100 From 1977-2003

While the phrase “1980s heavy metal” may conjure up images of guys “playing make-up and wearing guitar” (to steal a Westerbergism) and album covers of bare-breasted valkyries riding dragons, Metallica (guitarist Kirk Hammett, drummer Lars Ulrich, bassist Cliff Burton, and guitarist/vocalist James Hetfield) did everything in their power to destroy that façade and use heavy metal’s punishing power to convey real-life pain and suffering. 1983’s Kill ‘Em All and the following year’s Ride the Lightning established the band’s blueprint for emotionally harrowing thrash metal, but it wasn’t until 1986 when Elektra released the band’s, and quite possibly the genre’s, masterpiece Master of Puppets. The band’s vision is culminated in eight-and-half minute long title track, an auditory assault that equates the powerlessness of drug addiction (“Pain monopoly, ritual misery / Chop your breakfast on a mirror”) to the notion that we are all puppets operating at the hand of an uncaring god. Ulrich and Burton’s rhythm section pummels everything in its path, and Hetfield’s anguished sneer is that of a man who has dared to stare into the abyss and has survived to preach the awful truth. No other song on this list matches “Master of Puppets” for sheer brute force.
      — Steve Haag

Kurt Cobain was asked, during an interview that took place shortly after Nevermind exploded, if there were any current songs on the radio that he liked. Cobain thought for a minute, then started singing in that aching raspy tenor, “There’s no other way, there’s no other way / All that you can do is watch them play”. Praise from Caesar, to be sure. Sadly, the author of that song, Damon Albarn of Essex upstarts Blur, was not nearly as complimentary. He loathed grunge. In fact, Blur’s 1994 album Parklife was written with the express purpose of ridding the world, or at least England, of that blasted bile from the Pacific Northwest. Ironic, then, that the song that would give Blur the massive U.S. radio hit Albarn so desperately craved would sound just like Nirvana. 1997’s “Song 2”, from their eponymous, those-Americans-aren’t-so-bad-after-all fifth album, was everything that Blur consciously tried not to be up to that point: dirty, loud, hard, loose, and, well, dumb. The mere mention of the slinky guitar riff in the opening prompts an instant response of “Woo hoo!” from anyone within earshot, which is why it supplanted “Rock & Roll Part II” as the official post-touchdown celebratory song in nearly every football stadium, as well as anchoring a slew of movie trailers. The bass line is the sleaziest thing Alex James will ever touch, and that’s saying something. The guitar work by Graham Coxon is pretty simple by his standards (the man is, after all, the Johnny Marr of his generation), with the bass line doing the real lead. But if you listen closely, you can actually hear Coxon smiling. The devout Yankophile finally got his way. The only truly bad thing about “Song 2”: Cobain never got to hear Blur belatedly, and gloriously, pay him back.
      — David Medsker

The first number one for the Jam, “Going Underground” also marked the first time the group became truly distinct from the original punk crop of 1977. Though it wasn’t intentionally issued as an A-side, the song served as well as imaginable to outline the Jam’s unique take on the punk ethos just as the more standard version was running aground. “Going Underground” was at once furious and literate, disgusted and humane. Weller’s repulsion towards mass British society stemmed not from wounded vanity but from its passive acceptance of nuclear war and declining health care. Of course, none of that would matter if Weller hadn’t written one of his most memorable tunes. He and bassist Bruce Foxton hold back during the verses and explode in the choruses, but Rick Buckler’s thundering drums pound from start to finish, keeping the song in fourth gear until it’s time to charge into fifth. Weller’s spits out incisive indictments and “Pow! Pow! Pow!” with equal panache, fusing muscle and brains in a way few other punks thought possible. The Jam soon disintegrated, but “Going Underground” provided an enduring ideal for those trying to channel their anger into more than nihilistic destruction.
      — Brian James

The Go-Go’s 1982 song “We Got the Beat” is an extremely important one in the history of rock ‘n’ roll, if only for one reason: it was the single that propelled their debut Beauty and the Beat to the top of the album charts, marking the first time in rock history that an album written and played by an all female band accomplished such a feat. However, when listened to on its own, the song itself holds up remarkably well. Emerging from the same Los Angeles underground scene that yielded the likes of X and the Germs, the Go-Go’s were a more upbeat bunch, but underneath all the cuteness was a very solid band who owed more to surf music and the girl groups from the sixties, than to punk. On this track, written by rhythm guitarist/keyboardist Charlotte Caffey, bassist Kathy Valentine delivers the distinctive bassline that instantly evokes memories of Fast Times at Ridgemont High in the minds of thirtysomethings everywhere, Gina Schock (arguably one of the greatest female rock drummers, ever) provides a thunderous beat, lead guitarist Jane Wiedlin is a new wave version of Dick Dale with her solo licks, and Belinda Carlisle, the pretty girl with the quavering voice, leads the charge. Every female rocker since, from Kathleen Hanna to Avril, should be thankful for these ladies who paved the way.
      — Adrien Begrand

