Smells Like Teen Spirit
1991 · From Nevermind
Four chords, a mumble nobody could decipher, and the riff that ended one decade of rock and started another.
★ 9.9
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.
Come as You Are
1991 · From Nevermind
A Small Clone chorus pedal gives the riff its underwater sound, and Cobain nearly withheld the single.
★ 8.0
Creep (Radiohead)
1992 · From Pablo Honey
Greenwood meant those three dead notes before the chorus to wreck the song, and they are what makes it work.
★ 7.7
Black Hole Sun
1994 · From Superunknown
A Leslie speaker gives the guitars their swirl, and Cornell built the title from a misheard news broadcast.
★ 7.7
Heart-Shaped Box
1993 · From In Utero
Albini recorded it at Pachyderm in a Minnesota winter, and Scott Litt later remixed it to lift Cobain's vocal.
★ 7.6
Alive
1991 · From Ten
Gossard's demo was called Dollar Short until Vedder set it to learning who his real father was.
★ 7.6
In Bloom
1991 · From Nevermind
Cobain aimed it at fans who missed the point, and Kerslake's video staged them on a mock Ed Sullivan Show.
★ 7.4
Lithium
1991 · From Nevermind
The only Nevermind track cut to a click track, and Grohl's metronome only makes the quiet-loud lurch hit harder.
★ 7.4
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
Would
1992 · From Dirt
Cantrell wrote it for the Singles soundtrack while grieving Andrew Wood; Starr's bass line and two voices doing the mourning.
★ 6.9
Jeremy
1992 · From Ten
A twelve-string bass figure from Ament, a Texas newspaper item in Vedder's hands, and four VMAs in 1993.
★ 6.8
Man in the Box
1990 · From Facelift
Jerden heard Livin' on a Prayer driving to the studio and suggested the talk box that defines it.
★ 6.8
Plush
1992
The riff arrived in the back of a U-Haul, and DeLeo's ragtime chords carried grunge to a Grammy.
★ 6.3
Interstate Love Song
1994
Robert DeLeo worked it out as a bossa nova on nylon strings; Weiland nailed the Atlanta vocal in one take.
★ 6.3
Rooster
1992 · From Dirt
Cantrell's song for his father, a Vietnam veteran nicknamed Rooster who appears in Pellington's video; number seven on Mainstream Rock.
★ 6.1
Yellow Ledbetter
1991
McCready's riff was a Ten outtake, and Vedder improvised a lyric he has been rewriting onstage ever since.
★ 5.9
Rape Me
1993 · From In Utero
Written on acoustic guitar in 1991, recorded by Albini at Pachyderm, and stocked by Walmart under a changed title.
★ 5.2
Creep (Stone Temple Pilots)Stone Temple Pilots
Creep (Stone Temple Pilots)
1992
Weiland called it the gap between kid and young man, and Brendan O'Brien's production leaves the voice bare.
★ 4.4
Popular
1995
Ric Ocasek produced it, and the spoken verses lift straight from Gloria Winters' 1964 teenage charm and popularity guide.
★ 3.5