One of the Most Badassed Songs

Few songs make me feel as badassed as Joy Division's "Shadowplay" from their 1979 debut album Unknown Pleasures (Factory Records). The song is cold, distant and mechanical, yet there is an undeniable palpability that only comes through a certain contradictory warmth primarily embedded in the unsettling bass line that prowls beneath a shower of cymbals like a stalker in the rain. There's nothing quite like the way the predatory guitar riff just pounces on the victim/listener at 1:59 - truly the song's highpoint for me.