The 200 Greatest Rock Songs of the 21st Century So Far

From dance-floor glam to gritty punk, from psychedelic jams to acoustic storytellers, and more

“Rock & roll can never die,” Neil Young sang deep in the 20th century. Guess what: Neil wasn’t lying. Nearly 50 years later, rock is thriving the way it always has — by mutating, diversifying, evolving into the future. Now that we’re deep into the 21st century, it’s a perfect time to celebrate the songs that have made this a golden age for rock fans. But as always, rock & roll keeps moving too fast to get pinned down, which is why it remains defiantly, unrepentantly vibrant a century after Chuck Berry was born.

That’s the spirit behind this list — the 200 best rock songs of the 21st century so far. It’s a companion piece to our recent Reasons to Love Rock feature. The list is a wide-ranging mix of different rock styles, different generations, different voices. Some of these tunes are universally beloved classics, known and sung worldwide; others are deep cuts or underground cult faves. But from Bruce to Boygenius to Bombino, from Dylan to D’Angelo to Deftones, from Wilco to Wednesday to the White Stripes, we’ve got artists from around the world and all over the stylistic map.

This is an era when rock can’t be contained — it travels everywhere. In our Top 10 alone, we’ve got the blues, we’ve got dance-floor glam, we’ve got gritty punk and psychedelic jams and high-tech dystopia and acoustic storytellers, along with loads of air-guitar riffs. We’ve got metal warriors from Black Sabbath to Mastodon. We’ve got pop-punk and emo. We’ve got sex and drugs and black leather jackets. We’ve got riot grrrls, rock en español, indie upstarts, rootsy twang, African desert grooves, virtuoso guitar heroes, garage bands, electro experiments, grunge, deep soul. We’ve got Nineties legends from Fiona Apple to Sonic Youth. We’ve got the grizzled veterans who learned new tricks instead of going quietly: David Bowie, Prince, even Neil “Time Fades Away” Young himself. 

We’ve got country rebels. We’ve got hip-hop headbanger anthems from OutKast and Jay-Z. (You know, the guy who called himself “rap’s Grateful Dead.”) We’ve got ambitious pop rockers from Olivia Rodrigo to Harry Styles to Taylor Swift, who’ve kept their unabashedly rock moves at the top of the charts. We’ve got the skinny-tie postpunk club commandos of the Meet Me in the Bathroom era. We ramble from the U.S.A. to Colombia, Tokyo, Versailles, Niger, Dublin, CDMX, and YYZ. Some of these songs are innovative and complex; others are three-chord bangers to make you jump up and down. Their only thing in common is that they rock. You can listen to it all here.

It’s a list of songs, not artists, so we mostly avoid repeating songs by the same artist. But a handful of legends simply had too many classics to deny. (How could you pick just one Radiohead song from this century?) The toughest part was cutting it down to a mere 200, with so many more worthy artists than we could cram into one list. But it’s a tribute to the vitality, diversity, and energy of rock in our modern age. There will always be folks asking why it can’t stay like the old days, but that question has been around since Buddy Holly’s plane went down, and the answer is the same as it ever was — rock keeps growing because rock keeps changing. The only way to deny the music’s irrepressible health is to stop listening, and what fun would that be? Keep reading for 200 excellent reasons to pump up the volume and let it blast.

• Yellowcard, ‘Ocean Avenue'(2003)

  

  Yellowcard managed to capture the ephemera of teenage summers of yore — and the angsty yearning for those days — in this violin-driven pop-punk classic. It wasn’t an easy feat. As the band finalized recording its debut, Ocean Avenue, lead singer Ryan Key couldn’t find a melody for the title track’s chorus. “One day I walked in, exhausted and almost defeated … and I sang, ‘if I could find you now, things will get better,’” Key told Rolling Stone for Ocean Avenue’s 20th anniversary. It was just what producer and pop-punk architect Neal Avron was looking for. “I tracked it on the spot, and our lives were changed forever.” —Maya Georgi

• Noah Kahan, ‘American Cars’ (2026)

  

  On his 2026 album, The Great Divide, Vermont songwriter Noah Kahan broadened his palette beyond the indie-folk magic of “Stick Season.” On “American Cars,” he dug deep into heartland rock, channeling Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp, and the War on Drugs. He likens drinking to a profession (“If drinkin’ was a day job/I’d be askin’ for more money”), while begging his sister to come fix the latest kerfuffle in the family. “The song was basically like, ‘You’ve got to get your ass home, we really need you this time,’” Kahan told us in his Rolling Stone cover story. It’s a propulsive stunner unlike anything in Kahan’s catalog — and proves he’s a genuine rock star. —Angie Martoccio

