Photo: VNT

In 2004, Rolling Stone published its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. It’s one of the most widely read stories in our history, viewed hundreds of millions of times on this site. But a lot has changed since 2004. Where the 2004 version of the list was dominated by early rock and soul, the new edition contains more hip-hop, modern country, indie rock, Latin pop, reggae, and R&B.

50. Cyndi Lauper, 'Time After Time' - 1983

WRITER(S): Cyndi Lauper, Rob Hyman

Cyndi Lauper was nervous about “Time After Time” — the aching ballad she wrote in the studio with keyboardist Rob Hyman to finish off her blockbuster solo debut, She’s So Unusual. “I asked them to please not put ‘Time After Time’ out as the first single,” Lauper said. “People would never have accepted me. If you do a ballad first, and then a rocker, that doesn’t work.” Her instincts were right: Following the jaunty “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” “Time” became her first Number One.

49. Miles Davis, 'So What' - 1959

WRITER(S): Miles Davis

It’s likely that no song on this list has soundtracked more dinner parties than Kind of Blue’s warm, welcoming first track. But at the time it was a jarring departure, trading bebop chord changes for a more open-ended modal style. According to pianist Bill Evans, the trumpeter worked up his material just hours before recording dates, but the all-star band here sounds like it’s been living with “So What” for years: Saxophonists John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley turn in solos that have since become as iconic as any in jazz history, and the rhythm section of Evans, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Jimmy Cobb swings like it’s dancing on air.

48. Lil Nas X, 'Old Town Road' - 2019

WRITER(S): Atticus Matthew Ross, Kiowa Roukema, Michael Trent Reznor, Montero Lamar Hill

The song has been widely labeled as "country rap", a genre that had not often reached the mainstream prior to its release. The song initially gained popularity on the social video sharing app TikTok and eventually entered the Billboard charts in March 2019.[1] The song reached number 19 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart before the magazine disqualified it from the chart on the grounds that it did not fit the genre, sparking a debate on the definition of country music. 'Old Town Road' was awarded diamond certification by the RIAA in October 2019, for selling ten million total units in the United States, the fastest song to be awarded diamond certification.

47. Lil Wayne, 'A Milli' - 2009

WRITER(S): Ali Shaheed Jones-Muhammad, Dwayne Carter, Kamaal Fareed, Shondrae Crawford

Producer Bangladesh looped the opening chords from Gladys Knight and the Pips’ “Don’t Burn Down the Bridge,” then segued to a drill-like volley of trap drums. He gave the beat to his friend Shanell — a onetime R&B singer on Wayne’s Young Money Entertainment — to pass along. Wayne initially had grand plans for “A Milli”: He wanted to use the instrumental as skits for rappers like Tyga, Hurricane Chris, Corey Gunz, and Lil Mama. In the end, though, “A Milli” is just Weezy solo, blacking out in the booth and dazzling everyone who hears him.

46. Lady Gaga, 'Bad Romance' - 2009

WRITER(S): Stefani Germanotta, Nadir Khayat

"Bad Romance" is a song and lead single by American singer Lady Gaga from her third EP, The Fame Monster (2009). Most commentators praised "Bad Romance", calling it one of the highlights of the album. It was included in the 'best-of' lists in several media outlets such as Rolling Stone and Pitchfork, and won two Grammy Awards for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and Best Short Form Music Video. In 2021, Rolling Stone included it at number 482 in their updated list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

45. Janet Jackson, 'Rhythm Nation' - 1989

WRITER(S): James Harris, Janet Jackson, Sly Stone, Terry Lewis

Jackson’s socially conscious Number Two hit came together late in the sessions for her blockbuster LP Rhythm Nation 1814. Co-producer Jimmy Jam recalled being in the studio and “switching between MTV and CNN. Watching music videos on one side and watching atrocities on the other. Somehow they all merged together. The idea for ‘Rhythm Nation’ was you can dance, but we can also do something more intelligent.” When Jam heard Sly and the Family Stone’s “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” at a restaurant, he raced to the studio to sample it.

