The Top 10 Songs of All Time According to AI
This article is published by AllBusiness.com, a partner of TIME.
Music has always been a universal language, capturing emotions, memories, and stories in ways that few other mediums can. Each of us has a personal list of favorite songs that have left lasting impacts, whether through lyrical beauty, instrumental brilliance, or nostalgic appeal. Over the years, countless attempts have been made to define the "greatest songs of all time." For example, Rolling Stone magazine's frequently updated list of iconic songs has long been a touchstone for music lovers. Similarly, the BBC and VH1 have each curated lists that combine critical acclaim, historical impact, and popular appeal.
We used research assistance from ChatGPT to comb through thousands of sources to determine the most universally beloved and culturally significant songs of all time. Here are the top 10 songs that AI ranks above the rest.
Note that AI can produce "hallucinations" (inaccuracies or mistakes), and we question whether number seven on this list deserves to be included in the top 10. We would instead have preferred to see a song from the Rolling Stones or The Who in the number seven spot.
1. "Bohemian Rhapsody" – Queen
Queen's 'Bohemian Rhapsody' is often lauded as a rock masterpiece, known for its operatic segments, powerful guitar solos, and hauntingly poetic lyrics. Freddie Mercury's unique composition blends rock, opera, and ballad into one cohesive piece, making it both innovative and emotionally resonant.
2. "Imagine" – John Lennon
John Lennon's 'Imagine' envisions a world united in peace, free from divisive boundaries. It became an anthem for hope and activism. Its gentle melody and straightforward lyrics evoke a sense of calm, yet the song's message remains as relevant as ever.
3. "Like a Rolling Stone" – Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan's 'Like a Rolling Stone' revolutionized popular music with its raw sound and lyrical depth. The six-minute track defied industry norms, paving the way for artistic freedom in rock music. Dylan's biting lyrics capture disillusionment with society in a way that remains powerful today.
Led Zeppelin's 'Stairway to Heaven' combines acoustic balladry with hard rock, building intensity through a carefully crafted crescendo. Its mystical lyrics and epic guitar solos make it a favorite among rock enthusiasts and guitarists alike.
6. "What's Going On" – Marvin Gaye
Marvin Gaye's 'What's Going On' is a soulful plea for peace and understanding, reflecting the social and political upheavals of the 1970s. The song's smooth, soulful sound paired with its powerful message resonates with listeners across generations.
7. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" – Nirvana
Nirvana's 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' defined the grunge movement of the early 1990s, resonating with a generation frustrated by conformity. Kurt Cobain's enigmatic lyrics and the song's raw energy made it a staple of alternative rock.
8. "Hey Jude" – The Beatles
'Hey Jude' by The Beatles is a comforting ballad with a sing-along outro that has captivated audiences worldwide. Paul McCartney's lyrics offer empathy and encouragement, creating an enduring song that transcends generations.
9. "Hotel California" – Eagles
The Eagles' 'Hotel California' tells a haunting story of excess and entrapment in the guise of a laid-back rock ballad. Its iconic guitar solo and mysterious lyrics have made it an enduring classic in the rock genre.
10. "Respect" – Aretha Franklin
Aretha Franklin's 'Respect' became an anthem for both civil rights and women's empowerment. Her powerful vocals and the song's demand for recognition resonate across decades, making it a timeless hit.
Conclusion on Top Songs
These ten songs, spanning decades and genres, represent some of the most influential and enduring tracks in music history. Each song's unique combination of artistry, social impact, and popularity has earned its place as one of the greatest of all time. Whether through powerful messages, genre-defining styles, or unforgettable performances, these songs are the soundtracks to lives across the world.
Related Articles:
About the Authors:
Richard D. Harroch is a Senior Advisor to CEOs, management teams, and Boards of Directors. He is an expert on M&A, venture capital, startups, and business contracts. He was the Managing Director and Global Head of M&A at VantagePoint Capital Partners, a venture capital fund in the San Francisco area. His focus is on internet, digital media, AI and technology companies. He was the founder of several Internet companies. His articles have appeared online in Forbes, Fortune, MSN, Yahoo, Fox Business and AllBusiness.com. Richard is the author of several books on startups and entrepreneurship as well as the co-author of Poker for Dummies and a Wall Street Journal-bestselling book on small business. He is the co-author of a 1,500-page book published by Bloomberg on mergers and acquisitions of privately held companies. He was also a corporate and M&A partner at the international law firm of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe. He has been involved in over 200 M&A transactions and 250 startup financings. He can be reached through LinkedIn.
