
Nuthin' But a G Thang
Dre built G-funk on a Leon Haywood sample, handed Snoop the mic, and gangsta rap reached number two.

Dre built G-funk on a Leon Haywood sample, handed Snoop the mic, and gangsta rap reached number two.
Pete Rock looped a Tom Scott saxophone line, and CL Smooth's eulogy for a lost friend still aches.

Parton wrote it to leave Porter Wagoner; Houston opened a cappella and held the Hot 100 for fourteen weeks.

Greenwood meant those three dead notes before the chorus to wreck the song, and they are what makes it work.

Berry's chords, Buck's arrangement, and lyrics Stipe wrote at the last minute about Andy Kaufman, Elvis impression included.

Four snare hits, then two amps facing each other with tremolos fighting, sampled and reversed into shoegaze's founding roar.
Mills cut the piano at Criteria on the instrument heard on "Layla," and John Paul Jones arranged the strings.

Slash's solo grew from an improvisation, Rose had chased the song since 1986, and nine minutes went top three.

Butler built it from an Art Blakey bassline in his father's jazz records, three voices making cool sound effortless.
Berry wrote most of it over a drum machine, John Paul Jones scored the strings, and the words target teenagers.

Cantrell wrote it for the Singles soundtrack while grieving Andrew Wood; Starr's bass line and two voices doing the mourning.

A twelve-string bass figure from Ament, a Texas newspaper item in Vedder's hands, and four VMAs in 1993.

Tinnitus from the Ragged Glory tour pushed Young back to acoustic guitars, and Ronstadt shadows him line for line.
Smith left the vari-speed engaged at mixdown, so the released version sits a quarter-tone sharp and grins anyway.

A Mothership Connection sample, RBX writing Dre's verses, and the Grammy win that turned it into a hit.

Prince Markie Dee and Cory Rooney sped up Audio Two's "Top Billin'", and hip hop soul had its template.
Cypress Hill could not write to Muggs's beat and Ice Cube passed on it; it reached number three anyway.

One Korg M1 preset, stripped to vocal and kick, and Beyonce was still borrowing that organ in 2022.

The riff arrived in the back of a U-Haul, and DeLeo's ragtime chords carried grunge to a Grammy.

Thirteen weeks at number one, a record until Whitney broke it in early 1993, on Babyface's Boomerang ballad.