44. Peter Gabriel, 'Solsbury Hill' - 1977

WRITER(S): Peter Gabriel

Shortly after Gabriel quit Genesis in 1975, he climbed to the top of Little Solsbury Hill in Somerset, England, to reflect on his life-changing decision. It inspired his debut solo song, in which he explained to fans why he felt the need to go out on his own. Musically, it was a departure too, a pastoral tune with a 12-string acoustic guitar lead that was pointedly different from Genesis’ prog-rock. The song has since become ubiquitous in movies and film trailers. “Maybe I’ve let it go too much,” he admitted to Rolling Stone in 2011.

43. Gladys Knight and the Pips, 'Midnight Train to Georgia' - 1973

WRITER(S): Jim Weatherly

Songwriter Jim Weatherly originally composed this as “Midnight Plane to Houston,” only to change it for Cissy Houston (Whitney’s mom) to something “more R&B … in order to get it onto Black radio.” Weatherly had already penned “Neither One of Us,” Knight and the Pips’ Number Two hit, and when they heard “Midnight Train,” they took it to the top. “I never really imagined writing R&B songs,” Weatherly admitted. “I really thought I was writing country songs.” It reflected the times; the 1970s were the first decade since after World War I in which more African Americans were moving to the South than leaving it.

42. Nirvana, 'Come as You Are' - 1991

WRITER(S): Kurt Cobain

“It’s just about people and what they’re expected to act like,” Kurt Cobain said. “The lines in the song are really contradictory. They’re kind of a rebuttal to each other.” The song is driven by a simple riff that Butch Vig goosed with a flanged, subaquatic guitar effect. Cobain apparently lifted it from a 1984 song by U.K. art-metal band Killing Joke, who Dave Grohl paid back 12 years later by drumming on their 2003 album. In the wake of Cobain’s suicide, though, the most haunting lyric would become, “And I swear that I don’t have a gun.”

41. Bon Jovi, 'Livin' on a Prayer' - 1986

WRITER(S): Desmond Child, Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora

"Livin' on a Prayer" is the band's signature song, topping fan-voted lists and re-charting around the world decades after its release. The original 45-RPM single release sold 800,000 copies in the United States, and in 2013 was certified triple platinum for over 3 million digital downloads. The official music video has over 775 million views on YouTube as of March 2021.

Lana Del Rey, 'Summertime Sadness' (Photo: Hypebeast)

40. Lana Del Rey, 'Summertime Sadness' - 2012

WRITER(S): Elizabeth Grant, Rick Nowels

For her second album, Del Rey went for a sound even lusher than on her debut, and the relentless strings of “Summertime Sadness” recall the soundtracks Angelo Badalamenti composed for David Lynch’s films. She wrote the song in Santa Monica. “I would sit under the telephone wires and listen to them sizzle in the warm air,” she recalled. “I felt happy in the warm weather, and started writing about how sad and gorgeous the summertime felt to me.” A year after its first release, Cedric Gervais’ dance remix turned the song into a Top 10 hit.

39. The Beatles, 'Help!' - 1965

WRITER(S): John Lennon, Paul McCartney

“Most people think it’s just a fast rock & roll song,” Lennon said. “Subconsciously, I was crying out for help. I didn’t realize it at the time; I just wrote the song because I was commissioned to write it for the movie.” Overwhelmed by Beatlemania, Lennon was eating “like a pig,” drinking too much, and “smoking marijuana for breakfast” — only 24 years old, he was already expressing nostalgia for his lost youth. “I don’t like the recording that much,” Lennon would later tell Rolling Stone. “We did it too fast, to try and be commercial.”

38. Alicia Keys, 'If I Ain't Got You' - 2003

WRITER(S): Alicia Keys

Saddened by the tragic 2001 death of R&B singer Aaliyah, Keys composed this moving expression of her loss, bringing the organic-feeling lushness of Seventies R&B balladry into the digitized 21st century. She was on such a creative roll at the time of her album The Diary of Alicia Keys that she almost gave the song away to Christina Aguilera, until her A&R rep Peter Edge intervened. “I was like, ‘Why? I’ll write a hundred more,’” she recalled telling him. “I’m kinda glad he made sure I didn’t do that.”

