Billie Jean
1982 · From Thriller
That bassline, mixed and remixed until it gleamed, and the four minutes that integrated MTV.
★ 9.8
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.
Thriller
1982 · From Thriller
Vincent Price cackling over a disco-funk groove, and a fourteen-minute video that turned pop into event television.
★ 9.2
I Want You Back
1969
A child singing about regret over the springiest bassline Motown ever cut, and selling it completely.
★ 9.1
Superstition
1972 · From Talking Book
Wonder wrote that clavinet riff for Jeff Beck, heard it back, and sensibly kept it for himself.
★ 9.1
Papa's Got a Brand New Bag
1965 · From Papa's Got a Brand New Bag
The record where the beat moved to the one and funk quietly began. James Brown never looked back.
★ 9.1
Rapper's Delight
1979
Big Bank Hank auditioned outside the pizzeria where he worked, rapping lines borrowed from Grandmaster Caz's notebook.
★ 9.0
I Got You (I Feel Good)
1965 · From I Got You (I Feel Good)
Brown recycled a flop he'd cut on Yvonne Fair, added Maceo Parker's alto, and landed his highest-charting single.
★ 8.8
Let's Get It On
1973 · From Let's Get It On
Ed Townsend conceived it as a spiritual; Gaye kept the backing track, rewrote the lyric, and Billboard number one followed.
★ 8.4
Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough
1979 · From Off the Wall
Jackson wrote it himself and steered the session; a whisper, a water-bottle rattle, then Louis Johnson's bass takes over.
★ 8.3
Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex MachineJames Brown
Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine
1970 · From Sex Machine
One of Brown's first dates with the new J.B.s, Bootsy Collins on bass at eighteen, Bobby Byrd answering every line.
★ 7.9
Thank You
1969 · From Greatest Hits
Larry Graham slapping and popping the bass line credited with inventing the technique, and a verse quoting their own hits.
★ 7.8
Theme from ShaftIsaac Hayes
Theme from Shaft
1971
Skip Pitts on wah-wah, Willie Hall riding sixteenths on hi-hat, and the first Academy Award won by a Black composer.
★ 7.8
Higher Ground
1973 · From Innervisions
Written and taped in a three-hour burst, Wonder on clavinet and drums, the keyboard snarling through a Mu-Tron filter.
★ 7.8
Family Affair (Sly and the Family Stone)
1971 · From There's a Riot Goin' On
A rhythm box edited into a heartbeat, Billy Preston on Pianet, and three weeks at number one.
★ 7.8
Everyday People
1968 · From Stand!
A band mixed in race and gender, four weeks at number one, and "different strokes for different folks" ever since.
★ 7.7
Give Up the FunkParliament
Give Up the Funk
1975
Bootsy Collins on bass, Fred Wesley and Maceo Parker newly arrived from James Brown, and Parliament's first gold single.
★ 7.7
Say It Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud
1968 · From Say It Loud - I'm Black and I'm Proud
Brown cut it in Los Angeles with thirty-odd young people from Watts and Compton shouting the answer back.
★ 7.7
Sir Duke
1977 · From Songs in the Key of Life
Wonder built it for Ellington after his death in 1974, then handed the melody to horns playing in unison.
★ 7.7
Rock With You
1979 · From Off the Wall
Rod Temperton offered it to Karen Carpenter first; Quincy Jones and Jackson took it to number one.
★ 7.6
Get Lucky
2013 · From Random Access Memories
Rodgers' guitar, Pharrell's vocal, Nathan East on bass, and disco walked back onto the radio wearing robot helmets.
★ 7.6
Uptown Funk
2014
Six studios, eighty-two takes at the guitar part, Ronson collapsing in the studio, and fourteen weeks at number one.
★ 7.5
I'll Take You ThereThe Staple Singers
I'll Take You There
1972
Al Bell lifted the bassline from a Jamaican instrumental, and Mavis Staples turned Muscle Shoals into a pulpit.
