The 100 Greatest Debut Singles of All Time

Lil Nas X knew exactly what he was doing when he recruited Billy Ray Cyrus for a remix of “Old Town Road.” Back in 1992, Cyrus had cracked things wide open for country music with his own debut single. His recording of Don Von Tress’ “Achy Breaky Heart” — a goofy, smirking honky-tonk tune built off of two repeating chords — became a massive crossover smash and kick-started global interest in line dancing, to the dismay of staunch traditionalists. Those folks were clearly in the minority, since “Achy Breaky Heart” hit Number Four, went platinum, and helped shift the trajectory of country music. J.F. 

One of the catchiest British Invasion hits, and one of the most innovative, pushing outside Beatlesque cheer with its airy groove. Colin Blunstone’s bleary delivery, Rod Argent’s spooky organ, and a spiraling jazz-steeped breakdown already seemed to hint toward the psychedelic possibilities the Zombies would explore a few years later on their classic LP Odyssey and Oracle. “When I wrote and played ‘She’s Not There,’ the last thing on my mind was jazz or Miles,” said Argent, “but those things filtered through.” J.D. 

The key to a Kesha party is simple: She has never needed too many accoutrements beyond cheap beer, cute boys, and good music. That’s the basis of “Tik Tok,” her first official single (though she could be heard as the uncredited vocalist on Flo Rida’s hit from earlier in 2009, “Right Round”). The song is the perfect time capsule of sleazy early-aughts electro-pop, with Kesha’s attuned rap-singing over a beeping club beat. It was a breath of accessible fresh air, kicking the era’s reigning pristine pop glamour to the curb with a thrifted cowboy boot. Bonus points: The song’s opening-line tribute, “Feelin’ like P. Diddy,” gets a co-sign from the multihyphenate himself, who delivers some swaggy ad-libs on the first verse. B.S. 

“I don’t know what a ‘letter from an occupant’ is, but I’m hoping that I will figure it out at some point,” said Carl Newman of the New Pornographers. “It sounds like it must mean something.” The finest power-pop band of the 21st century got off to a smashing start in 2000 with this haloed haymaker of swirling guitar static and overheated drum pump, driven forward by Neko Case‘s five-alarm lead vocal. The members of the NPs had been kicking around the Vancouver music scene for a while (Newman fronted the fine Nineties band Zumpano, Dan Bejar was in Destroyer, and Case was becoming a star on the alt-country scene), and they came together to make something that felt thrillingly organic and exuberantly their own. “Letter From an Occupant” set the indie-rock world ablaze as the standout hit on their near-perfect debut LP, Mass Romantic. J.D. 

“Bless my heart, bless my soul/Didn’t think I’d make it to 22 years old”: With those words, reportedly improvised on the spot at an early gig, Alabama Shakes frontwoman Brittany Howard carved out a place for herself in rock & roll history. Formed in the small town of Athens, Alabama, the Shakes were something of an anomaly in 2012 — a rock band that could easily reference the Fifties and Sixties without coming across as retro. Howard’s voice sounded more like Prince or Nina Simone than anyone her age, and the song’s message of persistence and patience, delivered by a young biracial woman who addressed herself as if singing to the mirror, remains resonant nearly a decade later. J.F. 

One night in the late Seventies, Mark Knopfler got a pint at his local pub, when a crappy band playing there captured his attention with their mediocrity. When they were done, they introduced themselves as the Sultans of Swing, an idea that seemed preposterous because of how bad they were. So he wrote some humorous lyrics about it, put them to some jazz chords, and casually tossed in one of the most brilliant guitar solos of the era. His “Sultans of Swing” presented the opposite experience of the Sultans he saw that night — smart, catchy, expertly played music — and it set up Dire Straits for superstardom. K.G. 

Punk wolf-boys from the wilds of western Massachusetts, taking a giant step into the forbidden territory of expressing actual human feelings — quite the taboo for former hardcore dudes at the time. In Dinosaur’s hugely influential summer-’85 single, J. Mascis sings of loneliness (“I feel your eyes upon me — how should I act today?”) with a guitar full of Neil Young melancholy and Minor Threat energy. Dinosaur soon lost the rights to their name and became Dinosaur Jr., which they still do proud today. R.S. 

“Somebody asked me what kind of car it was in that song,” Chapman told Rolling Stone at the time, laughing at the absurdity. “I think it was an Aries K car at first. And then it was a Toyota Corolla.” The song isn’t about a car at all, it’s about a failed relationship and a woman trying to escape the cycle of poverty. So how did something so brutal and depressing become a Top 10 hit? Chapman started out on the Boston folk circuit before releasing the song, as well as “Talkin’ ‘Bout a Revolution,” from her self-titled debut album in 1988. After performing it at Nelson Mandela’s 70th birthday that year, things exploded. “Fast Car” received two Grammy nominations — for Record of the Year and Song of the Year — and she won Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for the single, as well as Best New Artist. The song has been in rotation ever since, covered on talent shows and even becoming a 2015 trop-house dance remix by Jonas Blue. J.P. 