37. Mark Ronson feat. Bruno Mars, 'Uptown Funk' - 2015

WRITER(S): Charles Wilson, Devon Gallaspy, Jeff Bhasker, Lonnie Simmons, Nicholaus Williams, Peter Hernandez, Philip Lawrence, Robert Wilson, Ronnie Wilson, Rudolph Taylor

The song is a funk-pop, soul, boogie, disco-pop, and Minneapolis soundtrack. It has a spirit akin to the 1980s-era funk music. Commercially, the song topped the charts of 19 countries and reached the top 10 of 15 others, making it the most successful single of Ronson and Mars to date. In the United States, "Uptown Funk" topped the Billboard Hot 100 for 14 weeks and spent seven weeks on the top of the UK Singles Chart. It was certified 11 times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and six times platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI).

36. Elton John, 'Bennie and the Jets' - 1973

WRITER(S):Bernie Taupin, Elton John

This weird and wonderful Number One hit — Elton at his most playfully funky — is about a fictional rock band, as told by a ravenous fan preaching the gospel of Bennie and the Jets to her friends Candy and Ronnie. “I saw Bennie and the Jets as a sort of proto-sci-fi punk band,” lyricist Bernie Taupin told Rolling Stone in 2014, “fronted by an androgynous woman, who looks like something out of a Helmut Newton photograph.” Elton didn’t want “Bennie and the Jets” released as a single, only acquiescing after he heard it was getting play on the top Black station in Detroit.

35. Fugees, 'Killing Me Softly With His Song' - 1996

WRITER(S): Norman Gamble, Charles Fox

"Killing Me Softly with His Song" is a song composed by Charles Fox with lyrics by Norman Gimbel. Lieberman released her version of the song in 1972, but it did not chart. In 1973 it became a number-one hit in the United States, Australia, and Canada for Roberta Flack, also reaching number six in the UK Singles Chart. In 1996, Fugees recorded the song with Lauryn Hill on lead vocals, their version became a number-one hit in twenty countries. The version by Flack won the 1974 Grammy for Record of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, and the version by Fugees won the 1997 Grammy for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal.

34. Michael Jackson, 'Rock With You' - 1979

WRITER(S):Rod Temperton

“Rock With You” is at once a beginning and an end. Released in 1979, it’s the perfect swan song for the disco era — a seductive, love-filled romp with rich horns, staccato strings, slick guitar, and subtle synth work. It’s also the first collaborative effort between Jackson, songwriter Rod Temperton, and producer Quincy Jones, and with “Rock With You” as their foundation, this trio would soon redefine pop and make Jackson its king. Usher later said, “Songs like ‘Rock With You’ made me want to become a performer.”

33. Cher, 'Believe' - 1998

WRITER(S): Brian Higgins, Stuart McLennen, Paul Barry, Steven Torch, Matthew Gray, Timothy Powell, Cher

At a time when pretty much every artist of her generation was still sticking with guitar-based pop-rock, Cher took a gamble on a new futuristic technology called Auto-Tune and won big time. Her secret? Making sure that even though the robotic vocal effects, she sounded like a force to be reckoned with: “I was singing [the song] in the bathtub, and it seemed to be the second verse was too whiny. It kind of pissed me off, so I changed it. I toughened it up a bit.” “Believe” introduced the then-52-year-old singer to a whole new generation of fans, becoming an indelible anthem for the queer community and earning Cher a permanent place in the canon of empowerment-pop anthems.

32. Bob Dylan, 'Visions of Johanna' - 1966

WRITER(S): Bob Dylan

In early 1966, Dylan decamped to Nashville to record Blonde on Blonde with a crew of local studio pros assembled by producer Bob Johnston. In their very first late-night session, they fleshed out this seven-minute meditation on unrequited desire. “‘Far out,’ would have been the words I would have used at the time,” recalled Bill Atkins, who played keyboard. Joan Baez claimed the song, originally titled “Seems Like a Freeze-Out,” was about her; if so, she left quite a mark on Dylan; he’s rarely sounded so transcendently dejected.

