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Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →Rolling Stone’s “100 Greatest Songs of the Century – So Far” is an editorial, cross-genre ranking rather than an objective measurement. Its verified leading five are Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s “Crazy in Love,” M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes,” The White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army,” OutKast’s “Hey Ya!,” and Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ “Maps.”
The title is easy to confuse with Billboard’s chart-based “Top Hot 100 Songs of the 21st Century.” Rolling Stone’s list names “Crazy in Love” first; Billboard’s 2025 retrospective names The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights” first because the two projects measure different kinds of achievement.
Key takeaways
- Rolling Stone’s “100 Greatest Songs of the Century – So Far” is an editorial, cross-genre ranking led by Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s “Crazy in Love,” not an objective measurement of musical quality.
- The preserved leading sequence continues with M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes,” The White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army,” OutKast’s “Hey Ya!,” and Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ “Maps.”
- Billboard answers a different question: its 2025 Hot 100 retrospective, covering January 1, 2000 through December 28, 2024, places The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights” at No. 1.
- According to Billboard (2025), “Blinding Lights” spent 57 consecutive weeks in the Hot 100 top 10, reached No. 1 for four weeks, and spent 86 weeks in the top 40.
- “Greatest” combines cultural impact, innovation, songwriting, influence, longevity, representation, and commercial reach; “biggest” is more directly measured through charts and related data.
What list does “100 Greatest Songs of the Century – So Far” refer to?
The title most plausibly refers to Rolling Stone’s late-2010s editorial list, preserved through a Rolling Stone-branded Spotify playlist dated June 1, 2018. The list is a cross-genre view of 21st-century music, bringing pop, hip-hop, rock, R&B, and alternative music into the same ranking.
The available evidence confirms the list’s identity and leading sequence, but does not establish a complete original methodology, voting pool, or weighting system. The safest description is therefore “Rolling Stone’s editorial ranking,” not “the scientifically definitive 100 best songs.” A third-party list archive attributed to RollingStone.com can help with discovery, but the archive warns that its displayed ranking order is reversed. The archive should not replace the original Rolling Stone-branded source when rank order matters.
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Here, “the century” means the 21st century: songs released from 2000 onward. Search phrases such as “best songs since 2000,” “best 2000s songs,” and “best songs of the new millennium” can describe a similar listening goal, but they do not automatically refer to the same ranking.
What are the five leading songs on Rolling Stone’s list?
The leading sequence preserved by the Rolling Stone playlist is shown below. The descriptions explain why each selection is useful when considering what “greatest” means; they are not claims that Rolling Stone published a separate score for every criterion.
| Rank | Song | Artist | Why the selection matters |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | “Crazy in Love” | Beyoncé featuring Jay-Z | Combines a commanding vocal performance, a sharply recognizable horn-driven hook, and a hip-hop collaboration that helped define early-2000s pop culture. |
| 2 | “Paper Planes” | M.I.A. | Shows how a song can become culturally influential through hybrid alternative hip-hop, global-pop references, a memorable sample, and a deliberately provocative lyrical perspective rather than conventional sales dominance alone. |
| 3 | “Seven Nation Army” | The White Stripes | Demonstrates how a simple, instantly recognizable musical motif can become a mass communal chant and travel far beyond its original rock setting. |
| 4 | “Hey Ya!” | OutKast | Balances experimentation and accessibility with an infectious rhythm and unusually broad cultural presence. |
| 5 | “Maps” | Yeah Yeah Yeahs | Represents emotionally direct alternative rock and shows that a defining 21st-century song does not need to be judged only by conventional chart dominance. |
The playlist evidence supports the order above. The playlist should be treated as the practical listening route for the complete 100-song collection, while the third-party archive remains a cross-check with an important rank-direction warning.
Why do these songs count as “greatest”?
These songs count as “greatest” when greatness is treated as a compound judgment rather than a single statistic. A durable ranking can consider whether a song changed a mainstream sound, created a shared cultural reference, expanded popular-music form, influenced later artists, or retained emotional force after its original release cycle.
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| Criterion | Question to ask | What the criterion captures |
|---|---|---|
| Cultural impact | Did the song become a shared reference point or alter the mainstream? | Public recognition, communal use, visibility, and reach beyond the original audience. |
| Innovation | Did the production, genre fusion, vocal approach, or structure expand popular music? | New combinations of sound, form, technology, or performance. |
| Songwriting and performance | Do the melody, lyrics, delivery, arrangement, and recording remain unusually durable? | The craft that makes a recording work both immediately and over time. |
| Influence | Did later artists, producers, scenes, or listeners build on the song? | Evidence that the song became a reference or model for subsequent music. |
| Longevity | Has the song remained present beyond its original release cycle? | Endurance in listening, performance, public memory, and cultural conversation. |
| Commercial performance | How did the song perform on the Billboard Hot 100 or comparable charts? | Measurable audience activity, while recognizing that chart success is only one dimension of greatness. |
| Representation | Does the selection reflect the century’s geographic, racial, gender, genre, and technological diversity? | Whether the overall list represents the breadth of 21st-century popular music. |
How can one ranking compare pop, hip-hop, rock, R&B, and alternative songs?
A cross-genre ranking can compare songs by their cultural and artistic consequences rather than pretending that every genre uses the same musical language. A communal rock riff, an experimental hip-hop production, a pop vocal performance, and an alternative-rock confession may be great for different reasons.
“Seven Nation Army” is a clear example of influence through a musical idea that audiences adopted collectively. “Paper Planes” is a clear example of influence that exceeds a conventional pop-hit framework. “Crazy in Love” demonstrates the combined force of performance, hook, collaboration, and cultural reach. “Hey Ya!” joins accessibility to formal and rhythmic invention, while “Maps” gives emotional directness the same critical status as spectacle.
