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
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.
Blue Monday
1983
A die-cut sleeve modelled on a floppy disk, an Oberheim drum machine, and the best-selling twelve-inch single ever pressed.
★ 8.4
Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)
1983
Recorded on a secondhand eight-track in a Chalk Farm attic, and an American number one by September.
★ 7.9
Girls Just Want to Have Fun
1983
Robert Hazard wrote it in 1979 from a man's point of view, and Lauper flipped it into female solidarity.
★ 7.7
Don't You Want Me
1981 · From Dare
Oakey thought it the weakest thing on Dare; it became Britain's best-selling single of 1981 and Christmas number one.
★ 7.6
Enjoy the SilenceDepeche Mode
Enjoy the Silence
1990 · From Violator
Gore wrote it as a harmonium ballad; Wilder and Flood put a dance beat under it over his objections.
★ 7.6
West End GirlsPet Shop Boys
West End Girls
1985
Cut twice, once for Bobby Orlando and again with Stephen Hague, Tennant half-rapping London class anxiety to number one.
★ 7.5
Midnight City
2011
Gonzalez built that shrieking hook from his own distorted voice, then let James King's saxophone close the record.
★ 7.5
Poker Face
2008
RedOne produced it at Record Plant, Gaga's mum-mum-mum-mah hook nodding to Boney M, and 2009's best-selling single worldwide.
★ 7.5
Take On Me
1985
Two releases flopped before the third one broke, Furuholmen's Juno-60 riff intact and a video rotoscoped over sixteen weeks.
★ 7.5
Bizarre Love Triangle
1985
It missed the UK top forty, all Fairlight sequencing except Hook's bass, and now every indie disco needs it.
★ 7.5
Tainted LoveSoft Cell
Tainted Love
1981
A Northern soul flop from 1964 rebuilt on synthesizers at Advision, Marc Almond's first vocal take kept intact.
★ 7.4
Into the Groove
1985
Written for another singer, rebuilt with Stephen Bray for a Desperately Seeking Susan dance scene, then buried on a B-side.
★ 7.4
Cars
1979
By Numan's account a road-rage scare in London started it; a bass riff, a Polymoog, and a UK number one.
★ 7.2
Hold On, We're Going Home
2013 · From Nothing Was the Same
Drake wanted a record that weddings would still play in ten years, and Majid Jordan's synths delivered exactly that.
★ 7.1
Push It
1987
A B-side until a San Francisco DJ's remix reached radio, and a first rap Grammy nomination they boycotted.
★ 7.0
Don't You (Forget About Me)
1985
Bryan Ferry and Billy Idol passed; Simple Minds cut it reluctantly, then kept the placeholder chant that closes it.
★ 7.0
Latch
Disclosure and Sam Smith
2012
Too weird for radio, not clubby enough for clubs, by the duo's own reckoning; Sam Smith's falsetto settled it.
★ 6.8