31. The Eagles, 'Hotel California' - 1976

WRITER(S): Don Felder, Glenn Frey, Don Henley

"Hotel California" is the title track from the Eagles' album of the same name and was released as a single in February 1977. The song is considered the most famous recording by the band, and in 1998 its long guitar coda was voted the best guitar solo of all time by readers of Guitarist. The song was awarded the Grammy Award for Record of the Year in 1978.

Pink Floyd, 'Wish You Were Here' (Photo: Happy Mag)

30. Pink Floyd, 'Wish You Were Here' - 1975

WRITER(S): David Gilmour, Roger Waters

Despite sky-high band tensions during the recording of Floyd’s 1975 album, Wish You Were Here, Roger Waters and David Gilmour were able to come together for its title track, an elegy for burned-out ex-frontman Syd Barrett. During the recording, Barrett mysteriously appeared in the studio in such bad shape that, at first, nobody in the band recognized him. “He stood up and said, ‘Right, when do I put my guitar on?’” keyboardist Rick Wright recalled. “And, of course, he didn’t have a guitar with him. And we said, ‘Sorry, Syd, the guitar’s all done.’"

29. AC/DC, 'You Shook Me All Night Long' - 1980

WRITER(S): Angus Young, Malcolm Young, Brian Johnson

AC/DC singer Bon Scott died of asphyxiation in February 1980, choking on his vomit after a night of boozing, just as their LP Highway to Hell made stars of the Aussie hard rockers. Two days later, brothers Malcolm and Angus Young were rehearsing again (“Bon would have done the same,” Angus said), and within a fortnight, they’d hired a new singer, Brian Johnson. The first song this new lineup wrote together was “You Shook Me All Night Long,” which Johnson told his new bandmates was “the best rock & roll song I’ve ever heard in my life.”

28. ABBA, 'Dancing Queen' - 1976

WRITER(S):Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus, Stig Anderson

ABBA’s songwriters were inspired by soulman George McCrae’s dance-floor hit “Rock Your Baby” to try their hands at a disco song, deciding to open their tune mid-chorus, Benny Andersson said, “for maximum impact.” When Andersson auditioned the song for his fiancée and band member Anni-Frid Lyngstad, she was moved to tears. Sweden’s biggest musical export debuted “Queen” in 1976 at a ball for King Carl XVI Gustaf on the eve of his wedding. The song, a frothy dessert of sublime melody and pop-operatic harmonies, became the group’s only U.S. Number One.

27. Leonard Cohen, 'Suzanne' - 1967

WRITER(S): Leonard Cohen

After folk sage Judy Collins recorded “Suzanne,” which Cohen wrote about his unconsummated desire for a friend’s younger wife, avant-garde dancer Suzanne Verdal, it became a standard, covered by everyone from Nina Simone to Neil Diamond; and Cohen, already a well-respected poet, got a record deal. His version is slow-paced and sparse, leaving space for his sensual and biblical symbolism and intimate, unashamed, commonplace voice. “I didn’t know that I’d be able to sing ‘Suzanne’ 40 years later,” he once said.

26. The Righteous Brothers, 'Unchained Melody' - 1965

WRITER(S): Alex North, Hy Zaret

The ultimate prom ballad, “Unchained Melody” was written in 1955 by a pair of Broadway songwriters — not intended for rock & roll. But a decade later, the blue-eyed soul pioneers the Righteous Brothers took it up, with Bobby Hatfield’s caramel-like tenor soaring over the most swoony Wall of Sound producer Phil Spector ever concocted. It proved so irresistible that it became a hit all over again a quarter-century later, thanks to its sync in the hit movie Ghost.

