“Rock & roll can never die,” sang Neil Young in the heart of the 20th century. Guess what: Neil wasn’t lying. Nearly 50 years later, rock thrives as it always has: mutating, diversifying and evolving into the future. Now that we’re deep into the 21st century, it’s the perfect time to celebrate the songs that made this century a golden age for rock fans. But as always, rock & roll continues to move forward too quickly to be stuck, which is why it remains vibrant in a defiant and unrepentant way a century after Chuck Berry’s birth.
That’s the spirit behind this list: the 200 best rock songs of the 21st century so far. This is a complement to our recent report Reasons to Love Rock. The list is a wide mix of different rock styles, from different generations, from different voices. Some of these tunes are universally loved classics, known and sung around the world; others are deep cuts or underground cult favorites. But from Bruce to Boygenius to Bombino, from Dylan to D’Angelo to Deftones, from Wilco to Wednesday to the White Stripes, we have artists from all over the world and across the stylistic map.
It’s a time when rock cannot be contained – it travels everywhere. In our Top 10 alone, we’ve got blues, dance-floor glam, raw punk and psychedelic jams, high-tech dystopia and acoustic storytellers, and loads of air guitar riffs. We have metal warriors, from Black Sabbath to Mastodon. We have pop-punk and emo. We have sex, drugs and black leather jackets. We have riot squad, rock in SpanishIndie newcomers, Roots twang, African desert grooves, virtuoso guitar heroes, garage bands, electro experiments, grunge, deep soul. We have 90s legends, from Fiona Apple to Sonic Youth. We have the grizzled veterans who learned new tricks instead of taking it easy: David Bowie, Prince, even Neil “Time Fades Away” Young himself.
We have national rebels. We’ve got headbanger hip-hop anthems from OutKast and Jay-Z. (You know, the guy who called himself the “Grateful Dead of rap.”) We have ambitious pop rockers, from Olivia Rodrigo to Harry Styles to Taylor Swift, who have kept their unapologetic rock moves at the top of the charts. We’ve got the skinny-tie postpunk club commandos from Meet me in the bathroom era. We wander from the United States to Colombia, Tokyo, Versailles, Niger, Dublin, CDMX and YYZ. Some of these songs are innovative and complex; others are three-chord bangers to make you jump up and down. Their only thing in common is that they are rock. You can listen to it all here.
This is a list of songs, not artists, so we mostly avoid repeating songs by the same artist. But a handful of legends simply had too many classics to deny. (How can you pick just one Radiohead song from this century?) The hardest part was narrowing it down to just 200, with so many more worthy artists than we could cram into a single list. But it is a tribute to the vitality, diversity and energy of rock in our modern age. There will always be people who wonder why it can’t stay the way it was, but that question has been coming up ever since Buddy Holly’s plane crashed, and the answer is the same as it’s always been: rock keeps growing because rock keeps growing. change. The only way to deny the irrepressible health of music is to stop listening to it, and what fun would that be? Keep reading to discover 200 great reasons to turn up the volume and let it explode.
