Over seven minutes of tensely coiled Southern rock, Patterson Hood plays an ex-cop whose "temper and the shakes" cost him his badge, his family and his mind. Maybe he'll shoot up a Cracker Barrel. Either way, his too-human desolation is why Hood thinks he deserves a song this powerful.

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“Baby Got Back”

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.”