25. Digital Underground, 'The Humpty Dance' - 1990

WRITER(S): Earl Humphrey, Gregory Jacobs

Humpty Hump taught the world how to do “The Humpty Dance” in 1990, making party animals shout along to “I get stupid! I shoot an arrow like Cupid! I use a word that do not mean nothing, like ‘loopid!’” Bay Area crew Digital Underground infused hip-hop with the crazed spirit of George Clinton and Prince, lecherous without any of the era’s usual sexist clichés. As the late Shock G said, “I brought the perv tone.” “The Humpty Dance” still drops enough bass to make anyone get busy in a Burger King bathroom.

24. Backstreet Boys, 'I Want It That Way' - 1999

WRITER(S):Andreas Carlsson, Karl Sandberg

The Backstreet Boys sang a boy-band standard with their 1999 smash “I Want It That Way.” It defined the MTV Total Request Live era when BSB and ‘NSync battled it out for the hearts of young America. It came from Swedish songwriters Carlsson and Martin, who were still just learning English. “The lyric doesn’t really mean anything,” Carlsson admitted. “The record company was like, ‘We need to bring in maybe another lyricist to help work on this.’” But Brian, Howie, A.J., Nick, and Kevin make every line soar like pure poetry.

23. Eminem feat. Dido, 'Stan' - 2000

WRITER(S): Marshall Mathers, Dido Armstrong, Paul Herman

Eminem’s scariest song is rooted in a terrifying nightmare: What if the rapper’s violent, self-destructive lyrics could drive an obsessed fan to murder? “He’s crazy for real, and he thinks I’m crazy, but I try to help him at the end of the song,” said Eminem of his character. “It kinda shows the real side of me.” Anchored by a sample from Dido’s “Thank You” (which became a hit itself as a result) and augmented by a haunted house’s worth of sound effects, “Stan” proved that Eminem understood the dark side of his music better than his worst critics did.

22. Elvis Presley, 'Jailhouse Rock' - 1957

WRITER(S): Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller

Songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller had already penned a couple of Presley hits — most notably “Hound Dog,” picked up from blues belter Big Mama Thornton — but the theme song for Presley’s third movie was the duo’s first studio collaboration with the young superstar. “Jailhouse Rock” was decidedly silly, the kind of tongue-in-cheek narrative goof they had been coming up with for the Coasters. The King, however, sang it as straight rock & roll, introducing Scotty Moore’s guitar solo with a cry so intense that they take almost collapses.

21. Britney Spears, 'Baby One More Time' - 1998

WRITER(S): Karl Sandberg

The song introduced the world to the most influential female pop artist to come around since Madonna was originally intended for TLC, but the R&B group rejected it. Once Swedish songwriter Max Martin met Spears, a new 15-year-old singer with Jive Records, he thought he had the right person for the track. Spears agreed. “I wanted my voice to be kind of rusty,” she told Rolling Stone years later. “I wanted my voice to just be able to groove with the track. So the night before, I stayed up really, really late, so when I went into the studio, I wasn’t rested.”

Elton John, 'Your Song' (Photo: Bandcamp)

20. Elton John, 'Your Song'- 1970

WRITER(S): Elton John, Bernie Taupin

"Your Song" was first released by American rock band Three Dog Night in March 1970 on their third studio album, It Ain't Easy. John was an opening act for the band at the time and allowed them to record it. They did not release it as a single as they wanted to let John, then an upcoming artist, have a go with it. In 1998, "Your Song" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

19. Aerosmith, 'Dream On' - 1973

WRITER(S): Steven Tyler

Funnily enough, Steven Tyler was just a teenager when he wrote the lyrics “Every time when I look in the mirror/All these lines on my face getting clearer/The past is gone.” Though he’d started to write the music to what would become Aerosmith’s breakthrough hit in his adolescence, he never expected much from it. “It was just this little thing I was playing, and I never dreamed it would end up as a real song or anything,” he said later. But the inspirational, colossal power ballad, the first recording in which Tyler unleashed his piercing falsetto, was first a local hit in Boston and then nationally in 1976.

