The Beach Boys, "God Only Knows (Remastered 1999)". I only just learned today that Brian Wilson, most famous for being the musical genius behind The Beach Boys, passed away at the age of 82 on June 11. This is usually considered his masterpiece composition, an extremely catchy pop song in no definite key that broke all the conventions of pop songs and paired, among other things, the harpsichord and the accordion, and for percussion included things like plastic orange juice cups and sleigh bells and a piano with tape on its strings. Some people consider it the greatest thing ever composed specifically for the recording studio; indeed, in a sense it uses the recording studio itself as an instrument, creating sounds that could only be loosely approximated live. The band and the record company were worried that it wouldn't get any play on the radio because, despite being neither an anthem or a hymn, it repeatedly uses the word 'God'; as it happens, this turned out not to be a problem.