Dominique Harroch is the Chief of Staff at AllBusiness.com. She has acted as a Chief of Staff or Operations Leader for multiple companies where she leveraged her extensive experience in operations management, strategic planning, and team leadership to drive organizational success. With a background that spans over two decades in operations leadership, event planning at her own start-up and marketing at various financial and retail companies. Dominique is known for her ability to optimize processes, manage complex projects and lead high-performing teams. She holds a BA in English and Psychology from U.C. Berkeley and an MBA from the University of San Francisco. She can be reached via LinkedIn.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
Noted Machine Gun Kelly Fan Bob Dylan Narrated MGK's New Album Trailer
In the spiritual sequel to his legendary 2004 Victoria's Secret commercial, Bob Dylan has provided narration for a new trailer announcing Machine Gun Kelly's next album, Lost Americana. 'Lost Americana is a personal excavation of the American dream — a journey to find what's been lost,' Dylan drawls in the short clip. He goes on to describe the album as 'a love letter to those who seek to rediscover' and 'a sonic map of forgotten places, a tribute to the spirit of reinvention, and a quest to reclaim the essence of American freedom.' More from Rolling Stone Joan Baez on America Under Trump: 'It Feels Like Torn Fabric' Troubadour Eric Andersen on New Album and Why 'A Complete Unknown' Was a Tad 'Sugarcoated' It's the Perfect Time For a Pulp Reunion Dylan's narration is accompanied by a montage of home movie footage of MGK and friends, including some shots of the musician riding a motorcycle decked out in a custom Lost Americana biker jacket. There's a snippet of music, too, at the end of the clip, a wild synth arpeggio that jumps out after Dylan says: 'From the gold neon diners to the rumble of the motorcycles, this is music that celebrates the beauty found in the in-between spaces. Where the past is reimagined and the future is forged on your own terms.' Along with sharing the trailer, MGK said Lost Americana would arrive Aug. 8. The album will be his first in three years, following 2022's Mainstream Sellout. MGK has yet to reveal the full track list for Lost Americana, but the album will feature his recent single, 'Cliché.' 'Cliché' is actually one of several songs MGK has dropped this year, along with 'Your Name Forever,' 'Come Pick Me Up,' and a cover of the Goo Goo Dolls' 'Iris' with Julia Wolf. It's unclear if any of these songs will also appear on the album. As for Dylan's involvement in the trailer, it comes after the legendary singer-songwriter posted, seemingly out of nowhere, a video of MGK rapping on his Instagram earlier this year. Even MGK was astounded, revealing he learned of Dylan's post while discussing with friends some of his concerns and reservations about his next album. 'Just the originator of doing everything opposite of what people wanted him to do, randomly posting a video of me back in the day rapping in a vinyl shop,' MGK said. 'I'm just like, 'What the fuck?' Just trust the signs, man. That was so cool. I'm so grateful.' For those looking for some insight into the ever-mysterious movements of Dylan's taste and artistic predilections, who crave some explanation for how he even became aware of Machine Gun Kelly in the first place, Dylan scholar Ray Padgett shared a theory on Bluesky that is as hilarious as it is believable. 'All because the dude has the same name as an old gangster Bob was googling. What a ride,' Padgett wrote. Best of Rolling Stone Sly and the Family Stone: 20 Essential Songs The 50 Greatest Eminem Songs All 274 of Taylor Swift's Songs, Ranked
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
Troubadour Eric Andersen on New Album and Why ‘A Complete Unknown' Was a Tad ‘Sugarcoated'
It's taken a few months, since he lives in the Netherlands, but Eric Andersen finally found time to watch A Complete Unknown. And the troubadour legend, who haunted those same Village clubs during that same time, was…a bit underwhelmed. 'It seemed a little sugarcoated,' he says. 