Official Top 10 List of All Time (Songs)

1.Bob Dylan - Like a Rolling Stone (1965)

   
 "I wrote it. I didn't fail. It was straight," Bob Dylan said of his greatest song shortly after he recorded it in June 1965.
There is no better description of "Like a Rolling Stone" — of its revolutionary design and execution — or of the young man, just turned 24, who created it."

2.The Rolling Stones, '(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction' (1965)

   It's one of the earliest examples of Dylan influencing the Stones and the Beatles — the degree of cynicism, and the idea of bringing more personal lyrics from the folk and blues tradition into popular music."

3.John Lennon, 'Imagine' (1971)

 
"Imagine" was "just what John believed: that we are all one country, one world, one people. He wanted to get that idea out."

4.Marvin Gaye, 'What's Going On' (1971)

   "What's Going On" is an exquisite plea for peace on Earth, sung by a man at the height of crisis."If I was arguing for peace," Gaye told biographer David Ritz, "I knew I'd have to find peace in my heart."

 5.Aretha Franklin, 'Respect' (1965)

     There is no mistaking the passion inside the discipline of Franklin's delivery; she was surely drawing on her own tumultuous marriage at the time for inspiration. "If she didn't live it, she couldn't give it." But, "Aretha would never play the part of the scorned woman....Her middle name was Respect."

6.The Beach Boys, 'Good Vibrations' (1966)

  "Good Vibrations" became the Beach Boys' third Number One hit, but it was a short window of glory — for the Beach Boys commercially, for Wilson creatively and emotionally. The song was intended to appear on the group's Smile album

7.Chuck Berry, 'Johnny B. Goode' (1958)

"Johnny B. Goode" was the first rock & roll hit about rock & roll stardom. It is still the greatest rock & roll song about the democracy of fame in pop music.

8.The Beatles, 'Hey Jude'  (1968)

The Beatles' biggest U.S. single — nine weeks at Number One — was also their longest, at seven minutes and 11 seconds. During the recording sessions, producer George Martin objected to the length, claiming DJs would not play the song. "They will if it's us," John Lennon shot back.

9.Nirvana,'Smells Like Teen Spirit'(1991)

 

   A shock wave of big-amp purity, "Teen Spirit" wiped the lingering jive of the Eighties off the pop map overnight. "The song was a call to consciousness," Novoselic said in 2000 — Cobain's avenging grenade against the corporate invasion of youth culture, spiked with the demanding venom of the sneering chorus: "Here we are now/Entertain us."

10.Ray Charles, 'What'd I Say' (1959)

"The people just went crazy, and they loved that little ummmmh, unnnnh," Ray Charles told Rolling Stone in 1978, describing the instant genesis of "What'd I Say," his first Top 10 pop single and the greatest feel-good song in rock & roll.

Posted in: Songs