London Calling
1979 · From London Calling
Strummer borrowing the BBC's wartime call sign to announce the end of the world, and sounding thrilled about it.
★ 9.2
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.
Love Will Tear Us Apart
1980
The title flips Captain and Tennille into its opposite, and the single arrived a month after Curtis's death.
★ 8.9
How Soon is Now?The Smiths
How Soon is Now?
1985 · From Meat Is Murder
Marr's shudder came from four Fender Twins with their tremolos fighting, and Morrissey put a lonely man in a nightclub.
★ 8.1
Sunday Bloody Sunday
1983 · From War
Mullen's marching snare was cut at the foot of a Windmill Lane stairwell, and Bono insisted it was no rebel song.
★ 7.6
Marquee Moon
1977 · From Marquee Moon
Ten minutes captured in one take; Ficca thought it was a rehearsal and Verlaine refused Andy Johns another go.
★ 7.5
Pride (In the Name of Love)
1984 · From The Unforgettable Fire
The Edge's chords came out of a soundcheck in Japan; Bono fixed the third verse's timeline on record only in 2023.
★ 7.3
Message in a Bottle
1979 · From Reggatta de Blanc
Summers' arpeggiated riff, Sting's castaway pleading over it, and the first of the Police's five UK number ones.
★ 7.3
New Year's Day
1983 · From War
A bass line Clayton stumbled on while decoding Visage's Fade to Grey, then Bono aimed the words at Poland's Solidarity.
★ 6.8
Our Lips Are Sealed
1981
Written by post after Wiedlin and Hall's 1980 tour romance, and it still sounds like a secret being kept.
★ 6.6
White Wedding
1982
Steve Stevens' guitar cutting through Keith Forsey's production, and Idol sneering his way through somebody else's wedding.
★ 6.6
I Ran (So Far Away)
1982
Battery Studios, London: the echoing riffs were written for a guitarist who had just joined, and they still sound airborne.
★ 6.1
See No Evil
1977 · From Marquee Moon
Verlaine hired Andy Johns off Goats Head Soup, cut the two guitars to separate channels, and punk got counterpoint.
★ 5.7
I Melt With You
1982
Producer Hugh Jones talked Grey out of shouting, and the nuclear-apocalypse lyric arrives as the warmest chorus of 1982.
★ 5.6