18. Billie Eilish, 'Bad Guy' - 2019

WRITER(S): Finneas O'Connell, Billie Eilish O'Connell

Upon its release, "Bad Guy" received mainly positive reviews. It was also likened to music recorded by the White Stripes, Lorde, and Fiona Apple. "Bad Guy" was a commercial success, reaching number one on the US Billboard Hot 100, as well as on the charts in Australia, Canada, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, New Zealand, Norway and Russia. In the United States, "Bad Guy" ended the record-breaking 19-week run of "Old Town Road" by Lil Nas X featuring Billy Ray Cyrus.

17. Louis Armstrong, 'What a Wonderful World' - 1967

WRITER(S): G.D. Weiss, G. Douglas

The jazz legend cut this tender song of autumnal optimism one late night after performing in Vegas. It stiffed in the U.S. — the president of ABC Records was so miffed that Pops hadn’t recorded something upbeat, à la “Hello Dolly,” that he refused to promote the song. British music fans didn’t care though; they made “What a Wonderful World” an overseas hit, the last during Armstrong’s lifetime. Two decades later, when it appeared in the Robin Williams film Good Morning Vietnam, the song finally entered the U.S. charts, belated proof of how beloved it had grown over the years.

16. Elton John, 'Rocket Man' - 1972

WRITER(S): Elton John, Bernie Taupin

In the future that Taupin imagined when he started writing “Rocket Man” for Elton John in 1971, astronauts are blue-collar laborers trapped in space for months on end, desperately missing their families and not even remotely understanding how their spaceships work. He was inspired by a 1951 Ray Bradbury short story. Elton took his words and transformed them into a soaring anthem that became his second Top 10 hit, following “Your Song.” “It had an acoustic guitar on it, it was a different song for me — it was a simpler sound,” he told Rolling Stone. “I’d moved into a house, I was becoming successful, I was so confident, musically.”

15. Bob Marley and the Wailers, 'No Woman No Cry' - 1975

WRITER(S): Vincent Ford, Bob Marley

Perhaps the greatest example ever of a live version usurping the studio recording to become definitive. The uptempo “No Woman No Cry” on 1975’s Natty Dread is nice, but the swaying, incantatory take on 1975’s Live! — recorded at the London Lyceum in July 1975, and captured by the Rolling Stones’ mobile recording unit — immediately became one of the reggae legend’s most beloved performances. The “government yard in Trench Town” refers to the Jamaican public-housing project where Marley lived in the Fifties. He gave a songwriting credit to his childhood friend Vincent “Tata” Ford to help keep Ford’s Kingston soup kitchen running.

14. Madonna, 'Vogue' - 1990

WRITER(S): Madonna, Shep Pettibone

Inspired by the way men were dancing at the gay clubs she frequented, Madonna wrote some lyrics that connected the act of striking a pose to classic Hollywood glamour. Producer Shep Pettibone, who’d remixed some of the pop star’s earlier singles, whipped up a booming disco beat and synth bass, then later mixed in syncopated stabs of house piano after Madonna had recorded her vocals in a Manhattan basement. The most amazing part? They did it all on a budget of $5,000, with the idea that something so bold could probably only be a B side.

13. Ariana Grande, 'Thank U, Next' - 2019

WRITER(S): Kimberly Krysiuk, Tayla Parx, Victoria McCants, Ariana Grande, Charles Anderson, Michael Foster, Njomza Vitia, Tommy Brown

Grande released “Thank U, Next” a little more than a year after her concert in Manchester, England, came under attack, ending in the deaths of 22 people. Within the same year, her engagement to the comedian Pete Davidson ended, and her ex-fiancé, Mac Miller, tragically passed away. “​​She could’ve released whatever fluffy song,” her co-writer Savan Kotecha told Rolling Stone. “But she was brave enough to go, ‘I’m going to talk about it.’” The result was “Thank U, Next,” a song that floats with strength and grace, offering a sage perspective on the work of moving on, from a place of profound centeredness.

