What does it take to make a historically relevant rock song? The recipe seems to include an instantly recognizable guitar riff, a loud anthem backdrop and a kick ass band to perform it to a crowd of natural born rock lovers.
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1. Led Zeppelin – Whole Lotta Love
Listed as one of the greatest songs of all time, it ranks highly in all the relevant rock accolades, winning a Grammy Hall of Fame award among many others. When this single hit the charts it stayed there for an incredible 15 consecutive weeks, peaking at Nº4. It was the band’s only song to become a top 10 singles hit in the US.
2. Guns N’ Roses – Sweet Child O’ Mine
This was their 3rd single off the ’87 debut studio album Appetite for Destruction. The bands then bassist, explains how the song came about:
“The thing about ‘Sweet Child o’ Mine,’ it was written in five minutes. It was one of those songs, only three chords. You know that guitar lick Slash does at the beginning? It was kinda like a joke because we thought, ‘What is this song? It’s gonna be nothing, it’ll be filler on the record.’ And except that vocal-wise, it’s very sweet and sincere, Slash was just fuckin’ around when he first wrote that lick” – Duff McKagan, 1988
3. The Rolling Stones – (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction
This 1965 mega hit written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards refers to sexual frustration and commercialism. That world famous three-note guitar riff was intended to be replaced by horns, good thing they kept the guitar in! The single held strong for 14 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, taking the Nº1 spot for four of those weeks. In an interview for Rolling Stones Magazine, Jagger states:
“It sounded like a folk song when we first started working on it and Keith didn’t like it much, he didn’t want it to be a single, he didn’t think it would do very well. That’s the only time we have had a disagreement.”
4. Cream – Sunshine of Your Love
As Cream’s only gold-selling single in the United States, this 1967 release was one of their proudest accomplishments. Jimi Hendrix performed an instrumental version as a setlist staple throughout his concerts in the late ’60s and the legacy lives on in the Rolling Stone magazine’s list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, as well as The Rock and Roll Hall of Fames’s 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll.
5. Layla – Derek and the Dominos
Written by Eric Clapton and Jim Gordon, it is considered one of rock music’s definitive love songs. Layla was inspired by the persian story of Layla and Majnun by 12th century poet Nizami Ganjavi. A tale of a moon princess who was married off by her father to someone who was not in love with her, resulting in her madness. This struck a deep chord with Clapton and the result was a chart peaking ”Greatest Ever” list surfer.
6. The Kinks – You Really Got Me
A two-week straight running Nº1 on the UK singles chart, it was the group’s breakthrough hit. Prior to this the group had released two singles which had flopped. As a result they were under tremendous pressure from their record company Pye. 14 years later, hard rock band Van Halen recorded a cover for their 1978 debut album. Safe to say the song helped jump-start the band’s success.
7. Dire Straits – Money For Nothing
The video to this song was considered ground breaking as it was one of the first uses of computer-animated human characters back in 1986. Band member Mark Knopfler never wanted to use music videos of any kind. His opinion was that videos would destroy the purity of the songwriters. All he wanted to do was perform. However, after it won Video of the Year award (among many other nominations) at the MTV Video Music Awards, we are guessing Mark might have had a change of heart. The track dominated the charts across the globe, reaching Nº1 on the US Billboard Hot 100, US Billboard Top Rock Tracks, US Cash Box, and Canada Top Singles.
8. Deep Purple – Smoke On The Water
Off their 1972 album Machine Head, it made it to the Rolling Stone magazine’s famous list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Perhaps the most epic use of the song has been recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records in 1994 – in Canada 1,322 guitarists gathered to play the world-famous riff all at the same time. Then in Kansas City 2007, the record was topped by 1,721 guitarists. Then again in Germany with over 1,800 people! It goes on… In 2009 Poland out numbered all the previous record holders when 6,346 guitar players, joined by current Deep Purple guitarist Steve Morse, performed the song during the Thanks Jimi Festival.
9. Jimi Hendrix Voodoo Child (Slight Return)
After Hendrix’s death in 1970, Voodoo Child, using the title Voodoo Chile was released in the UK, becoming his only Nº1 single in the British Record Charts. In an AllMusic song review the track was described as ‘The perfect example of how Hendrix took the Delta blues form and not only psychedelicized it, but cast an even more powerful spell by delivering the lyric in the voice of a voodoo priest’.
10. AC/DC – Back in Black
The song was written for AC/DCs former singer Bon Scott. Brian Johnson, his replacement, was asked by the band members to write a lyric for this song. The band had said to him ‘It can’t be morbid – it has to be for Bon and it has to be a celebration’. Brian recalls to Mojo magazine:
“I just wrote what came into my head, which at the time seemed like mumbo, jumbo. ‘Nine lives. Cats eyes. Abusing every one of them and running wild.’ The boys got it though. They saw Bon’s life in that lyric.”
The song got to Nº1 on the UK Singles Charts and US Hard Rock Digital Songs (Billboard). We won’t even begin to go into the explosive success of the album which was named after it.
11. Metallica – Enter Sandman [Official Music Video]
The single achieved platinum certification for over 1 million copies which were shipped in the US. Sales of 30 million+ copies, slingshot the band into global popularity. AllMusic critics declared it ‘One of Metallica’s best moments. A burst of stadium level metal that, once away from the buildup intro, never let’s up’.
12. Ozzy Osbourne – Crazy Train
Certified double platinum, by September 2010 the song had sold over 1.75 million downloads. Rated 9th Greatest Guitar Solo ever by over 25 million readers of Guitar World magazine, also 9th on the list of the 40 Greatest Metal Songs by VH1. In 2009 it was named the 23rd Greatest Hard Rock Song of all time, also by VH1 which is the highest placement by a solo artist on the list.
13. Iron Man – Black Sabbath
Their 1970 release off their second studio album Paranoid turned out to be one of their greatest ever hits. It was the second Black Sabbath single in the US, getting very little radio play but that didn’t stop the development of a cult following, which led to enough sales to give it a chart position. Funnily enough, the track was originally named Iron Bloke by vocalist Ozzy Osbourne. Osbourne remarked that “It sounded like a big iron bloke walking about”. Later it was changed to Iron Man, with Geezer Butler writing the lyrics around the title.
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