All-TIME 100 Songs
Our critics pick the most extraordinary English-language popular recordings since the beginning of TIME magazine in 1923. Here are 100 (unranked) songs of enduring beauty, power and inventiveness
'Crazy'
By Richard Corliss Oct. 21, 2011
Artist: Patsy Cline
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She had all the makings of pop immortality: overnight stardom, singing "Walkin' After Midnight" on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts TV show, a string of pop and country hits ("She's Got You," "I Fall to Pieces" and the peerless heart crusher "Sweet Dreams"), a rowdy domestic life and the all-important early, violent death, in a plane crash when she was just 30. But Patsy Cline also had the goods: this woman could sing. Her bold contralto caught the pain and truth of a lyric without ever getting histrionic. "Oh, Lord," she said, "I sing just like I hurt inside." The way she transformed hurt into art made Cline the Callas of country.
She got "Crazy" from the young songwriter Willie Nelson and turned it into a seamless intersection of pop and country. Supported by Floyd Cramer's tinkly piano and the unobtrusive harmonies of the Jordanaires, she poured her aches into the soul of a jilted lover who acts as her own shrink: "I'm crazy for tryin' and crazy for cryin'/ And I'm crazy for loving you." Singing like an angel with a broken heart, Cline would draw out a note until it was exhausted, then punctuate it with a catch in her throat that sounded like the small sob of a strong woman. It was literally that: she had broken ribs in a near fatal car accident and found pain in hitting the high notes. Suffering for her craft was just one thing that made Patsy Cline a pure country heroine.
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Next 'Crying'
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'Gold Digger' (featuring Jamie Foxx)
'Georgia… Bush'
'All My Friends'
'Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)'
'Bad Romance'
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'Hey Ya!'
'Smells Like Teen Spirit'
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'Blue Monday'
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'Master of Puppets'
'It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)'
'Fight the Power'
'Borderline'
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'Stayin' Alive'
'A Case of You'
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'I Wanna Be Sedated'
'Superstition'
'Dreams'
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'One Nation Under a Groove'
'Angel from Montgomery'
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'September Gurls'
'Zombie'
'Rivers of Babylon'
'Thunder Road'
'Coal Miner's Daughter'
'Rock & Roll'
'Subterranean Homesick Blues'
'Crying'
'Be My Baby'
'I Want to Hold Your Hand'
'The Girl from Ipanema'
'I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You)'
'I Heard It Through the Grapevine'
'The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down'
'Ball 'n' Chain'
'I Want You Back'
'Gimme Shelter'
'Suite: Judy Blue Eyes'
'Where Did Our Love Go?'
'God Only Knows'
'I've Been Loving You Too Long (To Stop Now)'
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'Folsom Prison Blues'
'How High the Moon'
'Take This Hammer'
'Tutti Frutti'
'I've Got You Under My Skin'
'Jailhouse Rock'
'That'll Be the Day'
'Johnny B. Goode'
'What'd I Say'
'Cold, Cold Heart'
'Baby, It's Cold Outside'
'Der Fuehrer's Face'
'This Land Is Your Land'
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'White Christmas'
'It Had to Be You'
'Move On Up a Little Higher'
'Sentimental Journey'
'Stormy Weather'
'I Got Rhythm'
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'It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)'
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'Cheek to Cheek'
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'Wildwood Flower'