12. Ben E. King, 'Stand by Me' - 1961

WRITER(S):Ben E. King, Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller

King wrote “Stand by Me” when he was still the lead singer of the Drifters — but the group didn’t want it. As King recalled, the Drifters’ manager told him, “Not a bad song, but we don’t need it.” But after King went solo, he revived “Stand by Me” at the end of a session with producer Jerry Leiber. “I showed him the song,” King said. “Did it on piano a little bit, he called the musicians back into the studio, and we went ahead and recorded it.” “Stand by Me” has been a pop-soul standard ever since, covered by everyone from John Lennon to Green Day.

11. The Beatles, 'Let It Be' - 1970

WRITER(S): John Lennon, Paul McCartney

"Let It Be" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles, released on 6 March 1970 as a single, and (in an alternative mix) as the title track of their album Let It Be. At the time, it had the highest debut on the Billboard Hot 100, beginning its chart run at number 6 and eventually reaching the top. It was the Beatles' final single before McCartney announced his departure from the band.

Britney Spears, 'Toxic' (Photo: US Weekly)

10. Britney Spears, 'Toxic' - 2003

WRITER(S):Cathy Dennis, CKS Garage, Henrik Jonback, Pontus Winnberg

After years of maximalist hits, the pop princess went for something a little more subtle with producers Bloodshy and Avant, who piled on James Bond guitar, Bollywood strings, and robo-funk vocoders — making for a different kind of song that felt sticky-sweet but also global and avant-garde. “Toxic” redefined Spears’ image and sound, but it almost wasn’t hers. “That was written in Sweden,” co-writer Cathy Dennis explained. “I went over there to write with Janet Jackson in mind.” The song didn’t end up making it to Jackson, and was then passed up by Kylie Minogue before getting into Spears’ hands.

9. Whitney Houston, 'I Will Always Love You' - 1992

WRITER(S): Dolly Parton

Dolly Parton wrote “I Will Always Love You” about the difficult decision to move on from her mentor Porter Wagoner, and reached Number One on the country charts with two different recordings of it. Kevin Costner suggested the song to his Bodyguard co-star Houston, who with the aid of producer David Foster, revamped it as a mighty R&B ballad that became an even bigger hit. Houston and Costner insisted on keeping the song’s a cappella intro against the label’s wishes. “I didn’t care if it was ever on the radio,” Costner said later. “I said, ‘We’re also going to do this a cappella at the beginning. I need it to be a cappella because it shows a measure of how much she digs this guy — that she sings without music.'”

8. Guns N' Roses, 'Sweet Child O' Mine' - 1987

WRITER(S): Duff McKagan, Jeffrey Isbell, Saul Hudson, Steven Adler, W. Axl Rose

Rose wrote this love letter to his then-girlfriend Erin Everly (daughter of Don). Slash said he was just “fucking around with the intro riff, making a joke.” The guitarist didn’t think much of it, but Rose knew better. That steely-yet-sensitive guitar part would accompany a bit of inspired Southern-rock cosplay from Rose. “I went out and got some old Lynyrd Skynyrd tapes to make sure we’d got that down-home, heartfelt feeling,” he said at the time. Though Rose and Everly’s marriage didn’t last long, the song went on to be a pivotal breakthrough for the band and remains its sole Number One hit in the U.S.

7. Adele, 'Rolling in the Deep' - 2011

WRITER(S): Adele Laurie Blue Adkins, Paul Richard Epworth

“The beat of the song was my heartbeat … it just built and built,” Adele said of the surging soul rumble that backed her on what became her signature hit. Stung by a bad breakup and struggling to find the right artistic footing for her second album, the singer met with producer Paul Epworth, who encouraged her to tap into her rawest emotions. To get the appropriate booming effect, Epworth used a marching band kick drum to add muscle to the groove. But the song’s power was all Adele, whose demo vocal made the finished track. As Epworth told Rolling Stone of the “Rolling in the Deep” session, “She was obviously quite fragile and very open about what had happened. But she had fire in her belly.”

