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On this rumbling id-fest, Minaj delivers the cameo of the year, switching personae and voices like she's rap's Meryl Streep. Kanye has the good sense to let her go on for 31 thrilling bars.
• Video: Kanye West's Surprise Visit to Rolling Stone
• Rolling Stone's Best of 2010: Albums, Singles, Movies and more
Christie Goodwin/Getty
Over Dr. Luke's arena-electro beat, Ke$ha takes stupid-savvy pop to bombastic heights.
• Video: Ke$ha on Ke$ha: Pop's Party Animal Asks Herself the Tough Questions
Harry Scott/Redferns
A twangy, hilarious vignette about a schoolgirl who becomes powerless against the charms of a mulleted, El Camino-driving skeezeball.
Roger Kisby/Getty
NYC trio transcend joke-rap status by making a song about transcending joke-rap status, set to a finely stoned beat.
Mark Cunningham/Detroit Lions/Getty
Rock throws on a fringed jacket and cuts a Seventies-rock anthem that's perfect for cruising in a vintage Chevy — or just pumping your fist.
Shirlaine Forrest/WireImage
The psych-pop jokers let down their guard and rip off the Band for a hazily pretty singalong about fast fame.
Greetsia Tent/WireImage
An expertly reconstructed track from the Exile on Main Street sessions, with Keith Richards' damaged licks crying across the years.
• Gallery: Photos from the Making of Exile on Main Street
• Rolling Stone's Best of 2010: Albums, Singles, Movies and more
Steve Jennings/WireImage
"I've been in love, and I've seen a lot of war": Young wrestles with his two biggest topics — and meditates on his entire career.
• Gallery: Neil Young, Buffalo Springfield and More Play the 2010 Bridge School Benefit
Kevin Mazur/WireImage
A nearly perfect pop-rap ballad, with the Atlanta MC telling his one and only, "You the whole package, plus you pay your taxes."
• Gallery: B.o.B., Bruno Mars and More at the Grammy Nominations Gallery
Marc Broussely/Redferns
Florida guys combine a Beach Boys-style surf tune with Nineties alt-rock riffs. Why didn't anyone think of this before?
Ollie Millington/Redferns
Pale-voiced Swede José González kicks up the volume for a supremely pretty folk swirl.
• Rolling Stone's Best of 2010: Albums, Singles, Movies and more
Kevin Mazur/WireImage
The first sign of how crazy Twisted Fantasy would be: 'Ye goes all schizoid while sampling King Crimson.
• Rolling Stone's Best of 2010: Albums, Singles, Movies and more
Mark Holloway/Redferns
Brian Fallon triangulates doo-wop, Bruce Springsteen and New Jersey emo. Result: a finger-snapping ode to basement gigs and lost love.
C Brandon/Redferns/Getty
2010's most mesmerizing guitar groove — a dark, dubby burner with lyrics about basement gigs and lost love.
Henry S. Dziekan III/Getty
Two New York badasses team up over the year's rawest beat to celebrate paying way too much in car insurance.
Johnny Nunez/WireImage
One of the year's great driving songs, with Minaj "doing doughnuts in a six-speed."
Jordi Vidal/Redferns
The U.K. trip-hoppers call in guest moaner Hope Sandoval for a narcotic ballad that's both surreal and unnervingly erotic.
• Rolling Stone's Best of 2010: Albums, Singles, Movies and more
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Your favorite cartoon primates cook up a disco jam that's sexy enough to make Donna Summer sigh with pleasure. And that synth-bass line? Unstoppable.
Rick Smee/Redferns
The San Diego trio turn in a sweetly psychedelic punk nugget: part Buzzcocks, part acid-damaged beach rock.
The year's freakiest rap song: Three South Africans mix machine-gun flows with warped hooks, suggesting Eminem's "Lose Yourself" on mescaline.
Michael Burnell/Redferns
The long-lost Seventies rap pioneer rasps his way through an acoustic version of a Smog ballad. He turns indie-rock melancholy into the darkest, deepest country blues.
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Dylan delivers a roots-folk lullaby with a hushed melody James Taylor would kill to have written.
• Video: Jakob Dylan Performs with Neko Case in the Rolling Stone Offices
• Rolling Stone's Best of 2010: Albums, Singles, Movies and more
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A classic Petty road story, outfitted with black-ice organ and sneering guitar.
C Brandon/Redferns/Getty
A country-rock ballad about needing to get away, built around shimmering guitars that go on for miles.
Helen Boast/Redferns
"I still owe money to the money to the money I owe," croons Matt Berninger, singing so seductively you'll want to toss him a few bucks.
The Swedish diva spots her beloved with another girl — then turns her sadness into sparkling pop, perfect for solo freakouts.
Michael Caulfield/Getty Images for VH1
A hazy, synapse-butchering throwdown. Nicki: "If I had a dick, I would pull it out and piss on 'em."
• Gallery: Nicki MInaj's Best Looks
• Rolling Stone's Best of 2010: Albums, Singles, Movies and more
John Shearer/EM/WireImage
Em opens up about sobriety, disses his last album and pledges to be a better dad. His most inspiring song ever.