• Speedy Ortiz, ‘The Graduates’ (2015)

  

  Sadie Dupuis’ pen was never sharper than on this 2015 song, which spins an alt-rock anthem out of a complaint about feeling overlooked: “I was the best at being second place, but now I’m just the silver you dread.” Her witty, literate lyrics and her twist-and-turn chords somersault over one another until she hits the bridge and flies even higher. (“Someone tweeted that I looked bored onstage,” she told RS. “I’m like, ‘I’m just focusing so I don’t fuck up this guitar part!’”) It’s a gem from a moment when indie rock was heating up again, and it seemed like all you needed was a distinct perspective and a distortion pedal to get the world’s attention. —Simon Vozick-Levinson
  

• Mogwai, ‘2 Rights Make 1 Wrong’ (2001)

  

  Thirty years in the noise game, and the Scottish punk lads in Mogwai have yet to go stale. They rose up in Glasgow, after getting their minds blown by My Bloody Valentine and Slint, blasting their own massively emotional — yet ear-bleedingly loud — style of worshipful feedback devotionals on their 1997 debut, Young Team. “2 Rights Make 1 Wrong” is their apex, from the 2001 gem Rock Action, around the time Stephen Malkmus was declaring them “the best band of the 21st century.” It’s a swirl of banjos, a vintage 1970s Vocoder, heavy guitar fuzz, distorted strings and horns, barking dogs — a psychedelic hymn, building for nearly 10 cathartic minutes. —Rob Sheffield

• Incubus, ‘Circles’ (2001)

  

  Incubus broke through in the final breath of the 20th century with Make Yourself in the fall of 1999 — a cosmic rock odyssey that featured their meditative acoustic hit “Drive.” They carried that momentum into the 2000s with Morning View, an ultra-chill California masterpiece that glistened with rockers like “Wish You Were Here” and “Mexico.” The album’s hardest-rocking moment was the head-banging kiss-off “Circles,” complete with guitarist Mike Einziger’s fiery riffs. When they rerecorded Morning View in 2024, the songs were less an exact replica of the originals and more a reflection of how they’d evolved in live settings over the years. Unsurprisingly, “Circles” sounded more ferocious than ever. —Angie Martoccio

• The Mountain Goats, ‘This Year’ (2005)

  

  Singer, songwriter, and guitarist John Darnielle’s look back at “playing video games in a drunken haze” when he was “17 years young” and acting out against an abusive stepfather brims with the sort of warts-and-all autobiography that feels uncomfortably intimate. And then you get to the chorus, in which the Mountain Goats founder vows that “I am going to make it through this year/if it kills me.” This track from the Goats’ stellar The Sunset Tree has long been a fan favorite before becoming an unexpected viral hit in 2020, when the notion vowing to make it through a shit time became unexpectedly resonant. —David Fear

• Old 97’s, ‘Rollerskate Skinny’ (2001)

  

  Dallas’ Old 97’s were initially lumped in with the alt-country scene, but by 2001’s Satellite Rides, they had turned into something else: an ace pop-rock band. Inspired by a brief romance with Winona Ryder, “Rollerskate Skinny” finds frontman Rhett Miller piling up lines both boyishly endearing (“You’re pretty as a penny”) and caustic (“Wouldn’t be here if the Athenia hadn’t sunk”). It’s joyfully buoyant, but with an ache at its center, summed up by its final line, which Miller stretches out till it sounds almost like an affirmation: “I believe in love, but it don’t believe in me.” —Jon Dolan

• Momma, ‘Speeding 72’ (2022)

  

  The Brooklyn-by-way-of-Los-Angeles band Momma was born out of the tight-knit friendship between childhood pals Etta Friedman and Allegra Weingarten, who met in grade school. Their longtime connection is all over the group’s wistful melodies, often hidden in under blankets of distortion, as no song might be as reflective of what they’re good at than “Speeding 72,” off their 2022 album, Household Name. It’s a dreamy, riff-heavy joy ride that brings in more and more overlapping guitars, swelling into a bit of chaos that sounds like the whole band moving around each other without ever stepping on each other’s toes. —Julyssa Lopez

• Juanes, ‘Es Por Ti’ (2002)

  

  Back in the late 1990s, Medellín, Colombia native Juanes left Ekhymosis, his heavy metal band, and decamped in Los Angeles in search of pop-rock stardom. He found it almost immediately thanks to a superlative ear for comforting hooks, and the guidance of producer Gustavo Santaolalla, By the time his second album, Un Día Normal, dropped in 2002, Juanes was a Latin Grammy winner and concert favorite. “Es Por Ti” sums up the Zen beauty of his spiraling, guitar-based melodies, the supple comfort of his guy-next-door vocals, and a sunny cosmovision of disarming sincerity. —Ernesto Lechner