The leadoff track on one of the epochal albums of the ’90s, “Call the Doctor” may be the quintessential Sleater-Kinney ass-kicker: bruising, urgent, incendiary, and scary as hell. “They want to socialize you / They want to purify you / They want to dignify and analyze and terrorize you”, Corin Tucker blares at this manifesto’s outset, her menacing banshee wail matched only by the deep rumble of the twin-guitar attack. The insistent backbeat (courtesy of pre-Janet Weiss drummer Lora Macfarlane) builds the tension, and the song continues its slow, purposeful trudge into the dark, and you wait nervously for the detonation that’s lurking in there somewhere. And then the bridge hits, and all hell breaks loose. The guitars go blazing into the distance, and Tucker shrieks “CALL THE DOCTOR! CALL THE DOCTOR!” and Carrie Brownstein lets loose with her own blood-chilling howls, and the whole damn thing goes up in awesome flames. Even the abrupt ending is genius, the aural correlative of our collective slump to exhaustion after the pounding we just took. To paraphrase Robert Christgau, this is some furious shit.
      — Elbert Ventura

With its looping bass line and straightforward thrashing guitar, “Longview” set the stage for the punk revival of the 1990s. This first single from Green Day’s major label debut was a departure for the band. In place of their usual poppy songs of love and loss, Green Day was now singing about the boredom of modern life, which in the song results in repeated self abuse. “Longview” became surprisingly popular when it was released, with its reassuring tone of understanding how the “average” teenager feels. The song also paved the way for further airplay on the airwaves by other punk (or punk-influenced) bands throughout the 1990s. Punk always has had an uncertain relationship with popular music, sometimes embracing melody, sometimes harsh and dissonant, and “Longview” demonstrated that, at least for a time, punk could coexist within the sphere of the mainstream. For better of for worse, “Longview” signaled the return of punk to the popular music scene.
      — Brian Ruh

1. “Bow wow wow, yippie-yo, yippie-yay” connects R&B to C&W (Gene Autry as funk overlord?) to confirm that the dog has replaced the horse as America’s Animalistic Symbol of Itself and that all the best cowboys now have multicolored dreads.

2. Tying dog-like behavior to computer nerdiness is absolutely crucial. Parliament-Funkadelic was the most organic funk group in history, but this is patently digital, and undeniably FONKY like an old chew-toy. Therefore “Atomic Dog” is not just the seminal text (ew) of West Coast hip-hop, but also all of techno, because now the beat-creator can also be a dog, chasin’ the cat just like everyone else.

3. George Clinton’s finest vocal performance is also his most complicated. Lore has it that it was all off-the-cuff improvisation, but that’s not true, because he cheated by mining the collective subconscious of Western Civilization. The quest for sex is hereby turned into an existential question (“Why must I be like that?”) and solved (“Nothin’ but the dog in me”). Better than the Bible, anyway.

4. Ever heard any artist condense their entire career and skillset down to five minutes of perfection?
      — Matt Cibula

It was the last song on what would be Nirvana’s final studio album, and Kurt Cobain already sounded like he was giving up on “All Apologies”. “I wish I was like you,” he says. “Easily amused / Find my nest of salt / Everything is my fault”. Sung over a dull plod that almost obscures a pure pop melody, this is not the sound of a man with a lot to live for. There also is the part in the chorus where he compared being married to being buried, an obvious reference to Cobain’s stormy union with Courtney Love. Actually, “All Apologies” was written pre-Nevermind, before the shotgun wedding, the fame, the overdoses, the magazine covers, and endless “tortured voice of a generation” hype Cobain has been saddled with ever since he kicked it. Almost makes you think Kurt planned out the final three years of his life, starting (and ending) with his epitaph, “All Apologies”. In this context you can see the song for what it really is: a big, fat put-on, a grand cosmic joke Kurt probably is still laughing about in the great beyond. I’m sorry I killed myself, but you should have seen your faces!
      — Steve Hyden

Rock ‘n roll is filled with self-aggrandizement but there’s also a persistent, if less celebrated, strain of self-hatred in rock music. Few songs put this inward-turned anger on display better than Radiohead’s “Creep”. The chorus is both plain-spoken and repetitive. “But I’m a creep / I’m a weirdo / What the hell am I doing here? / I don’t belong here”. The woman he loves has left and this departure also repeats. “She’s running out again … She runs runs runs…” Sung completely without irony, “Creep” displays self-loathing and desolation honestly and simply, mixing love and anger. “You’re so fucking special.” These feelings also seem inescapable, just like the lyrics repeat without progress and the great gunshot guitar riff provides no catharsis. At the end of the song, he still feels like a creep.
      — Mark Dionne

It might have been a pipe dream, but in the mid ’90s it seemed like Oasis might be the saviors of rock ‘n’ roll. Unlike most bands heralded by the British music press as the next big thing, the brothers Gallagher even made an impact in the hard-to-crack U.S. of A. Oasis had already scored hits with “Supersonic” and “Shakermaker” in their native UK before the release of “Live Forever”, and in 1995, the song became their first Stateside hit, reaching No. 2 on the charts. With a grandiose sound comprised of snotty vocals, killer riffs, and dewy-eyed lyrics, “Live Forever” was the perfect introduction to Oasis’ neo-classic rock. It was the song that launched the band that gave guitar rock the kick in the pants it so sorely needed at that moment in time.
      — Charlotte Robinson