Erika Goldring/FilmMagic
Johnson rolls slow and steady on this rough diamond of Seventies Southern rock.
Michelly Rall/Getty
Ross flows like the Barry White of white powder on this lush drug-lord fantasia.
Roger Kisby/Getty
A classic girl-group tune set against skull-rattling guitar fuzz that hurts so good.
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A heartbreaker about a lonely summer — imagine Brian Wilson as a sensitive stoner girl.
• Rolling Stone's Best of 2010: Albums, Singles, Movies and more
Denise Truscello/WireImage
The indie-rock collective harmonizes about silver bullets and piles on the classic-rock guitars. Result: bizarro pop that's hard to shake.
Tim Mosenfelder/Getty
Power pop finds its own George Burns and Gracie Allen. Her best borscht-belt joke? "I'll forgive you/If I outlive you."
Robert Marquardt/Getty
The year's best Depeche Mode song is also its best Smiths song. James Murphy shows off a great falsetto while expressing pain with wild humor.
Taylor Hill/WireImage
SoCal kids hallucinate about the high life, turning "ascetics wring their hands" into a killer chorus.
Daniel Boczarski/Redferns/Getty
Drake rhymes about how stardom is both terrifying and awesome. With a huge, clattering beat, it's also irresistible.
• Rolling Stone's Best of 2010: Albums, Singles, Movies and more
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OutKast's brawnier half throws an electro party, coaxing players to the dance floor with a nasty ghetto-tech bass line.
Shirlaine Forrest/WireImage
Jack White and Alison Mosshart howl over the dirtiest riff of the year, generating ungodly amounts of sexual electricity.
Matt Kent/Redferns/Getty
Ronson turns a French kiddie tune into a Technicolor hook on this synth-pop fire starter.
Tim Mosenfelder/Getty
A steady-grooving blues-rock ballad, with Dan Auerbach's falsetto floating over craggy funk like some beautiful ghost.
Kevin Mazur/WireImage
On this rumbling id-fest, Minaj delivers the cameo of the year, switching personae and voices like she's rap's Meryl Streep. Kanye has the good sense to let her go on for 31 thrilling bars.
• Video: Kanye West's Surprise Visit to Rolling Stone
• Rolling Stone's Best of 2010: Albums, Singles, Movies and more
Tim Mosenfelder/Getty
This noirish jam mixes Danger Mouse's steely funk with a creepily addictive chorus from the Shins' James Mercer. Bet you loosen your collar.
Andy Sheppard/Redferns/Getty
Sister-from-another-planet Monáe delivers a ferocious, horn-splashed burner that mashes up Cab Calloway, hip-hop, James Brown and art-pop wackiness.
John Shearer/WireImage
Synth foam, perky digital rhythms, joyful whoops and African-flavored guitars. The sound of a young band discovering how much is possible.
Paul Morigi/WireImage
A modern hymn, written by Wilco's Jeff Tweedy and sung with maternal assurance by the voice that once told you to "Respect Yourself."
Marc Broussely/Redferns
"Now our lives are changing fast," sings Win Butler, spooked and sleepless. But his empathetic croon — and his band's orchestral- rock wallop — make high anxiety sound almost sublime.
• Gallery: Arcade Fire Rock Madison Square Garden
• Rolling Stone's Best of 2010: Albums, Singles, Movies and more
ODD ANDERSEN/AFP/Getty
Co-written by Max Martin and Dr. Luke, this buoyant electro-pop singalong is 2010's catchiest tune. As for that "teenage dream," Perry doesn't mince words: "Let's go all the way tonight."
Kevin Mazur/Child/WireImage
Nobody knows where Sade disappears to for years at a time between hits, but "Soldier of Love" proves she knows how to make a hell of a re-entrance. She sings about emotional devastation over a beat that mixes quiet-storm synths with acid-damaged riffs straight out of TV on the Radio's playbook. It's as close as she's ever come to blowing her cool.
Joe Kohen/WireImage
The title alone would have guaranteed hundreds of thousands of Web clicks. But Cee Lo didn't just say "Fuck you" — he said it with humor and serious panache. Despite the bummed-out lyrics, the Motown-style beat is DayGlo-bright, and Cee Lo's lovelorn lament doubles as an anthem for lean times: "If I was richer/I'd still be with ya/Ha, now ain't that some shit?"
Kevin Mazur/WireImage
It takes a special kind of dark, twisted genius to raise the white flag of surrender while raising a middle finger. Kanye West is that genius. "Runaway" is Kanye's musical response to the Taylor Swift affair, but it's much more than that: a nine-minute meditation on romantic failure and public infamy. Kanye creates a huge, eerie beat out of thunderous drums and plinking piano, and he turns the phrase "Let's have a toast for the douchebags" into a refrain nearly as catchy as "She loves you — yeah, yeah, yeah." In 2010, no other song was so crazily epic or jaw-droppingly gorgeous — not on the radio, not anywhere. Now, everyone raise your glasses.