★ 7.5
Flash LightParliament
Flash Light
1977
Bootsy passed on the bass part, so Worrell chained three Minimoogs together and gave Parliament its first R&B number one.
★ 7.5
Bad
1987 · From Bad
Scorsese shot eighteen minutes in a Brooklyn subway station, and the brass hits point straight back at James Brown.
★ 7.4
Dance to the Music
1968 · From Dance to the Music
Clive Davis wanted a hit, so Sly wrote a roll call: each player steps forward, Cynthia Robinson shouting the title.
★ 7.4
Freedom! '90
1990
Michael refused to appear, so Fincher had five supermodels lip-sync while his Faith leather jacket burned onscreen.
★ 7.4
One Nation Under a Groove
1978 · From One Nation Under a Groove
Clinton, Shider and Junie Morrison cut it at United Sound; six weeks at R&B number one, 1978's longest run.
★ 7.4
Superfly
1972 · From The Anthology 1961-1977
The soundtrack took three days at RCA Chicago; Johnny Pate arranged, Henry Gibson's rototoms set the strut.
★ 7.3
Lady Marmalade (Labelle)
1974
The Meters on rhythm at Sea-Saint, Toussaint producing, and Patti LaBelle singing a French hook she did not understand.
★ 7.3
Move On Up
1970 · From Curtis
Master Henry Gibson's congas drive it, the horns arrive like good news, and Britain sent it top twelve.
★ 7.2
Cry Me A River
2002 · From Justified
Storch's clavinet, Timbaland's beat, and a breakup Timberlake spent years declining to explain; the Grammy arrived anyway.
★ 7.1
Disco Inferno
1976
Jimmy Ellis over eleven minutes of Philadelphia rhythm, a flop in 1976 until Saturday Night Fever made it a hit.
★ 7.0
Brown Sugar
1995 · From Brown Sugar
Every instrument on it is D'Angelo's, cut at Battery Studios, and the groove barely bothers to move.
★ 6.8
Super Freak
1981
The Temptations sang backup, and the bass line James dismissed as silly later won him a Grammy through Hammer's sample.
★ 6.8
I Want to Take You HigherSly and the Family Stone
I Want to Take You Higher
1969 · From Stand!
Freddie Stone's bluesy riff, the band trading vocal lines, and a B-side that Woodstock turned into a Top 40 A-side.
★ 6.8
Ain't NobodyChaka Khan
Ain't Nobody
1983
Wolinski's synth loop, his threat to hand the song to Quincy Jones instead, and Khan sailing clean over it.
★ 6.8
Shining Star (Earth, Wind and Fire)
1975
A night walk at Caribou Ranch gave White the title, and the band their only Hot 100 number one.
★ 6.8
Happy
2013
Written first for CeeLo Green, whose label passed, cut in Miami, and given pop's first 24-hour video.
★ 6.7
Cissy Strut
1969 · From The Meters
Toussaint and Sehorn produced it, Nocentelli's guitar answers Modeliste's snare, and the space between them became funk's template.
★ 6.7
That Lady
1973
Recorded at the Record Plant in LA, with Ernie Isley's Hendrix-drenched guitar rebuilding a song the brothers cut in 1964.
★ 6.7
I Can't Go For That
1981
Hall started with a Roland preset and a Korg bass line, the one Jackson borrowed for Billie Jean.
★ 6.7
Between the Sheets
1983
Chris Jasper's keyboards and drum machine, Ronald Isley at his silkiest, and the loop under "Big Poppa".
★ 6.6
All Night Long (All Night)
1983
Those African-sounding chants are invented gibberish; Richie had no time for a translator and no reason to care.
★ 6.5
Pusherman
1972 · From The Anthology 1961-1977
Master Henry Gibson's percussion over Lucky Scott's bass, Mayfield indicting the drug trade where the film saw only glamour.
★ 6.5
Jungle Boogie
1973
Don Boyce, the band's roadie, shouted the vocal and got a writing credit; Pulp Fiction did the rest.