• Wolf Parade, ‘I’ll Believe in Anything’ (2005)

  

  Spencer Krug’s baroque and surprisingly hopeful rock anthem has had a few lives now, the most recent being the endlessly charming needle drop from HBO’s Heated Rivalry. Krug actually wrote the first version of the song, a low-fi take on an upright piano, for his side project Sunset Rubdown back in 2005, calling it a “kooky” experiment. “For me, it was a scrappy little love song about two people willing to take a chance on their young relationship,” Krug said. He eventually rerecorded it into the billowing version that’s become the enduring Wolf Parade classic that saw a 2,650 percent steaming jump and peaked at Number Seven on the Billboard U.S. rock chart 20 years later. —J.L.

• Alex G, ‘After Ur Gone’ (2014)

  

  Alex Giannascoli was a college kid making music in between term papers when he wrote, recorded, and produced this two-and-a-half-minute stunner. Released as the first track on his breakthrough album, DSU, it has all the qualities that would make him a star — the haunting falsetto, the piercing guitar lead, the cryptic words alluding to an unnamed loss. “I guess some kids do model cars or skateboarding,” Giannascoli told Rolling Stone at the time, describing how he developed his DIY methods. “I’d go to the basement after everyone was asleep and record all fuckin’ night.” Many years later, he’s still doing more or less the same thing, for an audience so huge you can hardly call it a cult anymore. It all starts here. —S.V.L.
  

• Baroness, ‘Isak’ (2007)

  

  A surface read of the lyrics to “Isak” makes this song seem to be about living an unfulfilling existence on a farm. But singer-guitarist John Baizley hollers couplets like, “Isak, tender the swine, carry the hare and barrow home,” in a way that suggests there’s something deeper going on. Ultimately, it’s the overall feel of this Red Album standout that made “Isak” an instant classic. Baizley and Brian Blickle play swinging blues-metal riffs, each guitarist dutifully stacking his part over the other’s, with two great solo breaks — the first echoing Pink Floyd space rock, the second summoning Tony Iommi–like metal miasmas. And drummer Allen Blickle somehow holds them together with unusual, jazzy rhythms.—Kory Grow

• The Raconteurs, ‘Steady, As She Goes’ (2006)

  

  “Steady, As She Goes” was the first song Jack White and Brendan Benson wrote together before forming the Raconteurs in 2005 with Patrick Keeler of the Afghan Whigs and Jack Lawrence of the Greenhornes. They had an alt-rock hit with “Steady, As She Goes,” a catchy garage-blues tune with a bassline that recalled Joe Jackson’s 1979 hit “Is She Really Going Out With Him?” This song has two very different videos, each directed by notable filmmakers. The first was more traditional, directed by Jim Jarmusch, with the band playing in a barn, and another directed by the Malloys that featured Paul Reubens as a cartoonish villain. —Alison Weinflash

• Slipknot, ‘People = Shit’ (2001)

  

  “I’m in this band because of everything that I hate about everything in the world,” Slipknot drummer Joey Jordison told Rolling Stone in 2000. Actual children of the corn, the nine mutants of Slipknot came out of Iowa in the late Nineties with their scary masks and bone-breaking live shows, and made their eye-popping extremism the most explosive attraction on Ozzfest. They summed up their hate-everything worldview with succinct fury on the nu-metal maelstrom “People = Shit,” an undeniable statement of tribal misanthropy and outcast self-determination. —J.D.

• Tame Impala, ‘Elephant’ (2012)

  

  On “Elephant,” Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker took some of rock’s most familiar pleasures — fuzzed-out Sabbath chug, high-heeled glam stomp, mind-melting psychedelia — and fused them into a sonic funhouse of his own. The lead single from his sophomore album, Lonerism, builds a whole world around Parker’s supersized riff. The song’s wonderfully wiggy midsection — a fantastic voyage of proggy synths, heavily distorted guitar, and burbling electronics — blasts into the cosmos before snapping back into its big dumb riff, showing Parker’s knack for indulging headphone listeners without losing the arena crowd. —Jason Roth

• Velvet Revolver, ‘Slither’ (2004)

  

  Unlike so many other Frankenstein bands, the mashup of Stone Temple Pilots and Guns N’ Roses known as Velvet Revolver wasn’t a cringey lark. The group actually turned out kick-ass, relevant hard rock songs, and “Slither” is chief among them. Driven by the river-bottom bass of Duff McKagan, the song twists and turns like its serpentine title, with Scott Weiland’s keening vocals cutting through the din. It climaxes with an eruptive Slash solo that ranks right up there with the guitarist’s best. Even Axl Rose seems to like the song: It’s become a staple of the reunited GNR’s set list. —Joseph Hudak