'It was a little two-dimensional. But I found it quite amusing and quite entertaining. I was looking at it more like a cinematic situation than something I knew. I was watching a movie. So, I enjoyed it from that standpoint.' More from Rolling Stone It's the Perfect Time For a Pulp Reunion Watch Bob Dylan Perform a Stunning 'All Along the Watchtower' With Billy Strings Watch Bob Dylan's Shocking Cover of Ricky Nelson's 'Garden Party' Then again, Andersen has a right to critique. At this point, many of the songwriters and musicians from that hallowed Greenwich Village scene have either died (mostly recently Peter Yarrow) or retired from touring (like Tom Paxton last year). Only a handful of those who helped make the Village a musical hotbed are still out performing and even making new albums — Bob Dylan, of course, along with Judy Collins, Carolyn Hester, Noel Paul Stookey, and very few others. Andersen, who turned 82 this year, is also still on that list. Although he's never had a Top 40 hit, the American-born songwriter has written a handful of songs that are part of that new American folk songbook — 'Violets of Dawn,' 'Thirsty Boots' — and albums like 1972's Blue River are considered high-water marks of the genre. His impact was especially felt on the recent tribute album Songpoet: Songs of Eric Andersen, which includes renditions of his songs by Dylan, Linda Ronstadt, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Amy Helm, Lenny Kaye, Dom Flemons, Willie Nile, the duo of Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams, and the late Rick Danko (who formed a band with Andersen shortly before his death). In the last few decades, Andersen, who moved to Norway for a period and then relocated to Amsterdam 20 years ago, has occasionally returned to the U.S. for shows. In those years, he's made albums based on the words of Lord Byron, Albert Camus and German writer Heinrich Böll; released a collection of his own spoken-word pieces; saluted his peers with recordings of Village covers (The Street Was Always There); and cut a full-album, live-recreation of Blue River. But last month, he finally rolled out his first new set of songs, Dance of Love and Death, in over 20 years. With its ruminative ballads and rhythms, the album is very much of a piece with the territory Andersen began carving out for himself when he arrived in New York in the Sixties. Like Dylan, he was championed by New York Times music critic Robert Shelton, which also helped Andersen land a record deal. With songs like 'Close the Door Lightly When You Go' and 'Come to My Bedside,' Andersen injected an air of mystery and sensuality into the scene. He befriended the likes of Paxton, Collins, and the late Phil Ochs and witnessed an increasingly isolated Dylan spar with his peers at the Kettle of Fish bar. He was so ingrained in that world that, he says, he missed Dylan's historic Newport 1965 show because he was booked into the Gaslight Café, one of the essential Village venues. Talking about the way that community has been recreated in films, Andersen feels that another recent movie rings a bit more true than A Complete Unknown. '[Inside] Llewyn Davis was much more of the scene that I remember,' he says. 'Even to the point where I went up to Vanguard Records to get some money, and the guy actually handed me a $20 bill. I was living on the Lower East Side cooking for junkies and I needed the money to go to the vegetable market to buy stuff for them. I was walking back home, and I just stopped at the Vanguard offices. There's a scene identical to that in Llewyn Davis. It couldn't have come from me, but the vibe, the scene, and the lighting was more realistic than the other film.' Along with many of his peers at the time, Andersen isn't a character in A Complete Unknown, although he took heart in Ochs' 'There But for Fortune' heard in one of Monica Barbaro's Joan Baez performance scenes. 'That was really beautiful,' he says. 'That came out being the best song in the film, which is hard to believe, because there are so many great songs. What was a little bit tragic was that Bob was such a word guy. He can talk. Not chatty, but he said things, you know. Usually talking about writing and stuff like that. None of that seemed to come through. But you can't do much in a movie. You got to gloss things over.' Whether it's the result of those movies or a degree of rediscovery, Andersen has felt more openness to his style and that era than he has in a while. 'I remember playing a couple of shows in Boston, when parents took their kids,' he says. 'And they were the ones who came up to talk to me. Maybe it blew their minds that somebody could stand up there and sing songs about things they think about. Maybe there's some kind of deprivation going on in terms of their musical world. I don't know. But even though their parents dragged them to this show, they were the ones who got it, which was funny.' Starting during that period and continuing over the decades, Andersen very much lived the life of the wandering, nomadic poet-writer. He was featured in an early Andy Warhol film, appeared on Johnny Cash's TV variety show, wrote songs about his close relationships with Janis Joplin ('Pearl's Goodtime Blues') and Patti Smith ('Wild Crow Blues'), and asked Joni Mitchell to be the godmother to his daughter. He's also had his share of disappointments: signing with Beatles manager Brian Epstein right before Epstein's death and having the tapes for his all-important follow-up to Blue River lost. (They were finally discovered and released, but 20 years later.) Over its 17 songs, Dance of Love and Death reflects on some of those past times, most movingly in 'Every Once in a While,' about his wife Debbie Green, who died in 2017. 