiple young people between the ages of 12 and 24 who had committed suicide on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota in the previous six months alone. What is particularly interesting about this wave of suicides is that the article also claimed that “several officials with knowledge of the cases said that at least one of the youths who committed suicide was influenced by Slender Man.”

What is further interesting about the alleged connections to the Slender Man legends and these tragic deaths are legends of the reservation itself. They speak of a spirit named the Tall Man or Walking Sam. What this spirit did was to encourage those he chose to visit to take their own lives. It is perhaps a coincidence that there are similarities between the legends of the Slender Man and these Native American legends. However, the coming together of them within this reservation’s community very well might have resulted in tragic consequences.^[6]

4 Aborted Mass Suicide and Connections to Native American Legends

A particularly grim account tells of a narrowly aborted mass suicide at the same reservation mentioned above. According to the story, multiple teenagers suddenly set out to a specific spot in the woods and started preparing ropes by tying them to the branches of the trees. They were clearly planning on committing suicide, hanging themselves together as a group.

The local pastor on the reservation, John Two Bulls, heard of the morose plans and immediately set out to the location. He, fortunately, managed to halt the proceedings and seemingly bring the group out of whatever mass-trance they appeared to have been in.

Rumblings from the reservation claimed that the cause of the attempted mass suicide was a result of the visitation of Walking Sam. Given the publicity that the Slender Man was receiving at this stage, it is perhaps easy to understand how some in the media connected the legend of the suicide spirit and this new urban legend. ^[7]

3 “Lacy” – A Truly Bizarre Account

Paranormal author and researcher Nick Redfern relayed a particularly intriguing account that was told to him. The witness—who he gave the name “Lacy”—would claim to have had several real-life encounters with the Slender Man, although not physical encounters.

She would claim that she had been researching the Slender Man for several months. Then, one evening, her laptop (which was on sleep mode) suddenly switched on of its own accord. To her shock, an image of a faceless creature was on the screen. Within a few seconds, it was gone. She told herself she must have imagined it. However, two nights later, the laptop once more switched on of its own accord. When it did, the face appeared again, only this time it was much clearer.

Things went quiet for several weeks, and Lacy had almost forgotten the incidents. That was until her laptop came on again. This time, a strange voice came from the device stating, “we are friends.” It was at this point that Lacy shut the laptop down and ceased her research into the Slender Man legends.

It is easy (and perhaps right) to suggest that what Lacy experienced, at best, were hallucinations brought on by her intense interest in and subconscious fear of the Slender Man legends. It is interesting to note once more, though, that the fine line in a person believing in a legend suddenly “making it real” is indeed delicate in the extreme.^[8]

2 Intense Internet Debate

As we might imagine, a fierce debate ensued following the attempting stabbing and the copycat cases that followed. And while it concentrated on the Slender Man at first, it soon moved on to the Internet and the influence it has on children in general. For example, in the Waukesha School District, where the attempted murder of Payton Leutner took place, Creepypasta Wiki was blocked. For their part, the administrators of the website claimed that the stabbing was an “isolated incident.” They also claimed their website was a literary one and not one that condoned murder.

Ultimately, it was reasoned that all manner of films, TV programs, and video games that children had access to did not result in such atrocious attacks. In short, the problem was with the attackers themselves as opposed to the apparent catalyst. Although the debate originally had momentum, the more it went on, the less sway it had.^[9]

1 A Contemporary Equivalent of the Boogeyman

There is little doubt that the Slender Man is the Boogeyman of the modern age. If you talk to anyone in the western world under the age of 20, it is almost certain they will know who the Slender Man is. They might not know the history or even how they heard of him, but the fact is, they know. And although they understand—at least for the most part—that he is nothing more than an urban legend, he is without a doubt in their collective subconscious.

There are certainly very definite similarities between the Slender Man and the Boogeyman. Both are on the prowl for children, for example, and both have grim abodes in out-of-the-way locations, often in the woods.

Of course, where the legend of the Slender Man goes from here remains to be seen. Perhaps he will still be spoken in hundreds of years by spooked youngsters around the world as much as he is today.^[10]

When it comes to dance music, nothing gets a crowd moving like an iconic funky bass line. The low-frequency vibrations from a thumping bass guitar get folks out on the dance floor or moving around the kitchen while making dinner like nothing else.

Funk was a musical style that evolved from a base of jazz and blues, undergoing further refinement in the mid-1960s to emerge as a stripped-down, highly percussive, bass-driven style of music with virtually no melody or other standard embellishments.