• Mudcrutch, ‘Crystal River’ (2008)

  

  After an incredible run of in the 1990s, Tom Petty hit a creative rough patch in the 2000s, with underwhelming albums like The Last DJ and Mojo. But he rediscovered something in 2008 when he made the unlikely decision to reform his pre-Heartbreakers band Mudcrutch and record a new album with them. Unlike Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, this was a democratic unit where all members wrote songs and even sang lead. But their best song, “Crystal River,” was a Petty original that clocked in at nearly 10 minutes. (In concert, it stretched out to 15.) Though considerably longer than just about anything else in Petty’s catalog, it’s a mellow journey that never gets boring or repetitive. —Andy Greene

• Bombino, ‘Amidinine’ (2013)

  

  A member of the nomadic Tuareg people, singer and guitarist Omara “Bombino” Moctar traveled from Niger to the Nashville studio run by Black Keys frontman Dan Auerbach and recorded the searing 2013 album Nomad. It kicks off with the anthemic “Amidinine,” which bridges West African “desert blues” and the pyrotechnics of Jimi Hendrix, whom Bombino discovered as a child living in exile with his family in Algeria. As he told Rolling Stone, “The freedom that Jimi expressed through his guitar sent me to another world, where I was also free.” You can hear that freedom in every note he plays.—J.D.

• Avril Lavigne, ‘My Happy Ending’ (2004)

  

  Following the spunky one-two punch of breakout hits “Complicated” and “Sk8ter Boi,” Avril Lavigne had something to prove on her sophomore effort, 2004’s Under My Skin. Though barely 20 years old, the Canadian pop-punk star had already seen her share of challenging relationships, channeling her disappointment into a singular line — “So much for my happy ending” — at the top of the album’s breakup ballad. She’s a co-writer on the song, with producer Butch Walker, and Lavigne’s lament is achingly felt in the bridge, “It’s nice to know we had it all/Thanks for watching as I fall/And letting me know we were done.” The success of “My Happy Ending” confirmed the opposite, as Lavigne’s star continued to rise.—Shirley Halperin

• Yungblud, ‘Hello Heaven, Hello’ (2025)

  

  While he hadn’t yet turned 30 when his fourth album, Idols, came out in 2025, British agit-rocker Yungblud had already blazed a singular career path by the time of its release, and he used its opening cut to reintroduce himself to the world. The nine-minute, three-part rock opera, he told Rolling Stone, was inspired by him realizing the parallels between stadium rock and concert-hall classical; Yungblud added a dollop of 21st-century angst to the mix, cementing the song as his own. “Hello Heaven, Hello” veers from propulsive rock to swaggering post-glam to cavernous neo-power-balladry; it’s audacious and triumphant, with Yungblud’s tightly wound yawp sounding ready to conquer the world. —Maura Johnston

• Downtown Boys, ‘Monstro’ (2015)

  

  Providence, Rhode Island’s Downtown Boys combined refreshingly confrontational left-wing politics and a refreshingly confrontational punk attack on their excellent second album, Full Communism. The album’s peak cathartic moment was “Monstro,” a roaring critique of sexist, racist stereotypes and celebration of revolutionary power. With a blaring Lora Logic-style sax leading the charge, the song builds and builds until it combusts, as frontwoman Victoria Ruiz repeats the line “She’s brown! She’s smart!” like a battle cry. It’s political punk rock primed for the DSA era. —J.D.

• Moses Sumney, ‘Virile’ (2019)

  

  Moses Sumney is no stranger to challenging our expectations, whether he’s making your jaw drop with his ocean-deep, sky-high vocal range or creating spellbinding visual worlds to complement his otherworldly music. On “Virile,” a standout from his 2020 album, Græ, Sumney raises his glass to masculinity and smashes it on the ground. Sumney does rock music his way, alchemizing cavernous drums with spritely harp, industrial rock with classical music, heaven with hell. “Dear son,” he screeches to the stars, before slinking into his lower register, “We pick our own prisons.” “Virile” is evidence that we’re only confined to the boxes we lock ourselves into. —Jaeden Pinder

• Sleigh Bells, ‘Rill Rill’ (2010)

  

  A band birthed both in the belly of MySpace and peak-hipster Williamsburg, Sleigh Bells became a huge hit with blog-era tastemakers. This breakout track — off 2010’s Treats — sounds like your heart beating its way out of your chest, a tidal wave of guitars, booming drums, and electro sleaze, all showcasing Alexis Krauss’ almost too-sweet vocals. If you ever saw them perform live, you’ll know the feeling of all those amps buzzing in your chest as the crowd pogoed along. The track just sounds like 2010: languid and hopeful, a party before the world burns. —Brenna Ehrlich

