I've been toying with this list for a bit, thinking it over, wondering whether or not anyone else would be interested in thinking of lists like this.
I'll say right off that the first rule is, No superlatives. There is no possible way this could be a "top" list or a "best" list, and so again, I'm sort of wary, because if a music fan can't say, "This is the best, no question, and you're wrong if you disagree," then what can he say?
Anyhow, the list is of great moments, not lasting longer than half a minute or so, in some great songs. Of course, a song need not be a member of any of your top 5 lists in order to contain a moment that'd fit this list nicely.
I was listening to Doves' "Pounding" the other day, and toward the end, when the Edge-esque chack-a-chack-a-chack-a-chackachackachacka-chack-a-chack-a-chack-a-chackachackachacka part comes in, I thought, This always gets me, no matter how many times I hear this song. So I started thinking of other great, brief, titillating moments in songs, and I thought maybe this would be a good list for a bunch of geeks.
Mine:
5. Aforementioned "Pounding" moment
4. The guitar lick after the solo after the bridge in Weezer's "Buddy Holly"
3. First verse of Kings of Leon's "Spiral Staircase," when Followill sings, "Get your ass together, You better walk, walk, walk, a by walking, we cannot run!" or something like that. (This was the lyric I found when I Googled the song - I just thought he was singing, "A wop-boba-lop-bop" etc.)
2. The drum entrance on George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" - the most unassuming entrance in rock'n'roll history.
1. Interpol's "Leif Erikson" - line in second verse: "Well then hook me up and throw me, baby cakes, cuz I like to get hooked."