★ 6.5
Let's Groove
1981
A vocoder hello, Philip Bailey's falsetto, and eight weeks at the top of the soul chart.
★ 6.4
Hot Fun in the SummertimeSly and the Family Stone
Hot Fun in the Summertime
1969 · From Greatest Hits
Violins in the upper register, rare for Sly, on a single released weeks before the band played Woodstock.
★ 6.4
Brick House
1977
Drummer Walter Orange stepped out front, LaPread's bass line did the rest, and funk got a permanent floor-filler.
★ 6.4
Tightrope
2010
Cut at Wondaland with Big Boi guesting, a horn-driven groove Monae wrote about staying level under praise and criticism.
★ 6.3
If You Want Me to Stay
1973 · From Fresh
Number twelve on the Hot 100, the band's last pop top twenty, and a bass line hip hop still raids.
★ 6.3
Celebration
1980
Recorded in a New Jersey studio with Deodato producing, and adopted everywhere from ballparks to the hostages' homecoming.
★ 6.3
It's Your ThingThe Isley Brothers
It's Your Thing
1969
Sixteen-year-old Ernie Isley's bass on his first session, cut for the brothers' own T-Neck label, funk built on a shrug.
★ 6.2
Express Yourself (Charles Wright)
1970
Wright wrote and produced it, took it to number three R&B, and nineteen years later N.W.A sampled the groove.
★ 6.1
That's The Way (I Like It)
1975
Casey and Finch's call-and-response chant for TK in Hialeah topped the Hot 100 in two separate runs.
★ 6.0
Get Down Tonight
1975
A guitar solo recorded slow and played back at double speed opens KC's first American number one.
★ 5.8
LovefoolThe Cardigans
Lovefool
1996
A bossa nova sketch until the drummer swapped in a disco beat, and Persson made pleading sound like sunshine.
★ 5.8
P-Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up)Parliament
P-Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up)
1975
Mothership Connection opens as a pirate broadcast from space, with Maceo Parker and Fred Wesley newly defected from James Brown.
★ 5.7
Love RollercoasterOhio Players
Love Rollercoaster
1975
Number one in January 1976, and the murder rumor attached to that shriek was only Billy Beck reaching high.
★ 5.6
Mr. Big Stuff
1971
Wardell Quezergue brought five artists to Malaco in a borrowed school bus; Stax passed, then Knight's put-down sold millions.
★ 5.6
Your Woman
1997
Mishra cut it in his bedroom on an Atari ST, sampling a 1932 muted trumpet, and topped the UK chart.
★ 5.5
The Rubberband Man
1976
Started life as "The Fat Man", written by Bell for his teased son, and Philippe Wynne made it fly.
★ 5.5
Tighten Up
1968
Houston's T.S.U. Toronadoes laid down the groove, and Bell was serving in Vietnam when it topped both charts.
★ 5.4
Get Up Offa That ThingJames Brown
Get Up Offa That Thing
1976 · From Get Up Offa That Thing
Brown put the writing credit in his wife's and daughters' names over IRS debts, then cut it live in two takes.
★ 5.3
FunkytownLipps Inc.
Funkytown
1980
A ten-note synth riff cut at Sound 80 in Minneapolis, Cynthia Johnson vocoded then unleashed at full wail.
★ 4.9
Get Down On It
1981
Deodato's production strips it to bassline and handclaps, and J.T. Taylor asks the only question a dancefloor needs.
★ 4.9
Treasure
2013
Breakbot got a songwriting credit after the fact, and Mars turned late-seventies disco into a top-five American hit.
★ 4.9
Jump (For My Love)
1983
Marti Sharron said the writers jumped around at the playback and named it for that; June Pointer does the rest.
★ 4.8
Blurred Lines
2013
Ninety minutes in the studio, twelve weeks at number one, and a copyright verdict for Marvin Gaye's estate.
★ 3.3