BON JOVI · 1986
A power-pop missile disguised as a hard rock anthem, "You Give Love a Bad Name" was the song that detonated arena rock's commercial supernova in 1986. Co-writte…
MICHAEL JACKSON · 1995
A ballad about love surviving physical absence, written by R&B singer R. Kelly out of his own grief — and the first song in history to debut at number one on th…
VILLAGE PEOPLE · 1978
A glittering disco anthem born from the cruising culture of late-1970s Manhattan, "Y.M.C.A." smuggled queer code into the heart of mainstream pop. Nearly five d…
COLDPLAY · 2000
A four-piece band of unassuming London students stumbled into the new millennium with a song that sounded like sunrise filtered through a bedroom window. "Yello…
OASIS · 1995
: "Wonderwall" is the song that turned Oasis from a Manchester guitar band into a generational shorthand, a four-chord acoustic anthem that somehow became both …
ERIC CLAPTON · 1977
A languid, slow-burning ballad written while a guitarist waited for his partner to finish getting ready for a party, "Wonderful Tonight" became one of the most …
U2 · 1987
A slow-burning anthem built on a single, hypnotic bass figure and a guitar that seems to bleed light, "With or Without You" arrived in 1987 as both a love song …
PINK FLOYD · 1975
A ballad disguised as a sigh, "Wish You Were Here" is Pink Floyd's most quietly devastating song — a letter to a friend who was no longer quite a friend, writte…
MICHAEL JACKSON · 1991
It plays like a love song, but "Will You Be There" is really Michael Jackson at his most spiritually naked — a gospel-soaked prayer asking whether anyone will s…
GLEN CAMPBELL · 1968
"Wichita Lineman" is an unfinished song about a telephone repairman on the Kansas plains that accidentally became one of the most profound love songs ever writt…
LED ZEPPELIN · 1969
: "Whole Lotta Love" is the four-and-a-half-minute thunderclap that announced the 1970s before the decade had legally arrived. With its serrated guitar riff, it…
THE CLASH · 1977
"White Riot" isn't a song about racial conflict — it's the opposite. Written after Joe Strummer and Paul Simonon were caught up in the 1976 Notting Hill Carniva…
U2 · 1987
A six-minute act of architectural longing, the opening track of The Joshua Tree begins not with a song but with a sustained sigh of synthesizer, a held breath t…
MARVIN GAYE · 1971
— In 1971, Marvin Gaye walked into Hitsville U.S.A. and dismantled the Motown hit factory from the inside. "What's Going On" was never supposed to exist: Berry …
PET SHOP BOYS · 1985
It sounds like a glossy ode to glamorous London nightlife, but "West End Girls" is really a tense, paranoid meditation on class, sex, violence and pressure — a …