25 New Songs Added to Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time

Jay-Z performing in 2004.

Frank Micelotta/Getty Images

When Rolling Stone's panel of 162 experts revised their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time last year, everyone involved had a better perspective of the past decade of popular music. As a result, the new version of the list includes 25 songs of recent vintage, including instant-classics by contemporary hitmakers.

Of the new additions, Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy" ranks the highest, coming in at an impressive Number 100. Beyoncé and Jay-Z's smash hit "Crazy In Love" is the second highest at 118. That song is one of three tracks added to the list featuring Jay-Z – his collaboration with Rihanna, "Umbrella," places at 412 and his hits "99 Problems" and "Big Pimpin'" come in at 172 and 467, respectively, making him the new artist with the greatest number of songs on the list overall. Because of this achievement, Jay-Z wrote an introduction to the list, in which he talks about what makes a classic track.

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Some artists with new additions to the list had already made the cut the first time around. With the addition of "Moment of Surrender" and "Beautiful Day," U2's number of hits on the list has expanded to eight, while Bruce Springsteen's tally increases to four with the inclusion of "The Rising." In other cases, long-running artists such as Green Day and R. Kelly have made this list with relatively recent hits like "American Idiot" and "Ignition (Remix)." The Notorious B.I.G.'s hip-hop anthem "Juicy" has also entered the list, which is notable as the only new addition from before 2000.

Of course, a majority of the new songs come from artists who broke big in the past decade. These tracks include some of the most iconic hits of the recent past – Missy Elliott's "Get Ur Freak On," Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone," Justin Timberlake's "Cry Me A River," the Strokes' "Last Nite," Coldplay's "Clocks," Amy Winehouse's "Rehab," Daft Punk's "One More Time," 50 Cent's "In Da Club," M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes," the White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army" and more.

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Song Stories

“Baby Got Back”

Sir Mix-a-Lot | 1992

While watching a Budweiser commercial during the Super Bowl, Sir Mix-a-Lot thought the skinny female models in the ad didn’t represent reality. So he wrote this ode to ample bottoms, featuring its famous to-the-point lyric: “I like big butts and I cannot lie.” MTV banished the video, featuring shaking booties and sexually suggestive fruit, to 9 p.m. or later. “I thought my career was over,” he told Rolling Stone. “Then I called Rick Rubin, and I told him the video was banned, and he was like, 'Great!' We sold another 2 million records.”

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