Time Magazine has released a list of the 100 Best Songs of All Time, and a few record-breaking artists are missing… while a couple of the songs will make you do a double-take and question Time’s sanity.
Each artist can only have one song named (clearly so that The Beatles and Michael Jackson don’t make up half of the list) and “all time” only goes back to the ’20s, when the magazine was founded. Check out Time’s chronological list below and be on the lookout for some shocking entries!
2010s
Janelle Monae – ‘Tightrope’
2000s
Missy Elliott – ‘Get Ur Freak On’
Outkast – ‘Hey Ya!’
Jay-Z – ’99 Problems’
Arcade Fire – ‘Wake Up’
Kanye West – ‘Gold Digger’
Lil Wayne – ‘Georgia… Bush’
LCD Soundsystem – ‘All My Friends’
Beyonce – ‘Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)’
Lady Gaga – ‘Bad Romance’
1990s
Sinead O’Connor – ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’
Pet Shop Boys – ‘Being Boring’
Nirvana – ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’
Richard Thompson – ‘1952 Vincent Black Lightning’
Wu-Tang Clan – ‘C.R.E.A.M.’
A Tribe Called Quest – ‘Scenario’
The Notorious B.I.G. – ‘Juicy’
Tupac Shakur – ‘California Love (Remix)’
Pulp – ‘Common People’
Radiohead – ‘Paranoid Android’
1980s
Joy Division – ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’
George Jones – ‘He Stopped Loving Her Today’
Michael Jackson – ‘Billie Jean’
New Order – ‘Blue Monday’
Prince – ‘Kiss’
Metallica – ‘Master of Puppets’
R.E.M. – ‘It’s the End of the World as We Know It’
Lucinda Williams – ‘Pineola’
Public Enemy – ‘Fight the Power’
Madonna – ‘Borderline’
1970s
The Melodians – ‘Rivers of Babylon’
James Brown – ‘Get Up (I Feel like Being a) Sex Machine’
Led Zeppelin – ‘Immigrant Song’
Black Sabbath – ‘Iron Man’
Joni Mitchell – ‘A Case of You’
The Who – ‘Baba O’Riley’
Stevie Wonder – ‘Superstition’
Dolly Parton – ‘Jolene’
Big Star – ‘September Gurls’
Bonnie Raitt – ‘Angel from Montgomery’
Fela Kuti – ‘Zombie’
Bruce Springsteen – ‘Thunder Road’
Queen – ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’
Donna Summer – ‘I Feel Love’
Bee Gees – ‘Stayin’ Alive’
David Bowie – ‘Heroes’
Ramones – ‘I Wanna Be Sedated’
Fleetwood Mac – ‘Dreams’
Peter Tosh – ‘Equal Rights’
Parliament – ‘One Nation Under a Groove’
Velvet Underground – ‘Rock & Roll’
Loretta Lynn – ‘Coal Miner’s Daughter’
1960s
Bob Dylan – ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’
Patsy Cline – ‘Crazy’
Roy Orbison – ‘Crying’
The Ronettes – ‘Be My Baby’
The Beatles – ‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand’
Astrud Gilberto – ‘The Girl from Ipanema’
The Supremes – ‘Where Did Our Love Go?’
The Beach Boys – ‘God Only Knows’
Aretha Franklin – ‘I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You)’
Marvin Gaye – ‘I Heard It Through the Grapevine’
The Band – ‘The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down’
Big Mama Thornton – ‘Ball ‘n’ Chain’
Jackson 5 – ‘I Want You Back’
The Rolling Stones – ‘Gimme Shelter’
Crosby, Stills and Nash – ‘Suite: Judy Blue Eyes’
Otis Redding – ‘I’ve Been Loving You Too Long (To Stop Now)’
Johnny Cash – ‘Folsom Prison Blues’
1950s
Les Paul – ‘How High the Moon’
Kitty Wells – ‘It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels’
Elvis Presley – ‘Jailhouse Rock’
Odetta – ‘Take This Hammer’
Little Richard – ‘Tutti Frutti’
Frank Sinatra – ‘I’ve Got You Under My Skin’
Buddy Holly – ‘That’ll Be the Day’
Chuck Berry – ‘Johnny B. Goode’
Ray Charles – ‘What’d I Say’
1940s
Woody Guthrie – ‘This Land Is Your Land’
Lena Horne – ‘Stormy Weather’
The Andrews Sisters – ‘Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy’
Spike Jones – ‘Der Fuehrer’s Face’
Bing Crosby – ‘White Christmas’
Betty Hutton – ‘It Had to Be You’
Mahalia Jackson – ‘Move On Up a Little Higher’
Hank Williams – ‘Cold, Cold Heart’
Ella Fitzgerald – ‘Baby It’s Cold Outside’
Doris Day – ‘Sentimental Journey’
1930s
Ethel Merman – ‘I Got Rhythm’
Cab Calloway – ‘Minnie the Moocher’
Duke Ellington – ‘It Don’t Mean A Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)’
Louie Armstrong – ‘Star Dust’
Fred Astaire – ‘Cheek to Cheek’
Ray Heatherton – ‘Where or When’
Judy Garland – ‘Over the Rainbow’
Billie Holiday – ‘Strange Fruit’
1920s
Al Jolson – ‘My Mammy’
Bessie Smith – ‘St. Louis Blues’
Paul Robeson – ‘Ol’ Man River’
The Carter Family – ‘Wildwood Flower’
Katy Perry tied Michael Jackson’s long-standing chart record earlier this summer when ‘Last Friday Night’ became her fifth single off of Teenage Dream to hit the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100. It’s surprising to see her left off the 2010s section, with only a single entry for this decade so far: Janelle Monae.
Another curious entry is The Beatles. Time’s rule was that each artist could only have one top song… but is ‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand’ really the band’s best track? The same question applies to Madonna. Are we really expected to consider that ‘Borderline’ is the peak of her repertoire?
The ’90s and beyond may not have been the best decades for music, but we think recent generations deserve a little more credit—and a few more mentions—on this very 1950s to 1970s-heavy list. In fact, no currently-touring rock bands even received a nod. We expected to see at least U2, Coldplay, the Foo Fighters or Green Day make the list.
Which songs do you think deserved to be on the list and which songs do you think should have gotten cut?