• Alejandro Escovedo, ‘Castanets’ (2001)

  

  No one is better at merging the worlds of country-roots and punk than Alejandro Escovedo, and no song of his embodies his New York Dolls meets Austin roadhouse sound than “Castanets.” Escovedo storms and stomps his way through his deceptively nuanced tale of “a woman people don’t understand,” as he later explained. When George W. Bush was reported to have liked the song in 2005, Escovedo retired it from his set lists for several years, even though it was his most well-known tune. Then, more than two decades later, Escovedo deconstructed his cowpunk anthem with an entirely new arrangement and Spanglish lyrics on 2024’s “Castañuelas.”—Jonathan Bernstein

• King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, ‘Rattlesnake’ (2017)

  

  The marvelously prolific Australian psych-punk shredders King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard have released a slew of songs that could potentially be on this list, but the opening track from their 2017 exploration of alternate guitar tunings Flying Microtonal Banana has taken on a life of its own. Chugging guitars and huge gales — as well as a Vibraslap that echoes the titular serpent’s warning sound — give “Rattlesnake” an ominously windswept, while lead Gizzard Stu Mackenzie’s constant repetition “rattlesnake” (he says it 54 times on the album version, according to fans) and the microtonal tuning make it feel like a fever dream that won’t — and shouldn’t — end. —M.J.
  

• Red Clay Strays, ‘Wondering Why’ (2022)

  

  Though ostensibly a country band from Alabama, the Red Clay Strays sure can rock: Songs like “Ramblin’” and “Down South” have all the punch of Lynyrd Skynyrd. In the case of their breakout song, “Wondering Why,” however, they display more of a slow burn. There’s no big riff, no bombastic intro — just Elvis-adjacent frontman Brandon Coleman’s smoldering croon, which blazes near the song’s end as drummer John Hall plays an understated beat with a few choice cymbal hits. For the really ferocious version of “Wondering Why,” check out the band’s Live at the Ryman album.—Joseph Hudak

• Future Islands, ‘Seasons (Waiting on You)’ (2014)

  

  The idiosyncratic Baltimore indie band had a surprise hit with the high-drama synth-pop of “Seasons (Waiting on You),” a song about how time may pass but some people remain frustratingly the same. Singer Samuel T. Herring delivered his heartbroken lyrics with an uncanny emotional force, going from a forlorn croon to an overwrought rasp that was hard to shake once you heard it. His ungainly dance moves were unforgettable too; when the band performed on The Late Show With David Letterman, the host’s floored reaction helped seed the song’s viral success. —J.D.

• Blondshell, ‘Salad’ (2023)

  

  “Gonna get big,” Blondshell’s Sabrina Teitelbaum declares. She accomplishes all that and more on “Salad,” the deliciously dark centerpiece of her 2023 self-titled debut. It’s the indie-rock version of “Goodbye Earl,” as Teitelbaum sets out to get revenge on a guy for abusing her friend — specifically by poisoning his greens. She lays out her plan across thrashing, restless riffs, inspired by Hole’s “Doll Parts” and Nirvana’s “You Know You’re Right,” a move that proved she was carrying the furious torch of the Nineties into a new generation. “Look what you did/You’ll make a killer of a Jewish girl,” she sings. It was one of the first startlingly great Teitelbaum lines — and certainly not the last. —A.M.

• The Monkees, ‘Me and Magdalena’ (2016)

  

  The idea of a brilliant new Monkees album in 2016 seemed about as likely as the Archies making a major musical comeback. But for their 50th anniversary, Monkees superfan Adam Schlesinger recruited an incredible slate of songwriters, including Noel Gallagher, Paul Weller, and Rivers Cuomo, for the comeback LP Good Times! Dead Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard contributed the gorgeous ballad “Me and Magdalena,” which Schlesinger arranged as a duet between Micky Dolenz and Michael Nesmith. Their voices blended as seamlessly as they did back in the 1960s, finally giving them a new classic they could play in concert alongside “I’m a Believer” and “Pleasant Valley Sunday.” —A.G.

• Mdou Moctar, ‘Afrique Victime’ (2021)

  

  Equally inspired by Eddie Van Halen as he is by the Tuareg guitarists of his native Niger, Mdou Moctar is one of the 21st century’s greatest guitarists — and his hypnotizing solo on the desert blues track “Afrique Victime” is a perfect example why. Across the song’s seven-minute run time, the tempo rises and rises as Moctar laments French colonialism’s eternal scar on Niger. He plays the song’s guitar solo as if he’s vehemently typing away on a computer, sliding back and forth and drumming along the strings, warping the instrument’s tones to mimic a wailing siren. “Afrique Victime”’ is frenetic yet liberating — it’s no wonder he’s often called the Hendrix of the Sahara. —J.P.