6. Amy Winehouse, 'Back to Black' - 2006

WRITER(S): Amy Winehouse, Mark Ronson

"Back to Black" is a song by English singer and songwriter Amy Winehouse from her second and final studio album of the same name (2006). "Back to Black" received universal acclaim by music critics, who generally praised its throwback sound to girl groups from the 1960s. It was included on several compiled year and decade-end lists of the best in music and was further considered to be one of Winehouse's signature songs. "Back to Black" was inspired by her relationship with Blake Fielder-Civil. He had left Winehouse for an ex-girlfriend, leaving her going to "black," which the listener may take to be drinking and depression.

5. Leonard Cohen, 'Hallelujah' - 1984

WRITER(S): Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” begins with scripture and ends with the confession of a broken man, holding onto the one word with any hope left in it for him. “I wanted to indicate that Hallelujah can come out of things that have nothing to do with religion,” he once said. The song itself struck some secret chord with listeners and got born again through the lips of John Cale, Jeff Buckley, and Bob Dylan. “The only moment that you can live here comfortably in these absolutely irreconcilable conflicts is in this moment when you embrace it all and you say, ‘Look, I don’t understand a fucking thing at all — Hallelujah!'” Cohen said. “That’s the only moment that we live here fully as human beings.”

4. Dolly Parton, 'Jolene' - 1974

WRITER(S): Dolly Parton

When Parton recorded “Jolene” in 1974, she was chiefly known as Porter Wagoner’s TV partner, although she had written the hit “Coat of Many Colors.” “Jolene” showed how she could put her stamp on traditional country. The Jolene that inspired the song was actually a young autograph seeker; “I said, ‘Well, you’re the prettiest little thing I ever saw. So what is your name?’ And she said, ‘Jolene.'” Parton got the idea for the song’s lyrics after too many run-ins with a flirty bank teller: “She got this terrible crush on my husband. And he just loved going to the bank because she paid him so much attention. It was kinda like a running joke between us.”

3. John Lennon, 'Imagine' - 1971

WRITER(S):John Lennon, Yoko Ono

"Imagine" is a song by English rock musician John Lennon from his 1971 album of the same name. The best-selling single of his solo career, the lyrics encourage listeners to imagine a world of peace, without materialism, without borders separating nations, and without religion. Shortly before his death, Lennon said that much of the song's lyrics and content came from his wife, Yoko Ono.

2. Queen, 'Bohemian Rhapsody' - 1975

WRITER(S): Freddie Mercury

The 1970s, rock’s most grandiose decade, never got more grandiose than here. “Bohemian Rhapsody” contains a reported 180 vocal parts and spans rock, opera, heavy metal, and pop — all in six minutes. But for as elegant as it sounds, recording it was a literal mess. Freddie Mercury taped scraps of paper containing his own bizarre musical notations to his piano and simply started pounding out chords for his bandmates to follow. Somehow he pieced it all together beautifully, singing about killing a man (possibly a metaphor for obliterating the heterosexual image of himself) and commedia dell’arte characters like Scaramouche. Recording technology was so taxed by the song that some tapes became virtually transparent from so many overdubs, but Queen had created something that embodied the absurd tragedy and humor of human existence.

1. Nirvana, 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' - 1991

WRITER(S): Kurt Cobain

Producer Butch Vig first heard “Smells Like Teen Spirit” in early 1991, on a boombox cassette recorded by bassist Krist Novoselic, drummer Dave Grohl, and singer-guitarist-songwriter Kurt Cobain in a barn in Tacoma, Washington. The fidelity was abysmal. Vig — about to work with Nirvana on their major-label debut, Nevermind — could not tell that the song would soon make underground Seattle rock the new mainstream and catapult Cobain, a troubled young man with strict indie-culture ethics, into mega-celebrity.

Sadly, by the time of Nirvana’s last U.S. tour, in late 1993, Cobain was tortured by the obligation to play “Teen Spirit” every night. “There are many other songs that I have written that are as good, if not better,” he claimed. But few songs by any artist have reshaped rock and roll so immediately, and permanently.

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