Dancing Queen
1976 · From Gold: Greatest Hits
Seventeen and gliding across the floor, the rare disco record that sounds like joy and ache at once.
★ 9.1
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.
Blitzkrieg Bop
1976 · From Ramones
Tommy wanted a Bay City Rollers chant; the album around it cost $6,400 and took seven days.
★ 8.7
My GenerationThe Who
My Generation
1965 · From My Generation
Entwistle's bass solo needed a Fender after his Danelectro strings snapped, and Daltrey stuttered his way into history.
★ 8.7
Changes (David Bowie)
1971 · From Hunky Dory
Rick Wakeman's piano, Bowie's own saxophone, and a stutter on the title that flopped before it defined him.
★ 8.3
Thunder Road
1975 · From Born to Run
Bittan's piano, a harmonica, and a screen door slamming; Springsteen lifted the title from a Robert Mitchum film poster.
★ 8.3
For What It's Worth
1967 · From Buffalo Springfield
Stills wrote it about the Sunset Strip curfew riots, not Vietnam, and Young's harmonics ring like a warning bell.
★ 7.8
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
Live Forever
1994 · From Definitely Maybe
Gallagher wrote it in 1991, before Oasis had a record deal, pitching plain optimism against everything grunge was selling.
★ 7.7
American Girl
1977 · From Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Petty cut it on the Fourth of July, 1976, and Roger McGuinn heard the Byrds so clearly he covered it.
★ 7.6
All the Young DudesMott the Hoople
All the Young Dudes
1972
Mott were splitting up when Bowie offered them this, written within hours of hearing the band was finished.
★ 7.5
Life's a Bitch
1994 · From Illmatic
AZ's first appearance on record, the only rapper Nas let onto Illmatic, and his father Olu Dara closing on trumpet.
★ 7.5
Champagne SupernovaOasis
Champagne Supernova
1995 · From (What's the Story) Morning Glory?
Seven and a half minutes, Paul Weller on lead guitar, and a lyric Noel admits he chose for the rhyme.
★ 7.3
NightswimmingR.E.M.
Nightswimming
1992 · From Automatic for the People
Mills cut the piano at Criteria on the instrument heard on "Layla," and John Paul Jones arranged the strings.
★ 7.2
RoadrunnerThe Modern Lovers
Roadrunner
1976
Richman borrowed two chords from Sister Ray and turned Route 128 after midnight into the happiest song about driving.
★ 7.1
93 'Til InfinitySouls of Mischief
93 'Til Infinity
1993 · From 93 'til Infinity
A-Plus flipped Billy Cobham's Heather into a beat he made in high school, and Oakland never sounded calmer.
★ 7.1
When You Were Young
2006 · From Sam's Town
Twenty minutes for melody and title, by Flowers' account, and Flood and Moulder gave it Born to Run scale.
★ 6.7
Pretty Vacant
1977 · From Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols
Matlock's riff, lifted off ABBA's "SOS", and the sound of a generation deciding not to care.
★ 6.7
Time to Pretend
2008 · From Oracular Spectacular
The praying mantis in their house inspired the music, by the band's account; the words satirize rock-star excess.
★ 6.6
Blank GenerationRichard Hell and the Voidoids
Blank Generation
1977
A rewrite of a 1959 novelty called "The Beat Generation", with Quine and Julian's guitars turning parody into manifesto.
★ 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
You Make Me Feel So Young
1956 · From Songs for Swingin' Lovers
A 1946 film tune reborn in Riddle's arrangement on the album that topped Britain's first LP chart, Sinatra audibly beaming.
★ 6.3
Sheena is a Punk RockerThe Ramones
Sheena is a Punk Rocker
1977 · From Rocket to Russia
Joey Ramone spliced a jungle-comics heroine with punk's primal charge, and Britain sent it to number twenty-two.
★ 6.3
The Kids Are Alright
1966 · From My Generation
Recorded at IBC in October 1965, it stalled at 41 in Britain, then became the mod movement's calling card.
★ 6.1
1969The Stooges
1969
1969 · From The Stooges
The album's opening shot, cut with Cale at the Hit Factory, and Iggy making boredom sound like a threat.
★ 6.0
C'mon Everybody
1958
Earl Palmer on drums, Guybo Smith on bass, a B-side flipped into a number six hit in Britain.
★ 6.0
Wake Me Up
2013
Einziger's acoustic guitar over a house drop confused the crowd at Ultra in 2013, then it became Shazam's most-searched track.
★ 5.9
Love is a Battlefield
1983
Holly Knight and Mike Chapman wrote it as a ballad; Neil Giraldo's drum machines turned it into dance-rock.
★ 5.7
Forever Young (Alphaville)Alphaville
Forever Young (Alphaville)
1984
Two days on a dance version, scrapped for synth pads and a Cold War fear of growing old.
★ 5.7
Drive (REM)R.E.M.
Drive (REM)
1992 · From Automatic for the People
John Paul Jones scored the strings, Scott Litt named Queen as the model, and the lyric hands kids the wheel.
★ 5.7
12:51
2003 · From Room on Fire
Guitars pushed to sound like synthesizers, and a Roman Coppola video that borrows its neon from Tron.
★ 5.7
A.D.H.D
2011 · From Section.80
Sounwave's woozy loop, Ab-Soul in the margins, and Lamar naming a generation's numbness on his debut album.
★ 5.5
Brooklyn Baby
2014
Del Rey wrote it with Lou Reed in mind, then sang the Brooklyn hipster caricature straight, deadpan and unbothered.
★ 5.3
We Are Young
fun. and Janelle Monae
2011
Six weeks at number one, and it began with Ruess singing the chorus, tipsy, at the Bowery Hotel.
★ 5.2
22
2012 · From Red
An acoustic guitar riff opens it, then Max Martin and Shellback's synthesizers turn a birthday into a full night out.
★ 4.8
Steve McQueen
2011
Justin Meldal-Johnsen co-produced at Sunset Sound, and Gonzalez turns unembarrassed optimism into a wall of synthesizers.
★ 4.3
We Can't Stop
2013
Written for Rihanna, passed to Mike Will Made It, and the la-di-da-di hook earned Slick Rick a songwriting credit.
★ 4.3
Ocean Avenue
2004
Sean Mackin's violin cutting through the guitars, and an avenue that is really a boulevard in Atlantic Beach, Florida.
★ 4.1
We Own The Sky
2008
Gonzalez wrote it with his brother Yann, and Ken Thomas produced an album that worships John Hughes and eighties synths.
★ 4.1
I Go Back
2004
Jack & Diane, Only the Good Die Young, Rock'n Me: the songs Chesney says drag him back.
★ 2.5