• Sum 41, ‘Fat Lip’ (2001)

  

  “Fat Lip” is so immaculate, you’d never know Sum 41 frontman Deryck Whibley cobbled it together from disparate parts: a monster riff, a howl-along chorus, a tender bridge, and, most daringly, a rap-rock verse with the pass-it-off stylings of the Beastie Boys and Run-D.M.C. By Whibley’s admission, the demo stunk, but producer Jerry Finn saw the vision. “Fat Lip” remains one of the great achievements of the early-aughts pop-punk boom: an undeniable hit that’s sneakily inventive in construction and execution; a brilliant loser anthem that’s defiant, deprecating and degenerate, funny and furious. Still, to this day, it’s guaranteed to get the pit going. —J. Blistein

• The Rolling Stones, ‘Whole Wide World’ (2023)

  

  At the start of the 2020s, Rolling Stones fans had resigned themselves to the idea that they were simply a touring band at that point. Fortunately, producer Andrew Watt didn’t share this viewpoint and managed to coax them into the studio for 2023’s revitalized Hackney Diamonds. The LP’s climax is “Whole Wide World,” where Mick Jagger sings about a broke-down Londoner convinced his best days are long behind him: “When the whole wide world’s against you/And that’s got you on the run/And you think the party’s over/But it’s only just, only just begun,” he sings. The song was also a tribute to the Stones themselves, who managed to extend the party longer than any rock band in history. —A.G.

• Electric Six, ‘Danger! High Voltage’ (2002)

  

  All together now: “Fire in the disco! Fire in the Taco Bell!” (Yes, it rhymes with “gates of hell.”) “Danger! High Voltage” was an insanely catchy floor-filler in the indie-sleaze days of the early 2000s — if you were a drunk girl and this song came on in the scuzzy rock bar at 2 a.m., you were legally required to dance on a table and kick the DJ’s drinks over. Detroit conceptual mastermind Dick Valentine groans about the agonies and ecstasies of physical love for a global left-field hit. But he gets a big assist from his duet partner: Jack White, uncredited but unmistakable, wailing “danger, danger!” in his high-pitched sex yelp. —R.S.
  

• Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, ‘Cumberland Gap’ (2017)

  

  Before his name became synonymous with the best in detail-rich Americana songwriting thanks to albums like his 2013 opus, Southeastern, Jason Isbell was one of the three singer-guitarists in this century’s top literate bar band, Drive-By Truckers. On this rocker from his 2017 LP, The Nashville Sound, Isbell showed how hard he could still bring it, singing about working-class angst and desperation in the heart of coal country over the roaring backing of his band the 400 Unit. “Maybe the Cumberland Gap just swallows you whole,” he wonders. That sense of fatalism is deep in his bones, but so is the dream of punching your way out. —J.D.

• At the Drive-In, ‘Arcarsenal’ (2000)

  

  At the Drive-In’s third album, Relationship of Command, truly felt like a band firing on all cylinders. Their sound was sharper, crisper, and more adrenaline-surged than ever — some of that a result of producer Ross Robinson finding ways to capture the musicians at their most heightened state. And the first song, “Arcarsenal,” offers the best introduction to the power coursing through the album, functioning as a forceful call to action to break from societal conformity. It’s also a solid example of Omar Rodríguez-López and Cedric Bixler-Zavala’s almost telepathic connection, with Bixler-Zavala howling out the lyrics (“I must have read a thousand faces”) to Rodríguez-López’s blistering riffs. —J.L.

• Louis XIV, ‘Finding Out True Love Is Blind’ (2005)

  

  Deliciously sexy and sleazy, this track epitomized why Louis XIV were once banned in Alabama. What other band can make “carrot juice” sound dirty? The standout on 2005’s The Best Little Secrets Are Kept, this song encapsulates a truly horny era replete with flat-ironed bangs, that first foray into skinny jeans, and a solid lacquering of eyeliner. The song may have an STD or two, but singer Jason Hill is an equal opportunity letch: smart girls, short girls, tough girls, girls of all races and creeds, he’s down to wind you up and make you crawl to him — even 20 years later. —B.E.

