Iron ManBlack Sabbath
Iron Man
1970 · From Paranoid
Osbourne heard Iommi's riff and called it a big iron bloke walking; Butler built the science fiction around that.
★ 8.0
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.
Another One Bites the Dust
1980 · From Greatest Hits
Deacon's bassline owes Chic, Michael Jackson talked them into releasing it, and Queen landed their biggest-selling single.
★ 7.7
T for Texas (Blue Yodel No. 1)
1928
Cut in a converted Camden church in 1927, two takes, and the yodel that made hillbilly records big business.
★ 7.7
96 Tears
1966
A Vox Continental organ, a Michigan basement studio, a tiny local label, and somehow the number one record in America.
★ 7.5
Rolling in the Deep
2010 · From 21
Written with Paul Epworth in one afternoon after a breakup, and the credits list stiletto heels as percussion.
★ 7.5
Pressure DropToots and the Maytals
Pressure Drop
1970
Leslie Kong cut it in 1969, Hibbert called the subject karma, and The Harder They Come carried it worldwide.
★ 7.3
Cry Me A River
2002 · From Justified
Storch's clavinet, Timbaland's beat, and a breakup Timberlake spent years declining to explain; the Grammy arrived anyway.
★ 7.1
Before He Cheats
2006
Tompkins and Kear wrote it hoping Gretchen Wilson would cut it; Underwood's version stayed sixty-four weeks on the Hot 100.
★ 6.1
How I Could Just Kill a Man
1991 · From Cypress Hill
Muggs looped Lowell Fulson's 1967 "Tramp" for the guitar and bass, and B-Real's nasal whine arrived fully formed.
★ 6.0
Janie's Got a Gun
1989 · From Pump
Tyler spent nine months on the lyric, Fincher directed the video, and the Grammy went to Aerosmith's bleakest hit.
★ 5.9
Santeria
1996 · From Sublime
Built on a bassline lifted from a Robbin' the Hood dub, and issued months after Nowell's death.
★ 5.6
My Boyfriend's Back
1963
Feldman overheard a schoolgirl brushing off a boy, and the Angels' demo for the Shirelles went out as is.
★ 4.2
Hit 'Em Up Style (Oops!)
2001
Dallas Austin wrote it, produced it, played bass and keys, and slipped a Sinatra snippet under Cantrell's revenge.
★ 3.9