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
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.
Midnight City
2011
Gonzalez built that shrieking hook from his own distorted voice, then let James King's saxophone close the record.
★ 7.5
Summer in the CityThe Lovin' Spoonful
Summer in the City
1966
Car horns and a jackhammer in the instrumental break, a garbage can for percussion, and the Spoonful's only number one.
★ 6.8
Boyz N' Tha Hood (Eazy-E)Eazy-E
Boyz N' Tha Hood (Eazy-E)
1987
Ice Cube wrote it for a New York group who walked out; Dre pushed Eazy-E to rap it himself.
★ 6.7
Respiration
1998
Hi-Tek loops Don Randi's "The Fox" under a Style Wars monologue, and three MCs read the city at night.
★ 6.5
Galang
2003 · From Arular
M.I.A.'s second song ever, built on a Roland MC-505 and written for Elastica; dancehall never sounded so homemade.
★ 6.3
On My Block
2002 · From The Fix
Five mics from The Source for The Fix, a Mike Dean beat, and Scarface drawing his Houston block affectionately.
★ 5.6
Where I'm From
1993
Two Melvin Van Peebles samples anchor it, and the trio spends the whole track naming exactly what shaped them.
★ 4.5
The World I Know
1995
Two hours walking New York on a day off, and Roland returned with four weeks atop album rock.
★ 3.9
The Heat Is OnGlenn Frey
The Heat Is On
1984
David Woodford's sax on the record, a different player miming in the video, and Frey's biggest solo hit.
★ 3.3
In the City
2013
Recorded at Brooklyn's Rumpus Room with Nick Stumpf producing, and Julia Stiles stars in the video.
★ 0.9