• Deerhunter, ‘Desire Lines’ (2010)

  

  On their space-rock epiphany “Desire Lines,” the Atlanta band Deerhunter found a happy place somewhere between moody Velvet Underground drone poetry and languid, stretched out, eat-a-peach transcendence. The peak moment on their great LP Halcyon Digest, the song begins as a hesitant reflection on twentysomething coming-of-age ambivalences, then lifts off into a mind-meld monster jam between guitarists Lockett Pundt and Bradford Cox, who make like shoegaze ninjas for three dazzling minutes. It’s a modern psychedelic bounty that brilliantly undercut trippy escapism with real-life ambivalence. —J.D.

• Sturgill Simpson, ‘Call to Arms’ (2016)

  

  After the release of his breakthrough album, Metamodern Sounds in Country Music, it was clear that Sturgill Simpson was in a category all his own, far beyond just the bounds of traditional country. He cemented that on 2016’s A Sailor’s Guide to Earth, which ends with the furious “Call to Arms,” where Simpson, alongside a wailing horn section, bemoans our modern discontents. “They serve up distractions and we eat ‘em with fries, until the bombs fall out of our fucking skies,” he sings. When Simpson appeared on Saturday Night Live, he finished the song with the ultimate rock star move: smashing his guitar.—Marissa R. Moss

• Ought, ‘Beautiful Blue Sky’ (2015)

  

  The Montreal post-punk rebels Ought racked up a string of cerebral records in the 2010s, eventually evolving into the new band Cola, which put out one of 2026’s finest rock statements with Cost of Living Adjustment. “Beautiful Blue Sky” is a life-affirming staccato guitar groove, building under Tim Darcey’s acerbically witty voice, as he narrates another boring normal day of sleepwalking through life. But by the end, he’s reaching deep inside himself for awkward confessions like, “I am no longer afraid to dance tonight, because that’s all that I have left.” It all adds up to a reluctantly anthemic song that can hit you when you’re feeling down and remind you that your future is still wide open. —R.S.
  

• Metallica, ‘Spit Out the Bone’ (2016)

  

  About a decade before AI panic, Metallica saw the future (or maybe just a few Terminator movies) and wrote “Spit Out the Bone,” their hardest-thrashing metal epic this side of …And Justice for All. James Hetfield sings the lyrics from the perspective of a homicidal AI hell-bent on wiping the planet of all humanity: “Long live machine, the future supreme,” he sings. “Man overthrown, spit out the bone.” “We could be a much more efficient race if we just allow computers to help us,” Hetfield once explained. “And yeah, they are helping us, but how far does that go? All of that craziness.” But no machine could invent a guitar solo as good as the one that Kirk Hammett plays at the end of the song. —K.G.

• Water From Your Eyes, ‘Barley’ (2023)

  

  It shouldn’t work, but it does. Brooklyn duo Water From Your Eyes’ “Barley” was partially born out of a joke to try and use as many lyrics from Sting’s 1993 song “Fields of Gold” without outright stealing from him. In the end, they created a dissonant yet undeniably cool banger. Instead of an ode to the beauty of nature imbued by Sting’s wistful voice, WFYE’s lyrics go for a patchworked, vibes-forward quality, delivered in an icy droll by vocalist Rachel Brown sounding a whole lot like Kim Gordon. “Barley” accumulates a series of skronks, screeches, growls, and chika chikas, and Nate Amos layers each new element over the last as if making an opera cake composed of scrap metal. —J.P.

• The Shins, ‘Caring Is Creepy’ (2001)

  

  Like a dispatch from a hazy, fractured dream, the opening track from the Shins’ breakout Oh, Inverted World has all the elements of left-field rock genius. Don’t let the whimsy fool you, though: It’s also a fiery breakup track replete with bitterly poetic barbs, likening a relationship to a battered castle, an icy tundra, and the feeling of being dead inside. It would take three years for Natalie Portman and Garden State to propel the band to the mainstream, but the Shins’ essence quickly leached its way into many a band’s sound. As Portman says, “You gotta hear this one song. It’ll change your life, I swear.” —B.E.

• Gossip, ‘Standing in the Way of Control’ (2006)

  

  The combo of living in the wrong place (the USA) at the wrong time (the George W. Bush years) inspired Beth Ditto to write Gossip’s biggest hit, “Standing in the Way of Control,” a soulful and frustrated disco-punk indictment of a proposed bill that could’ve outlawed same-sex marriage in the mid 2000s. “At the time, my very best friend — who was queer like me — was having a brutally hard time,” Ditto told The Guardian. “I wrote the song for him to know how much I loved him — and to tell the administration to fuck off.” Ditto’s voice was a beacon for millions: “Standing in the way of control/You live your life, Survive the only way that you know.” —K.G.