The resulting list should be read as an argument about significance, not as a claim that one genre’s technical standards can be converted perfectly into another genre’s standards.
Why is “greatest” different from “biggest”?
“Greatest” is a judgment about artistic and cultural significance, while “biggest” is more readily measured through chart performance, sales, streams, or audience reach. A song can be historically influential without being the highest-charting song, and a huge chart record can be important without appearing first on an editorial list.
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Rolling Stone’s later 250 Greatest Songs of the 21st Century So Far framing makes room for both universally beloved hits and influential cult classics. That later 250-song project is a separate publication from the 100-song list discussed here, but its framing clarifies why critical-cultural rankings do not need to mirror a chart table.
What is the number-one song of the 21st century?
The answer depends on the ranking. Rolling Stone’s editorial list places “Crazy in Love” by Beyoncé featuring Jay-Z at No. 1. Billboard’s separate chart-performance retrospective places The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights” at No. 1.
| Project | What it measures | Scope or rule | Number-one result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Songs of the Century – So Far | Editorial and cultural greatness | Cross-genre 21st-century songs | “Crazy in Love” — Beyoncé featuring Jay-Z |
| Billboard’s Top Hot 100 Songs of the 21st Century | Weekly Hot 100 performance | January 1, 2000 through December 28, 2024 | “Blinding Lights” — The Weeknd |
| Classic Rock’s 2020 reader-voted rock list | Reader-voted rock greatness | Rock only; one song per band or artist | A separate rock ranking, not the Rolling Stone cross-genre list |
Billboard’s result is supported by chart data rather than a broad critical consensus. According to Billboard (2025), “Blinding Lights” spent 57 consecutive weeks in the Hot 100 top 10 from February 2020 through April 2021, reached No. 1 for four weeks, and spent 86 weeks in the top 40. The same retrospective identifies “We Belong Together” as a 14-week No. 1 song and notes Mariah Carey’s 19 No. 1 singles in its comparison.
After “Blinding Lights” reached the top of Billboard’s all-time Hot 100 ranking, The Weeknd told Billboard, “I don’t think [it] has hit me yet.” The quotation describes the artist’s reaction to the chart achievement; it does not explain the methodology behind Rolling Stone’s editorial ranking.
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How is Rolling Stone’s list different from Classic Rock’s 2020 list?
Classic Rock’s 2020 project is a rock-only, reader-voted list with a one-song-per-band-or-artist rule, whereas Rolling Stone’s list is cross-genre and is not established here as a reader poll. Classic Rock stated its rules as “Only one song per band/artist” and “It’s gotta rock.” Read the publisher’s introduction to the Classic Rock project for that project’s scope, and do not merge its results with Rolling Stone’s ranking.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What is the best way to use the complete 100-song list?
Use the Rolling Stone-branded playlist as the primary listening path, beginning with the five-song opening sequence and then continuing through the remaining selections. Streaming catalogs and regional rights can change, so the presence of a song on a playlist should not be treated as a permanent availability guarantee.
Use the third-party archive only to investigate or check entries, not to settle the order without comparison. The archive’s warning that its display reverses the ranking is especially important for readers searching for “the number-one song” or trying to reproduce the full order elsewhere.
A useful listening approach is to compare songs by the criteria above rather than listening only by genre. Start with the shared cultural force of “Crazy in Love” and “Seven Nation Army,” contrast the hybrid construction of “Paper Planes” with the experimental accessibility of “Hey Ya!,” and then hear how “Maps” creates impact through emotional directness.
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Can you play or study songs from the 2000s list?
Readers who want to perform or study early-21st-century songs can consider Alfred Music’s Billboard Sheet Music Hits 2000–2010: Piano/Vocal/Guitar Book. Alfred Music describes the book as containing arrangements with piano, guitar chords, lyrics, and vocal melodies. The book is a related 2000s greatest-hits songbook, not an official Rolling Stone edition and not a reproduction of the Rolling Stone ranking. Current stock, seller, price, edition, and program eligibility should be checked before publication or purchase.
What is the honest answer to “What are the greatest songs of the 21st century so far?”
If the question means Rolling Stone’s editorial list, the answer begins with “Crazy in Love,” followed by “Paper Planes,” “Seven Nation Army,” “Hey Ya!,” and “Maps.” If the question means the best-performing songs on Billboard’s Hot 100 from 2000 through the end of 2024, the answer is “Blinding Lights.” Neither answer cancels the other because the two rankings measure different kinds of achievement.
The most defensible conclusion is that “greatest” is an informed argument about what songs changed, represented, or continued to mean, while “biggest” is a performance record. The Rolling Stone list is valuable precisely because it puts those broader cultural and artistic questions alongside, rather than underneath, chart success.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the number-one song of the 21st century?
Rolling Stone’s list places Beyoncé featuring Jay-Z’s “Crazy in Love” at No. 1. Billboard’s separate Hot 100 performance retrospective places The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights” at No. 1, so there is no single answer independent of the ranking’s method.
Is Rolling Stone’s list of the 100 greatest songs objective?
No. Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Songs of the Century – So Far is an editorial judgment that combines cultural impact, innovation, songwriting, influence, longevity, representation, and commercial reach. Billboard’s separate list is based on Hot 100 performance.
Where can I find the complete 100-song list?
The Rolling Stone-branded Spotify playlist is the practical source for hearing the collection, although current song availability can vary by country and over time. A third-party archive can help with discovery but warns that its displayed ranking order is reversed.
The Bottom Line
Bottom line: Rolling Stone’s No. 1 is “Crazy in Love,” while Billboard’s chart-based No. 1 is “Blinding Lights”; the difference comes from measuring cultural greatness versus Hot 100 performance.
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