Yellow card, “Ocean Avenue” (2003)
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Yellowcard managed to capture the ephemera of teenage summers of yesteryear – and the angsty longing of those days – in this violin-driven pop-punk classic. It was not an easy task. As the group finalized the recording of their debut, Ocean Avenue, lead singer Ryan Key could not find a melody for the title track’s chorus. “One day I came in, exhausted and almost defeated…and I sang, ‘If I could find you now, things would be better,’” Key said. rolling stone For Ocean Avenues 20th anniversary. It was exactly what pop-punk producer and architect Neal Avron was looking for. “I followed him there and our lives changed forever.” —Maya Georgi
Noah Kahan, “American Cars” (2026)
Image credit: Patrick McCormack*
On his 2026 album, The great divideVermont songwriter Noah Kahan has expanded his palette beyond the indie-folk magic of “Stick Season.” On “American Cars,” he dove deep into heartland rock, channeling Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp and the War on Drugs. He compares drinking to a job (“If drinking was a day job/I’d ask for more money”), while begging his sister to come and fix the family’s latest mess. “The song was basically like, ‘You need to come home, we really need you this time,'” Kahan told us in his rolling stone cover story. It’s a propulsive stunner unlike anything in Kahan’s catalog – and proves he’s a true rock star. —Angie Martoccio
Speedy Ortiz, “The Graduates” (2015)
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Sadie Dupuis’ pen has never been sharper than on this 2015 song, which spins an alt-rock anthem out of a lament about feeling overlooked: “I was the best when I was second, but now I’m just the money you fear.” » Her witty, learned lyrics and swirling chords jump over each other until she reaches the bridge and flies even higher. (“Someone tweeted that I looked like I was bored on stage,” she told RS. “I’m like, ‘I’m just concentrating on not messing up that guitar part!'”) It’s a gem from a moment when indie rock was heating up again, and it seemed like all it took was a distinct perspective and a distortion pedal to get the world’s attention. —Simon Vozick-Levinson
Mogwai, “2 rights make a wrong” (2001)
Image credit: Andy Willsher/Redferns/Getty Images
Thirty years in the noise game, and the Scottish punks of Mogwai are not yet out of date. They rose up in Glasgow, having been blown away by My Bloody Valentine and Slint, blasting out their own style of extremely moving – but oh-so-loud – feedback devotions on their 1997 debut, Young team. “2 Rights Make 1 Wrong” is their peak, from the 2001 gem Action rockat the time when Stephen Malkmus declared them “the best band of the 21st century”. It’s a whirlwind of banjos, vintage 1970s Vocoder, heavy guitar fuzz, distorted strings and brass, barking dogs – a psychedelic anthem that builds for nearly 10 cathartic minutes. —Rob Sheffield
Incubus, “Circles” (2001)
Image Credit: Kevin Mazur/WireImage
Incubus broke through in the last breath of the 20th century with Do you in the fall of 1999 – a cosmic rock odyssey featuring their meditative acoustic hit “Drive.” They continued this momentum in the 2000s with Morning view, an ultra-chill California masterpiece that shone with rockers like “Wish You Were Here” and “Mexico.” The most rocking moment of the album was the incredible “Circles”, accompanied by the fiery riffs of guitarist Mike Einziger. When they re-recorded Morning view in 2024, the songs were less an exact replica of the originals and more a reflection of how they had evolved live over the years. Unsurprisingly, “Circles” sounded fiercer than ever. —Angie Martoccio
Mountain Goats, “This Year” (2005)
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Singer, songwriter, and guitarist John Darnielle’s look back at his “drunk video games” when he was “17” and his behavior in the face of an abusive stepfather teems with a kind of uncomfortably intimate autobiography. And then you get to the chorus, in which the Mountain Goats founder swears, “I’ll make it through this year/If it kills me.” This piece from the Goats star The Sunset Tree was long a fan favorite before becoming an unexpected viral hit in 2020, when the idea of swearing off getting through a shitty time became surprisingly resonant. —David Fear
Old 97, “Rollerskate Skinny” (2001)
Image Credit: LIZ HAFALIA/THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE/GETTY IMAGES
Dallas’ Old 97s were initially grouped in the alt-country scene, but by 2001 Satellite walksthey had become something else: an exceptional pop-rock group. Inspired by a brief romance with Winona Ryder, “Rollerskate Skinny” finds frontman Rhett Miller piling on lines that are both childish and endearing (“You’re as pretty as a penny”) and caustic (“I wouldn’t be here if the Athenia hadn’t sunk”). It’s joyfully joyful, but with a pain at its center, summed up by its final line, which Miller expands until it almost feels like a statement: “I believe in love, but it doesn’t believe in me.” » —Jon Dolan
Mom, “Speeding 72” (2022)
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The Momma group from Brooklyn via Los Angeles…
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