Click to listen to Kanye West and Jay-Z's "H.A.M."

The first release from Kanye and Jay-Z's Watch the Throne starts out big — twitchy synths giving way to spooky opera ululating — and then gets humungous, with a choir booming over what sounds like a dozen symphony orchestras. You expect God, or Gandalf, to come striding out of the mist. Instead, we get two stars out to prove they're "hard as a motherfucker": 'Ye tells life itself to suck his dick, while Jay shifts his cadence into light speed to call out his "half a billi" net worth. It's the chest-thumping cry of kings determined to prove that their thrones aren't easy chairs.    

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“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.