A great rock track makes your pulse quicken and your spine tingle — over and over again. I’ve learned that happy, hard-driving lesson as a longtime rock writer for magazines such as Spin and Rolling Stone. So when tasked with winnowing down roughly 65 years of soul-stirring rock songs into a list of 50 essentials, I largely went with tunes that put one’s booty in motion (with some notable exceptions). Hence the Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night,” an explosive call to freedom, rather than a sonic masterpiece like “Strawberry Fields Forever.” Or the Who’s funky “I Can’t Explain” over anthems like “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” And songs like “Jump,” Van Halen’s biggest hit and a physical call to arms, and the B-52’s “Rock Lobster,” the best of a long line of rock tunes as dance adverts. This list is chronological, but rock history moves in fits and starts. Some years — like 1955 and 1978 — simply had it going on, as did the entire ’60s. Rock’s mass appeal started to dwindle by the mid-1980s as rap and electronic pop ascended, and that’s reflected here, too. And to expand the number of artists, I’m representing 50 timeless acts with a single track each (sorry Beatles, Who, Jimi, Stones, Bruce...). That made my job a lot more difficult than yours, which is simply to listen, play some air guitar, and jump.
1950s
- “Tutti-Frutti,” Little Richard (1955)
- “Mystery Train,” Elvis Presley (1955)
- “Who Do You Love?,” Bo Diddley (1957)
- “Not Fade Away,” the Crickets (1957)
- “Great Balls of Fire,” Jerry Lee Lewis (1957)
- “Johnny B. Goode,” Chuck Berry (1958)
- “What’d I Say,” Ray Charles (1959)
1960s
- “Louie Louie,” the Kingsmen (1963)
- “Be My Baby,” the Ronettes (1963)
- “A Hard Day’s Night,” the Beatles (1964)
- “You Really Got Me,” the Kinks (1964)
- “I Can’t Explain,” the Who (1964)
- “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” the Rolling Stones (1965)
- “Like a Rolling Stone,” Bob Dylan (1965)
- “Good Vibrations,” the Beach Boys (1966)
- “Over Under Sideways Down,” the Yardbirds (1966)
- “I’m Waiting for the Man,” the Velvet Underground (1967)
- “Sunshine of Your Love,” Cream (1967)
- “All Along the Watchtower,” the Jimi Hendrix Experience (1968)
- “Piece of My Heart,” Big Brother and the Holding Company (1968)
- “Fortunate Son,” Creedence Clearwater Revival (1969)
1970s
- “Maggie May,” Rod Stewart (1971)
- “Stairway to Heaven,” Led Zeppelin (1971)
- “Diamond Dogs,” David Bowie (1974)
- “Thunder Road,” Bruce Springsteen (1975)
- “Gloria,” Patti Smith (1975)
- “Cherry Bomb,” the Runaways (1976)
- “Like a Hurricane,” Neil Young (1977)
- “Barracuda,” Heart (1977)
- “I Wanna Be Sedated,” the Ramones (1978)
- “Surrender,” Cheap Trick (1978)
- “Rock Lobster,” the B-52s (1978)
- “London Calling,” the Clash (1979)
1980s
- “Ace of Spades,” Motörhead (1980)
- “Crosseyed and Painless,” Talking Heads (1980)
- “Back in Black,” AC/DC (1980)
- “1999,” Prince (1982)
- “Beyond Belief,” Elvis Costello (1982)
- “Jump,” Van Halen (1984)
- "Teenage Riot," Sonic Youth (1988)
1990s
- “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” Nirvana (1991)
- “Tender,” Blur (1999)
2000s
- “Last Nite,” the Strokes (2001)
- “Seven Nation Army,” the White Stripes (2003)
- “American Idiot,” Green Day (2004)
- “Time to Pretend,” MGMT (2008)
- “Lonely Boy,” the Black Keys (2011)
- “Hold On,” Alabama Shakes (2012)
- “Love It If We Made It,” The 1975 (2018)
—Richard Gehr
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