Like a Rolling Stone
1965 · From Highway 61 Revisited
A snare crack, a sneer, and Kooper's uninvited organ swirling through the song that split rock open.
★ 10.0
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.
Respect
1967 · From I Never Loved a Man the Way I Loved You
Aretha takes Otis Redding's song away from him for good, spells out the demand, and never gives it back.
★ 9.9
A Day in the Life
1967 · From Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Two unfinished songs bolted together, an orchestra climbing to nothing, and the last piano chord in pop.
★ 9.9
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
What's Going OnMarvin Gaye
What's Going On
1971 · From What's Going On
Party chatter, a sax that sighs, and Gaye asking the question Motown begged him not to ask.
★ 9.9
(I Can't Get No) SatisfactionThe Rolling Stones
(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
1965 · From Out of Our Heads
Keith dreamt the fuzz riff, taped it half-asleep, and woke up holding the sound of teenage frustration.
★ 9.8
Good Vibrations
1966 · From Smiley Smile
Brian Wilson's pocket symphony, months and a fortune spent chasing one shimmering theremin line into the sunlight.
★ 9.8
Billie Jean
1982 · From Thriller
That bassline, mixed and remixed until it gleamed, and the four minutes that integrated MTV.
★ 9.8
Johnny B. GoodeChuck Berry
Johnny B. Goode
1958 · From Chuck Berry Is on Top
Chuck Berry's intro lick is rock's opening statement, a country boy's origin myth now drifting past the solar system.
★ 9.8
Strawberry Fields Forever
1966 · From Magical Mystery Tour
Two takes in different keys and tempos spliced into one, a Mellotron haze over Lennon's Liverpool childhood.
★ 9.7
A Change is Gonna ComeSam Cooke
A Change is Gonna Come
1964 · From Portrait of a Legend
Cooke wrote it after a motel turned him away, and sang it like a hymn he already knew by heart.
★ 9.7
God Only KnowsThe Beach Boys
God Only Knows
1966 · From Pet Sounds
It opens by admitting doubt and spends the next two minutes refuting it; McCartney still calls it the greatest.
★ 9.7
Whole Lotta Love
1969 · From Led Zeppelin II
Page's riff, Plant's howl, and a theremin freakout in the middle that still sounds like the roof coming off.
★ 9.7
I Want to Hold Your Hand
1963 · From Meet the Beatles!
Handclaps, that leaping chord under "I can't hide," and five weeks later America belonged to them.
★ 9.6
Heartbreak HotelElvis Presley
Heartbreak Hotel
1956
Elvis's first RCA single, all cavernous echo and empty rooms, the loneliest number one ever cut.
★ 9.6
Strange Fruit
1939
A Bronx schoolteacher's poem about lynching, sung in a single spotlight, still the bravest three minutes on record.
★ 9.6
Here Comes the Sun
1969 · From Abbey Road
Harrison wrote it in Clapton's garden while skipping a business meeting, and it sounds exactly like that relief.
★ 9.6
Tutti-Frutti
1955 · From Here's Little Richard
A nonsense holler cleaned up just enough to press, and the moment rock and roll stopped asking permission.
★ 9.5
Hound Dog
1956
Leiber and Stoller wrote it for Big Mama Thornton; Elvis took it, sped it up, and set it on fire.
★ 9.5
Hey JudeThe Beatles
Hey Jude
1968
Seven minutes, four of them just na-na-na, and somehow nobody has ever wanted it to end sooner.
★ 9.5
The MessageGrandmaster Flash
The Message
1982
The record that proved hip hop could report and not just party, and the edge everyone's been close to since.
★ 9.5
Yesterday
1965 · From Help!
McCartney dreamt the melody, called it "Scrambled Eggs" for weeks, then let a string quartet make it immortal.
★ 9.5
Bridge Over Troubled Water
1970
Garfunkel's voice climbing a gospel staircase, the last verse arriving like the cavalry.
★ 9.5
Stayin' Alive
1977 · From Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack
Barry Gibb's falsetto over a drum loop so metronomic that paramedics still use it to time chest compressions.
★ 9.4
Gimme ShelterThe Rolling Stones
Gimme Shelter
1969 · From Let It Bleed
Merry Clayton's voice cracking on "murder" is the sound of the sixties ending, mid-take, in one syllable.
★ 9.4
Born to RunBruce Springsteen
Born to Run
1975 · From Born to Run
Months of wall-of-sound overdubs poured into one getaway car, and every word still sounds like escape.
★ 9.4
The Sound of Silence
1965
A folk flop until a producer secretly overdubbed electric guitars, and the duo heard their number one on the radio.
