
M.A.A.D City
Sounwave and THC build the first half, Terrace Martin the second, and MC Eiht walks in from Compton's own past.

Sounwave and THC build the first half, Terrace Martin the second, and MC Eiht walks in from Compton's own past.

Hit-Boy's beat, a Blades of Glory sample, and twelve straight encores of it one night in Paris.

Rodgers' guitar, Pharrell's vocal, Nathan East on bass, and disco walked back onto the radio wearing robot helmets.

DJ Dahi slowed Beach House's guitar intro and ran it backwards, and Jay Rock's verse steals the whole record.

Swift plays her own tabloid caricature, a clicking pen for percussion, and she replaced herself at number one.

Gonzalez built that shrieking hook from his own distorted voice, then let James King's saxophone close the record.

Written with Paul Epworth in one afternoon after a breakup, and the credits list stiletto heels as percussion.
Ocean wrote it for Bridget Kelly's album, kept it instead, and the falsetto he reaches for does the rest.

Dan Wilson of Semisonic at the piano, Adele singing, nothing else added; five weeks at number one.

A stomping riff, a desert studio in Joshua Tree, and the band's first single to reach the Billboard Hot 100.

Sixteen years old, the lyrics done in half an hour, the title from a 1976 photo of George Brett.

Six studios, eighty-two takes at the guitar part, Ronson collapsing in the studio, and fourteen weeks at number one.
T-Minus made the beat for Trey Songz, who passed; Lamar turned the rejected demo into a study of addiction.

Written first for Rihanna, kept by Sia instead, and given a video where an eleven-year-old dancer did the acting.
Cleopatra dragged into the present, two halves hinged on a midpoint beat switch, and John Mayer's uncredited closing solo.

Rihanna sings the hook, Elton John plays piano, and West spent two years stacking fourteen singers behind the horns.

Detail's beat was called "Drunk" before Beyoncé heard it; she and Jay-Z freestyled their verses in Manhattan.

Calvin Harris wrote and produced it alone, and Rihanna rode ten weeks at number one, 2011's longest run.

Ali Payami and guitarist Niklas Ljungfelt built the track; Swift turned an on-off romance into a fashion metaphor.

Drake wanted a record that weddings would still play in ten years, and Majid Jordan's synths delivered exactly that.