"Schoolhouse Rock" put it best: "Three, it's a magic number."
Three chords is all it takes to make the most basic, yet effective, chord progression.
With only three members, both Run-D.M.C. and Nirvana led radio revolutions.
I would like to throw in another magic three: the third track of an album. It's the make-or-break point; if the third track is good, chances are you'll want to stay on for the whole album.
To that effect, the third track is often the most immediate, catchy track on an album. It's the one that will bore its way into your head and have you singing its chorus for weeks on end. If the third track isn't the album's first single, it stands a pretty good chance of becoming a single eventually.
It might not have the significance of the first track or the climactic glory of an album closer, but I think the importance of the third track deserves consideration. Submitted for your approval are seven of my favorite track threes.
"My Doorbell" by The White Stripes (from "Get Behind Me Satan")
From the Roman numerals plastered on his amplifiers to the name of his label, Third Man Records, Jack White has made his numerological fixation rather apparent, and this assumed significance carries over to The White Stripes' albums. I'll give you three guesses as to where "The Big Three Killed My Baby" is situated on the band's self-titled debut. Initiated by a classic Meg White bass-snare stomp, "My Doorbell" then launches into a rapid-fire chorus that is the very definition of an earworm. This is 2005's best track three, just edging out Kanye West's "Touch the Sky" and Spoon's "I Turn My Camera On."
"The Imposter" by Elvis Costello and the Attractions (from "Get Happy!!")
"Get Happy!!" consists of 20 swift-but-potent tracks, so you might think a song that comes so early might be easily forgotten. You'd be wrong. Costello's work with ska revivalists The Specials influences the skank-ready beat and inconceivably fast bass line, but it's Steve Nieve's circus-organ-on-crack that really makes the song memorable.
"The Laws Have Changed" by The New Pornographers (from "Electric Version")
As indie rock's current kings and queens of catchy, The New Pornographers craft whole albums of songs worthy of track-three placement. In the midst of the band's Bush-bashing beach bash, vocalist Neko Case injects an oddly affecting clarion call to worship, only to be brought back to the party by Carl Newman's well placed "na-na-na's."
"Southwood Plantation Road" by The Mountain Goats (from "Tallahassee")
Track threes can be wordy, too. Main Goat John Darnielle builds an armada of metaphor on this rocking ode to the drunken decomposition of the marriage he fondly refers to as "The Alpha Couple." He pulls a fast one on the listener, however, by making the song's stickiest lyric a flippant string of nonsense syllables.
"Lucky Ball and Chain" by They Might Be Giants (from "Flood")
Like Darnielle, fellow Johns Linnell and Flansburgh know how to shoot cryptic lyrics and a collegiate vocabulary through a canon of catchiness. Over a bright mandolin and accordion shuffle, Flansburgh laments a long-dead relationship before some furiously played guitar chords and harmonizing with Linnell make him recant the whole thing.
"Encore" by Danger Mouse (from "The Grey Album")
This song combines two fairly decent, self-mythologizing track threes — Jay-Z's "Encore" and The Beatles' "Glass Onion" — to create a track three of stupendously egotistical proportions. It's incredible how well John Lennon's "Oh yeah!" works as a hip-hop hook.
"Visions of Johanna" by Bob Dylan (from "Blonde On Blonde")
"Visions of Johanna" breaks all the rules of the track three. It barely has a chorus, lasts over seven and a half minutes, and its lyrics are just outside the Intelligible Town city limits. It is, however, indisputably one of the finest songs in an irregularly fine catalog. And it's the third track on "Blonde on Blonde." So it qualifies.