★ 9.4
Stand By Me
1960
That four-note bassline, a gospel hymn turned into a promise, and one of the warmest vocals ever recorded.
★ 9.4
Stairway to HeavenLed Zeppelin
Stairway to Heaven
1971 · From Led Zeppelin IV
Eight minutes that climb from recorders to Page's solo, never released as a single and never needing to be.
★ 9.3
Be My Baby
1963 · From Presenting the Fabulous Ronettes Featuring Veronica
Hal Blaine's four-beat drum intro is the most imitated in pop, and Ronnie Spector owns everything after it.
★ 9.3
I Heard it Through the Grapevine
1968 · From In the Groove
Motown shelved Gaye's version for over a year; it came out sounding like paranoia set to a Funk Brothers groove.
★ 9.3
I Feel LoveDonna Summer
I Feel Love
1977
Moroder's pulsing synth track, Summer floating above it, and the record Eno reportedly called the sound of the future.
★ 9.3
JoleneDolly Parton
Jolene
1973 · From Jolene
Dolly pleading with her rival rather than fighting her, written the same day as "I Will Always Love You."
★ 9.3
White Christmas
1942
Berlin's snowless Christmas song, the best-selling physical single ever pressed, and the sound of every soldier's homesickness.
★ 9.3
So What
1959 · From Kind of Blue
Two chords and all the space in the world, Davis proving that less was the most radical idea in jazz.
★ 9.2
Beat It
1982 · From Thriller
Van Halen dropped in, played the solo for free, and Jackson made rock and pop the same building.
★ 9.2
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
All Along the Watchtower
1968
Hendrix took Dylan's parable and lit it, and Dylan has played it Hendrix's way ever since.
★ 9.2
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
Blowin' in the Wind
1963 · From The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
Nine questions, no answers, and the song the civil rights movement adopted whole and never gave back.
★ 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
Lose Yourself
2002 · From 8 Mile (soundtrack)
Written between takes on a film set, delivered like a man with exactly one shot at everything.
★ 9.1
Bohemian Rhapsody
1975 · From A Night at the Opera
Six minutes with no chorus and so many vocal overdubs the tape wore transparent. Still nothing else like it.
★ 9.1
West End Blues
1928
Armstrong's twelve-second opening cadenza announced that jazz had a soloist, and everything since has been the answer.
★ 9.1
Seven Nation Army
2003 · From Elephant
A guitar pitched down to fake a bass, and the seven-note riff every stadium on earth now sings.
★ 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
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
HeroesDavid Bowie
Heroes
1977 · From "Heroes"
Recorded beside the Berlin Wall, Fripp's feedback howling while Bowie sings himself hoarse over a single defiant day.
★ 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
Over the Rainbow
1939
MGM cut it from the film twice until Arthur Freed threatened to quit; Garland was sixteen.
★ 9.0
In My Life
1965 · From Rubber Soul
Lennon's first draft listed bus stops in Liverpool; Martin's piano solo, taped at half speed, sounds baroque.
★ 9.0
Rapper's Delight
1979
Big Bank Hank auditioned outside the pizzeria where he worked, rapping lines borrowed from Grandmaster Caz's notebook.
★ 9.0
Baba O'Riley
1971 · From Who's Next
That opening arpeggio is a Lowrey organ's marimba repeat function; Dave Arbus's violin sends the ending careening.
★ 9.0
My GirlThe Temptations
My Girl
1964
Smokey Robinson wrote it for his wife Claudette, then handed David Ruffin his first Temptations lead vocal.
★ 9.0
What'd I SayRay Charles
What'd I Say
1959 · From What'd I Say
Twelve minutes left at a Pennsylvania dance, so Charles improvised it on his Wurlitzer and many stations banned it.
★ 9.0
Once in a LifetimeTalking Heads
Once in a Lifetime
1980 · From Remain in Light
Byrne borrowed a preacher's cadence, Eno hummed the chorus melody, and the band looped its own jams like samplers.
★ 9.0
Fight the Power
1989 · From Fear of a Black Planet
Spike Lee asked for a defiant anthem, and the Bomb Squad answered with layered samples and Branford Marsalis's saxophone.
★ 9.0
Eleanor Rigby
1966 · From Revolver
No Beatle plays an instrument on it; George Martin's string octet does everything, sawing away at two solitary lives.
★ 8.9
Dreams (Fleetwood Mac)Fleetwood Mac
Dreams (Fleetwood Mac)
1977 · From Rumours
Nicks wrote it in a black velvet studio room at Sausalito's Record Plant; it remains the band's only US number one.
★ 8.9