• Hop Along, ‘The Knock’ (2015)

  

  Hop Along’s 2015 breakthrough, Painted Shut, opens with three and a half minutes of the reckless energy that made this Philly band heroes to indie fans starved for a band that really means it. “‘The Knock’ is about a couple with conflicting feelings regarding a Jehovah’s Witness showing up at their door,” singer Frances Quinlan told Rolling Stone at the time. “For some people, spirituality is a very difficult reminder of an abuse of power, and for others it’s comforting.” Quinlan sketches that scene of domestic turmoil with writerly precision, then proceeds to sing the hell out of it, downright howling over the band’s bright, clean rock & roll. —S.V.L.

• Prince, ‘Guitar’ (2007)

  

  Prince can’t think of a better pairing than him and his instrument on “Guitar,” the lead single from his 2007 album, Planet Earth. His guitar, for instance, won’t get high and call him in the middle of the night, or pretend to love him and value his friendship while faking it the whole time. There’s more than enough love to go around, but most of it is going to his guitar. The solo that plays out the track is a high-voltage jolt meant to reflect his unwavering devotion to those four strings. “Guitar” later became a staple in Prince’s live shows, landing on the set list for more than 100 of his performances across eight years. He really loves his guitar. —Larisha Paul

• Sky Ferreira, ‘You’re Not the One’ (2013)

  

  Sky Ferreira faces up to all the temptations and frustrations that define a will-we-won’t-we romance on “You’re Not the One,” one of countless gems from the pop singer’s 2013 debut (and, still, to this point, only album). With its gut-rumbling rhythm section and the crystalline screech of the lead-guitar riff, the song harkens back to Eighties goth rock and David Bowie’s Low, yet Ferreira’s booming, yearning vocals lend the song its contemporary-pop edge. Crafted alongside a murderers’ row of songwriting and production talent — Ariel Rechtshaid, Justin Raisen, and Dan Nigro — “You’re Not the One” is the perfect emblem of the 2010s moment when the indie and pop barriers began to fall. —J. Blistein

• Boris with Michio Kurihara, ‘Rainbow’ (2007)

  

  Just when you thought Japanese sludge explorers Boris had settled into something resembling traditional rock on 2006’s excellent Pink, the trio followed it up with a series of boundary-pushing collaborations, including 2007’s Rainbow, with psych-guitar experimentalist Michio Kurihara. With such great potential for inspired chaos, Rainbow’s title track is most shocking in its gentle restraint. Well, at least for its first half, where Boris vocalist Wata seductively coos over Kurihara’s woozy shimmer for a late-night feel that approaches cocktail jazz. But then Kurihara shatters the chill with a piercing, fuzz-drenched squall, creating a wild collision of sounds.—Jason Roth

• Foo Fighters, ‘Best of You’ (2005)

  

  Of all the Foo Fighters songs that test frontman Dave Grohl’s signature upper-register growl, “Best of You” might be the most vocally demanding. Conceived while on the campaign trail for presidential hopeful John Kerry and recorded in 2005, its political message intertwines with a feeling of encumbrance. “’Best of You'” is a song of resistance,” Grohl said shortly after its release. “It’s about the refusal to be taken advantage of by something that’s bigger than you, or someone you’re in love with. It’s the fight in the face of adversity.” The song often shows up as an encore or finale to a Foo Fighters set, and even made it to the Super Bowl in 2007, when Prince performed it as part of his halftime show medley. The Purple One’s twist elevated the instant anthem, with screams to match the original.—S.H.

• Jet, ‘Are You Gonna Be My Girl’ (2003)

  

  Jet were a band of swaggering, pub-crawling bros from Melbourne, Australia — one of the better tracks on their 2003 debut, Get Born, was an AC/DC-steeped strutter called “Cold Hard Bitch.” They hit throwback gold with their lone hit “Are You Gonna Be My Girl.” Opening with one of the better tambourine shakes of the century and transitioning into a killer Motown bass line, they paid homage to the Iggy Pop of “Lust for Life” as singer Nic Cester rhymed “honey” with “money” like he was the first to ever do it and yowled about chasing a girl with big black boots, long brown hair, and a get-back stare. They nailed their ripped-off rock moves with infectious zeal. —J.D.

• Kurt Vile, ‘Pretty Pimpin’ (2015)

  

  With his shaggy, shreddy everydude aura, Kurt Vile has a solid claim to being the Neil Young of the Philly indie scene. Call this his “Heart of Gold,” then — the catchy single that outperformed everything else in his catalog, an albatross around his guitar neck that’s also just a damn great song. Fingerpicked notes spiral almost as fast as Vile’s thoughts as he sings about staring in the mirror and seeing a well-dressed stranger: “Oh, silly me, that’s just me!” He plays that moment of existential panic so casually that it yielded an actual radio hit and a favorite at nearly all his live shows. —S.V.L.