Some funky bass lines are so compelling they have been sampled time and again by the next generation of musicians to create new riffs, instigating copyright issues for musicians and publishers but keeping dance floors full from Miami to Minsk.

So let’s settle in and listen to the ten funkiest bass lines of all time.

Related: Top 10 Musicians Who Were Ahead Of Their Time

10 The Beatles: “Drive My Car”

The Beatles are not usually spoken of as a funk band, but all the band members were huge fans of American soul and rhythm and blues music, which inevitably surfaced in some of their self-penned songs.

This record, a single off the album Rubber Soul, was written mostly by Paul McCartney, with John Lennon contributing lyrical content, and recorded in late 1965. Paul gets his groove on with a dive-bombing bass line that drives the song forward as well as his car.

The refrain “Baby, you can drive my car” was incorporated with a nod and a wink, as it was an old blues euphemism for sex.

Probably played on McCartney’s famous Hofner violin bass and placed prominently in the mix by their producer George Martin, this bass line was near the dawn of funk and heavy metal as musical styles and influenced future generations of musicians in both genres.^[1]

9 James Brown: “I Feel Good”

When James Brown released “I Feel Good” as a single on King Records in October 1965, it marked a shift in American popular music as “funk” came on the scene as a recognized musical style. Funk was an outgrowth of both blues and jazz, defined by a de-emphasis on the melody and chord progressions and a strong focus on the rhythmic groove of the bass line, usually played by an electric bassist.

“I Feel Good” was driven by Brown’s distinctive vocal stylings and the popping bass line from bassist David “Hooks” Williams. The single version was recorded at Criteria Studios in Miami, Florida. Since its release, the song has been licensed for many film and television uses in everything from the soundtrack to The Big Chill to an episode of The Simpsons.

It was James Brown’s highest charting single, peaking at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.^[2]

8 Sly and the Family Stone: “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)”

By the time Sly and the Family Stone, a band of black and white musicians from San Francisco, released this record in 1969, funk was in full bloom on the charts and on the dance floor.

Sly and the Family Stone had previously placed several records on the charts, but “Thank You” was a breakthrough hit for the band and reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in February 1970.

From the harrowing lyrics of “Lookin’ at the devil / Grinnin’ at his gun / Fingers start shakin’ / I begin to run” to the innovative “slap bass” riff from bass guitarist Larry Graham, this recording was a major creative leap for both the group and the funk genre.^[3]

“Thank You” has been sampled many times, among them for Janet Jackson’s signature hit “Rhythm Nation,” for which Sly Stone received a production credit.

7 The Soul Machine: “Twichie Feet”

“Twichie Feet” was a somewhat obscure 1968 instrumental single written by Leon Haywood, a soul and funk musician from Houston, Texas. However, the signature bass line has been sampled dozens of times.

While the record itself didn’t sell on the initial release, perhaps because the intended audience wasn’t quite ready to get that funky yet, the sampled bass line riff and guitar track have lived on in a multitude of additional recordings.

Artists, producers and music critics regularly proclaim “Twichie Feet” one of the seminal recordings of the early funk era.^[4]

6 Commodores: “Brick House”

Before Lionel Richie was a smooth-crooning, easy-listening, million-selling solo artist, he was a member of The Commodores, a group of musicians who met as students at the Tuskegee Institute, a renowned predominantly black college in Alabama.

In a 1977 studio session, the bass player Ronald LaPread came up with a bass line he kept repeating over and over until the other band members joined in, with Lionel Ritchie on saxophone.

Another band member, William King, supplied the lyrics. The eventual title of the song was “Brick House,” an explicitly graphic ode to a solidly-built woman with the measurements of 36-24-36. Or 91cm x 60cm x 91cm for those not in America, but it just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

The record was a massive hit for the band and peaked at number #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in late 1977. “Brick House” has been used for various films and television episodes and is regularly voted into “All-Time Funk Classics” listings.^[5]

5 Aretha Franklin: “Rock Steady”

The “Queen of Soul” got her groove on in the studio with this track, “a funky and low-down feeling,” driven by the rumbling bass line from ace studio bassist Chuck Rainey.

The track was not in her usual style of gospel-influenced soul music but more in the rhythm and blues genre, with Franklin receiving the writing credit. She also played piano on the track, which charted at #9 on the Billboard Hot 100 in October of 1971.

