Generator (First Floor)
2010
Queens kids who met on Craigslist and busked subway platforms, then made banjo and glockenspiel sound euphoric.
★ 2.0
The Songs canon
Sourced and sung.
Every song chosen by hand, with the recording to play it.
Browse all 2,393 songs or filter by genre, subject, artist, and year.
Browse all 2,393 songs or filter by genre, subject, artist, and year.
Life Goes On
2011
Critics heard the Kinks' Lola in the strum, and a Dancing on Ice slot lifted it to number fourteen.
★ 2.8
Blue Skies
2009
Fink wrote the whole album around his split with Laura Marling; this became its first single, and its way out.
★ 3.1
Hero (Family of the Year)
2012
Richard Linklater put it in Boyhood and its trailer, and the Keefe brothers' harmony now sounds like growing up.
★ 3.7
To Ohio
2009
Ten winter days in a Block Island basement, a pump organ, and a hush Emmylou Harris later covered.
★ 3.8
Charlie Darwin
2009
Cut in a converted basement on Block Island, sung in falsetto with the drums stripped out; the Mayflower never sounded lonelier.
★ 3.9
Ho Hey
2012
Schultz wrote those shouts to snap indifferent Brooklyn crowds to attention; the record sat sixty-two weeks on the Hot 100.
★ 4.2
Jacksonville
2005 · From Illinois
Two competing stories about who the town was named for, one a Black preacher, and Stevens sounds delighted by both.
★ 4.6
I Will Wait
2012
Markus Dravs produced Babel; the video was shot at Red Rocks, banjo running flat out under a vow.
★ 4.8
Carry Me Ohio
2003 · From Ghosts of the Great Highway
Kozelek grew up in Massillon, Ohio, and this is what he sends back: an apology set to ringing acoustic guitars.
★ 4.9
The Cave
2009
Written at a soundcheck in an Edinburgh pub, open-D guitar and banjo climbing into a stomp that drew four Grammy nominations.
★ 4.9
Rose Parade
1997 · From Either/Or
Smith recorded Either/Or in Portland friends' houses and mixed this one himself, a parade watched through sour eyes.
★ 5.2
Emmylou
2012
Mike Mogis produced it; the Söderberg sisters name Gram and Emmylou, June and Johnny, and sing harmony like devotion.
★ 5.4
Blue Ridge MountainsFleet Foxes
Blue Ridge Mountains
2008 · From Fleet Foxes
Homesick for his brother Sean, Pecknold buried the vocals in reverb and block harmony that swells like Sacred Harp singing.
★ 5.5
Such Great Heights (Iron & Wine)Iron & Wine
Such Great Heights (Iron & Wine)
2004
Beam slowed Gibbard's synth-pop into hushed acoustic guitar for a Sub Pop B-side, then Garden State put it everywhere.
★ 5.5
Re: Stacks
2008 · From For Emma, Forever Ago
In his father's Wisconsin hunting cabin, Vernon shaped the melody wordlessly, then wrote his gambling losses into it.
★ 5.6
Woods
2009 · From Blood Bank
Four lines, no instruments, one voice stacked through Auto-Tune into a choir Kanye West later built a song from.
★ 5.8
Needle in the Hay
1995 · From Elliott Smith
Cut in September 1994 at bandmate Tony Lash's house, trumpet and harmonica stripped away until only guitar and dread remain.
★ 5.8
Heartbeats (Jose Gonzalez)Jose Gonzalez
Heartbeats (Jose Gonzalez)
2003
One classical guitar, no drums, and the Knife's synth-pop single reduced to a whisper that reached UK number nine.
★ 5.8
Miss Misery
1997 · From Good Will Hunting (Original Soundtrack)
An earlier version with different lyrics sat unreleased until Good Will Hunting sent Smith to the Oscars in white.
★ 5.9
Helplessness Blues
2011 · From Helplessness Blues
Pecknold called it an anti-protest song, a plain opinion with no poetry, and gave it away free in January 2011.
★ 6.0
Casimir Pulaski Day
2005 · From Illinois
Four guitar chords never change while Stevens sings a Bible study, a friend's death, and a question for God.
★ 6.1
Little Lion Man
2009
Banjo hammering under a chorus that needed a radio edit, produced by Markus Dravs and voted Australia's song of 2009.
★ 6.1
Mykonos
2008 · From Sun Giant
Pecknold rebuilt a piano soul demo with Phil Ek at Bear Creek, and the harmonies own the second half.
★ 6.2
White Winter Hymnal
2008 · From Fleet Foxes
A round about snow that the band never once played together, its voices stacked from first takes in production.
★ 6.4
Flume
2008 · From For Emma, Forever Ago
Three months alone in his father's Wisconsin hunting cabin, and falsetto stacked until one voice becomes a choir.
★ 6.4
Between the Bars
1997 · From Either/Or
A lullaby melody hiding a song about alcohol, and one of three Either/Or tracks in Good Will Hunting.
★ 6.5
Chicago
2005 · From Illinois
Sleigh bells, trumpets and a choir stacked into one crescendo, and Stevens cut five different versions of it.
★ 6.7
Holocene
2011 · From Bon Iver, Bon Iver
Horns and clarinets swell over guitar in a converted Wisconsin veterinary clinic; Grammy voters nominated it for record and song.
★ 6.7
Skinny Love
2008 · From For Emma, Forever Ago
Vernon cut it alone in his father's Wisconsin hunting cabin over a winter, and the falsetto still sounds snowbound.
★ 6.9