Since you’re here, you’re very-likely aware that Rolling Stone magazine recently released an updated version of their popular, controversial and infamous “Top 500 Songs of All-Time” list that first irritated the internet waaaaay back in 2004.

Referring to it as the “definitive list of the 500 greatest songs of all time,” that first list caused a lot of buzz and heated discussions in and out of the music industry. Oh, all the arguments that must have been happening on MySpace in 2004.

Now approaching two decades after the first list, the music mag re-released an updated list of “historic favorites, world-changing anthems, and new classics” with the help of over 200 artists, writers, and industry figures.

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The 2021 list has much more flavor

It’s been 17 years since that original list. MySpace is no longer around to post your opinions on whether Nirvana’s ‘Come As You Are’ is better than the 452nd best song ever, you’ll have to do that on Instagram now.

And not only are we now discussing music on different social media platforms, the version 2.0 looks completely different too; with the panel of critics swapping out more than 50% of the songs that appeared on that original 2004 list. A gut renovation of that initial list.

This year’s list is much more diverse with a large chunk of the newer entries coming from the hip-hop, R&B, and Latin pop genres.

Okay enough talking. You came here to see the full list, so here’s Rolling Stone’s 2021 full list of the 500 greatest songs ever, starting from #500 all the way to #1.

You can sort the above list by rank, song, artist or year if you want to slice and dice these greatest songs. We’ve also created a Spotify playlist of Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All-Time where you can play each and every song in the order of Rolling Stone’s ranking.

All in all, the playlist will take you a less than a day and half to listen through – or if you don’t have any meetings this week, you can get through the 35 hours and 11 minutes during the workweek and still take off early on Friday.

Deeper understanding of hip-hop

Though it wasn’t a surprise to see newer songs make the list, it’s interesting to see some newer songs that were released by 2004 jump up to the top 50 like “Juicy” by Notorious B.I.G which was released in 1994, wasn’t included in the 2004 list, but now ranks as the 32nd greatest song of all-time.

The reasoning? Music tastes change over time. Specifically genres that music critics aren’t used to listening to, much less consider for these types of list or awards, had an enormous impact on how the new Rolling Stone list was constructed.

With time comes acceptance of a music genre. With time comes more respect for that type of music. More times means a deeper understanding of what makes for a legendary song in a specific music genre and that’s why we’re seeing a much more varied offering in the this year’s list.

Whether one agrees with whether Beyonce’s “Formation” (#73) is better than Johnny Cash’s “I Walk The Line” (#76) is matter of preference, taste and exposure, but we’re all better for having a larger catalog of types of music to choose from.

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