The single was lifted from the album Young, Gifted, and Black, establishing Aretha Franklin as a leading American recording artist. “Rock Steady” was one of the first and most successful singles of her legendary career in the gospel, soul, and rhythm and blues musical styles.^[6]

4 The Gap Band: “You Dropped a Bomb on Me”

The Gap Band was a rhythm and blues outfit from Tulsa, Oklahoma, with regional success before this single, which dropped a bomb on the dance floor and the national Billboard Hot Black Singles chart, where it peaked at #2 in 1982.

The massive success of the record led to it being included on many film soundtracks about the disco era and being played at sporting events like American football games, where many teams play a snippet over their public address systems after the home team scores a touchdown.

Along with the monster bass-driven riff, the song was one of the first big hits to take advantage of synthesizer technology, with the whistling sound of a bomb dropping used in the recording before the first verse.

While the song had absolutely no connection with politics or terrorism, it was effectively blacklisted after the September 11th terrorist attacks in New York. Unfortunately, many radio stations in the U.S. removed the song from all playlists indefinitely.^[7]

3 Herbie Hancock: “Chameleon”

Better known as a jazz musician, Herbie Hancock came up with a huge funk hit in 1973 with “Chameleon,” a 15-minute original off his influential jazz-funk album Head Hunters.

Recorded in several studios in the San Francisco Bay area, Head Hunters was an artistic triumph for Hancock, who brought his version of jazz-funk music into the popular mainstream. The record had great compositions and a creative band of talented musicians who could (and did) push Hancock into new territory in the studio.

The album does not use any guitars at all. Hancock opted to use keyboards instead, primarily the Yamaha Clavinet, which takes on many of the musical parts that would otherwise have been played on a guitar. Synthesizers were fairly new at the time, but Hancock was a veteran musician with the confidence to try new instruments. The signature bass line in “Chameleon” was not played by a bass guitar but by Hancock himself on an early ARP Odyssey synthesizer. This distinctive bass line has since been sampled by many other musicians for their compositions.

Head Hunters was the best-selling jazz album in history until 1976 when it was passed by George Benson’s Breezin’. It was added by The Library of Congress to the National Recording Registry, which collects culturally, historically, or aesthetically important sound recordings from the 20th century.^[8]

2 Cameo: “Word Up”

With the signature lyric of “Wave your hands in the air like you don’t care,” there was no stopping “Word Up” when it was released as a single in 1986. The record peaked at #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and was presented with the Soul Train Music Award for Best R&B/Soul Single of the year.

The infectious bass-heavy groove was written by band members Larry Blackmon and Tomi Jenkins and filled dance floors worldwide. From Germany to New Zealand, folks got their groove on, and the record also became a favorite of exotic dancers worldwide for its sheer attention-grabbing danceability.

Many cover versions of “Word Up” have been recorded and released, everything from metal versions with a guitar solo to a version by Mel B of the Spice Girls to a successful hit version for the British girl group Little Mix in 2014.^[9]

1 James Brown: “Cold Sweat”

James Brown was born dirt poor in the countryside of South Carolina to teenage parents in a small one-room wooden shack. He began his career in local talent shows and gospel music, gradually moving into rhythm and blues and building a reputation as an electrifying live performer.

He formed backing bands of top musicians and drove them to perfection—in the studio and on stage. He performed a punishing live schedule of up to 300 nights a year in nightclubs and auditoriums, mainly in the southern United States. They didn’t call James Brown “the hardest-working man in show business” for nothing.

By 1965, after the success of the million-selling Live at the Apollo album and numerous television appearances, James Brown and the Famous Flames had captured the attention of music fans and promoters alike. They had a new style of music that got the name “funk” for its emphasis on the bass line and the percussion rather than the melody and rhythm of the song.

By 1967, James Brown had distilled his vision for what funk music should sound like, and the result was “Cold Sweat,” a seven-minute bass and drum track with percussive horns and a drum solo with virtually no melody. The track left behind the standard 12-bar blues foundation Brown had been using and moved into new and uncharted territory.

With bass guitarist Bernard Odum and legendary drummer Clyde Stubblefield driving the track forward, “Cold Sweat” was a number #1 hit on the Billboard Rhythm and Blues chart and influenced other musicians profoundly. According to studio producer Jerry Wexler, these musicians either couldn’t figure out what Brown was doing or were so inspired they immediately tried to do something similar themselves.

“Cold Sweat” left a huge footprint on popular music and has been repeatedly sampled over the decades by many producers and recording artists, from Public Enemy to DJ Shadow and many others.^[10]