“Getting Away With Murder” by Papa Roach

"Getting Away With Murder" was the title track and the opening shot from Papa Roach's fourth album in 2004, and it's the sound of a band shedding its old skin. Jacoby Shaddix doesn't rap a single bar here; he wrote the words and sings them straight, a full-throated hard-rock bellow over a wall of riffs from Jerry Horton and Tobin Esperance, who wrote the music between them. Esperance handles the bass too, with David Buckner pounding away behind.

Howard Benson produced it and added keyboards, Mike Plotnikoff recorded it and Chris Lord-Alge mixed it thick and glossy for Geffen. The song got around beyond radio: it served as the theme for WWE Tough Enough and turned up in the video games MechAssault 2: Lone Wolf and MX vs. ATV Unleashed, with a toned-down remix landing in Gran Turismo 4.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.