On their quintuple-platinum 2000 album The Better Life, these Mississippi boys were The Last Southern Rock Band: They played slick, heroic neo-grunge for the Clear Channel era, where all regions melted into one long, Nickelback impression. They're still clinging to that anthemic plod a decade later, like an eight year-old who can't bear to throw out a dead hamster. "What I am is what I want/And I'll be this way 'til I'm dead and gone," Brad Arnold sings. And in a bygone time of rock-radio hegemony the grandiose guitar sheen of "Every Time You Go" and the beleaguered crunch of "When You're Young" would be worth another five million copies sold.

Listen to "When You're Young":

Related
• Random Notes, Rock's Hottest Photos

“1999”

“I don’t consider myself a great poet,” Prince told Rolling Stone. “I just know I’m here to say what’s on my mind.” In the case of the apocalyptic party anthem “1999,” he was worried about then-president Ronald Reagan’s foreign policies. The song’s melody is based on a riff borrowed from the Mamas and Papas’ “Monday, Monday,” and Prince originally envisioned the first verse with three-part harmony but later split the vocals between himself and members of the Revolution. Because Warner Bros., with whom Prince was locked in a contractual battle, owned the original’s masters, Prince rerecorded the song and appropriately released that version in 1999.