The Hardest Thing
1999
David Frank and Steve Kipner handed a boy band a breakup song about ending an affair; it reached number five.
★ 1.6
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.
Picture
Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow
2002
Crow's label blocked the radio rights, so Allison Moorer re-cut the female vocal; it still became Kid Rock's biggest hit.
★ 3.0
Out in the Streets
1965 · From Shangri-Las-65!
Shadow Morton production, Greenwich and Barry words, and a narrator who quietly hands her boyfriend back to the streets.
★ 4.6
Trouble
2000 · From Parachutes
Recorded four times before Ken Nelson kept one, and Martin, by his account, apologizing for behaving badly toward his band.
★ 5.4
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
It's a Sin
1987
Tennant settling scores with his Newcastle Catholic school teachers, then closing the record with the Confiteor recited in Latin.
★ 6.3
All These Things That I've Done
2004 · From Hot Fuss
Gospel choir the Sweet Inspirations, a bassline Flowers traced to Bowie, and a refrain built for arenas.
★ 6.5
Criminal
1997 · From Tidal
Apple wrote it in forty-five minutes to give the label its hit, then took a Grammy for the vocal.
★ 6.8
Always On My Mind
1982 · From Always on My Mind
Haggard passed on it at the Pancho and Lefty sessions, so Nelson stayed behind and cut it himself after hours.
★ 7.0
All Apologies
1993 · From MTV Unplugged in New York
Lori Goldston's cello beside Cobain at the November 1993 Unplugged taping, months before his death, apology turned farewell.
★ 7.3
Sinnerman
1965 · From Pastel Blues
Simone learned it at her mother's revival meetings and stretched it past ten minutes of piano vamp and handclaps.
★ 7.4
Careless Whisper
George Michael and Wham!
1984
Written at seventeen on a bus, scrapped at Muscle Shoals, saved by Steve Gregory's saxophone in one breath.
★ 7.5
Mind Playing Tricks On Me
1991
An Isaac Hayes loop from Tough Guys, three verses by Scarface, and a rap record about fear rather than swagger.
★ 7.7
Your Cheatin' Heart
1953 · From 40 Greatest Hits
A lyric dictated from a car seat, one last Nashville session, and six weeks at country number one.
★ 8.0
Bohemian Rhapsody
1975 · From A Night at the Opera
Six minutes with no chorus and so many vocal overdubs the tape wore transparent. Still nothing else like it.
★ 9.1