The MessageGrandmaster Flash
The Message
1982
The record that proved hip hop could report and not just party, and the edge everyone's been close to since.
★ 9.5
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.
Welcome to the Jungle
1987 · From Appetite for Destruction
Slash's riff, McKagan's breakdown recycled from his old punk band, and roughly three hours from nothing to finished song.
★ 8.4
Paradise City
1987 · From Appetite for Destruction
Written in a rental van home from San Francisco, and the final two minutes simply double the tempo.
★ 7.8
Ghost Town
1981
Cut in Leamington Spa on eight tracks, the flute squeezed onto full brass, number one while Britain burned.
★ 7.3
Gangsta's ParadiseCoolio
Gangsta's Paradise
1995
A Stevie Wonder interpolation cleared on condition the profanity went, L.V.'s stacked one-man choir, and 1995's biggest-selling single.
★ 6.5
Welcome to ParadiseGreen Day
Welcome to Paradise
1994 · From Dookie
Armstrong wrote it about squatting in a West Oakland warehouse, and the Dookie re-recording is the one everyone knows.
★ 5.7
Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters
1972 · From Honky Chateau
Taupin's first New York, gunfire outside the hotel window, a rose borrowed from Spanish Harlem, all cut in France.
★ 4.3