'Were you jealous of my future? Was I jealous of your past?' he sings. 'Yeah, that was about her,' Andersen says. 'I think everybody has a situation where you think about somebody every once in a while and that person comes back, and I just sat down and that song poured out.' The album also has moments of harrowing storytelling ('River Spree [Berlin],' about a junkie), relative lightheartedness ('After This Life'), and his signature deep-voiced intimate romanticism (the title song). Although Andersen isn't known as a topical songwriter, he also ventured into that topic with the climate change-inspired 'Season in Crime (Crime Scene),' spurred on by a California tour with violinist and Dylan alumnus Scarlet Rivera. 'She was living in Topanga Canyon and her house was going to burn down,' he says. 'We were talking about sparks and embers in the air. It started to write itself. It doesn't take much to start a song.' Thanks to producer Steve Addabbo and contributing musicians like Kaye and Dylan bassist Tony Garnier, the music is a mix of chamber-folk beauty and galloping rock & roll. In early September, Andersen will return to the States for a month of shows on the East Coast. He's read or heard about international musicians who've supposedly had their visas revoked or have had to deal with profit-depleting tariffs when they arrive. 'So far, it's full steam ahead,' says Andersen, who has American and Dutch passports. 'But things are evolving very rapidly. Everybody's on edge. I want to come over with my guitar and maybe they'll say, 'Well, you know ….,' because I'm a resident overseas. It'll be interesting.' About any unlikely detainment, he jokes, 'If I have one call to make, it'll be to you.' Best of Rolling Stone The 50 Greatest Eminem Songs All 274 of Taylor Swift's Songs, Ranked The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
Machine Gun Kelly Jokes He Got Bob Dylan to Do His Album Trailer Through ‘Pure Desperation'
Machine Gun Kelly has officially confirmed the obvious — that it was Bob Dylan narrating his recent album announcement trailer. But in Dylan-esque fashion, MGK declined to give a straight answer as to how the collaboration came about. When asked point blank about Dylan's cameo on Today, MGK quipped, 'A magician never reveals his secrets.' He then continued with something resembling an answer, but still clearly jokey: 'Pure desperation. Just knocking on his door relentlessly, not going away.' More from Rolling Stone Joan Baez on America Under Trump: 'It Feels Like Torn Fabric' Noted Machine Gun Kelly Fan Bob Dylan Narrated MGK's New Album Trailer Troubadour Eric Andersen on New Album and Why 'A Complete Unknown' Was a Tad 'Sugarcoated' That's not to say Machine Gun Kelly wasn't extremely grateful for Dylan's contribution to the Lost Americana trailer. 'I have been blessed with… I don't know, maybe it's just one pioneer seeing something that I am doing that, in the long term, will be looked back [at] and be understood,' MGK said, before quickly adding: 'Not calling myself a pioneer, but him.' Despite not knowing many specifics, it is possible to paint a pretty broad picture of the MGK-Dylan relationship. Earlier this year, Dylan, seemingly out of nowhere, posted on a video on Instagram of MGK rapping at a record store. One (very believable) theory as to how the singer-songwriter stumbled across the clip in the first place was floated by Dylan scholar Ray Padgett, who suggested on Bluesky, 'All because the dude has the same name as an old gangster Bob was googling.' Then in May, evidence emerged of an in-person meeting when MGK attended the Los Angeles stop of Willie Nelson's Outlaw Festival Tour, which Dylan is a part of. The day after the show, MGK tweeted not-so-cryptically, 'i met and had a conversation with someone last night that i never thought i'd get the honor to meet all because of a video of me rapping in a music store 10 years ago. i love music.' MGK released the Lost Americana trailer earlier this month. The clip features a montage of home movie-style footage, with Dylan delivering koans such as, 'Lost Americana is a personal excavation of the American dream — a journey to find what's been lost' and, 'From the gold neon diners to the rumble of the motorcycles, this is music that celebrates the beauty found in the in-between spaces. Where the past is reimagined and the future is forged on your own terms.' Lost Americana is set to arrive Aug. 8. The album marks MGK's first in three years following 2022's Mainstream Sellout. The musician has yet to reveal the full track list for the album, but it will feature his recent single, 'Cliché.' Best of Rolling Stone Sly and the Family Stone: 20 Essential Songs The 50 Greatest Eminem Songs All 274 of Taylor Swift's Songs, Ranked