Early Seventies prog rock meets London glam and bubblegum pop for a radical three-minute musical manifesto. Bryan Ferry was an art-school poseur and aspiring star — he failed his audition to sing for King Crimson — when he devised this high-concept ad jingle for an imaginary brand of cigarettes. He croons “Virginia Plain” like an extraterrestrial Sinatra, on top of Phil Manzanera’s psychedelic guitar and Andy Mackay’s oboe. And raising hell on the keyboards: a beret-wearing fop named Brian Eno, one of rock’s first synthesizer heroes. R.S. 

From the golden age of hip-hop answer records: The Brooklyn group U.T.F.O. were all over the radio with their putdown “Roxanne, Roxanne.” So a 14-year-old girl from the Queensbridge projects decided to strike back with her own version, a freestyle she called “Roxanne’s Revenge.” Shanté’s filthy street hit kicked off a wave of Roxanne singles, as everyone tried to get in on the story: “The Real Roxanne,” “Sparky’s Turn (Roxanne You’re Through),” “Roxanne’s a Man.” But nobody topped Shanté, who now hosts her own show on LL Cool J’s Rock the Bells station on SiriusXM. R.S. 

Donna Summer songwriter Paul Jabara knew he had a hit in 1981 when he called his arranger — a pre-Letterman Paul Shaffer — and told him the idea for a new song. “Paul was openly gay and said to me, and I’m quoting him here, ‘The faggots’ll love it,’ ” Shaffer told Rolling Stone in 2014. Summer, Cher, Diana Ross, and Barbra Streisand all declined. But former Sylvester backup singers Martha Wash and Izora Armstead’s catchy, campy pop hit was quickly embraced by both the gay community and Hollywood, and sold 6 million copies worldwide. As Wash told Rolling Stone in 2014, “It’s morphed into a song that grandparents, parents, and kids can all sing and dance to.” J.N.

Imagine — the first time the world got to hear the magic voices of LeToya, Kelly, and LeTavia! OK, so even at the start, one member of this girl group was slightly more equal than the others. “No, No, No” was the first bow from Beyoncé, when the group was still getting packaged as Wyclef’s latest protegées. In the immortal words of Ed McMahon on Star Search, “Your challengers are a young group from Houston.” Hearing the song now means going back in time to when this was the only Beyoncé song anyone knew — but it was already obvious she had hot sauce in her bag, and “No, No, No” hit Number Three on the pop charts. She woke up like this. R.S. 

Pink Floyd were already legends in the London underground scene for their psychedelic live jams at the UFO Club. Yet their first single was the lighthearted (and very English) ditty “Arnold Layne.” Syd Barrett wrote it as the Kinks-style story of a small-town eccentric with a fetish for stealing ladies’ underwear off of laundry lines. As Syd explained at the time, it was all in good fun. “Arnold Layne just happens to dig dressing up in women’s clothing,” he said. “A lot of people do, so let’s face up to reality.” R.S. 

The New Romantic lifestyle summed up in one song. Duran Duran made “Planet Earth” an anthem for dressing up and smearing your lipstick and dancing with mysterious strangers all night, even if it’s just in the privacy of your own mind. They set out to combine their two favorite bands in one song: Chic and the Sex Pistols. “Planet Earth” has the disco flash of the former (via John Taylor’s bass line) and the punk bravado of the latter — a true breakthrough. Taylor Swift’s “New Romantics” is proof this aesthetic will never die. R.S. 

The Sex Pistols were done, and Johnny Rotten — who had now matured enough to go by “John Lydon” — knew what people thought of him, so he got ahead of the story. “You never listened to a word that I said/You only seen me from the clothes that I wear,” he sings over a sleek gliding guitar riff that sounds like it doesn’t have a care in the world. Whatever you thought of Lydon, you were wrong, and his new band, Public Image Ltd., showed he was capable of far artier things than the Pistols had ever dreamed of, if he was in control. “The public image belongs to me,” he sings. “It’s my entrance, my own creation, my grand finale, my goodbye.” K.G. 

Never has knitwear been so tragic as in Weezer’s 1994 debut, “The Sweater Song.” The malaise-drenched intro is thoroughly Nineties, with the chiming, spare guitar line setting the blueprint for decades of indie-rock to come. To start, it’s all build, Rivers Cuomo singing both as if he’s supine in bed and nearing a nervous breakdown. The guitar feedback stands in for today’s proverbial drop, as Cuomo gives into the angst, wailing, “If you want to destroy my sweater/Hold this thread as I walk away.” A push and pull between boredom and breakdown, “The Sweater Song” transcends dated heartbreak, despite being thoroughly part of the fabric of the era. B.E. 

Right at the beginning, the thumping piano chords of “Doctor My Eyes” signaled big things for rock’s most blissfully bummed out 24-year-old, just then entering the airwaves for the first time. His words of feeling weary and run-down were masked by a sunny Seventies rhythm — featuring Russ Kunkel on congas and David Crosby and Graham Nash on backing vocals — so much so, that it required a few listens to notice the upbeat song’s bleak lyrics. Browne was two years away from releasing his masterpiece Late for the Sky, but this charmer hinted at the greatness that was to come. A.M. 

A wildly experimental missive from a band of London punk women stomping clichés under their feet. Their Rough Trade single “Fairytale in the Supermarket” is ragged, rowdy, but full of humor in the strangely friendly singsong voices. (“Cups of tea are a clock! A clock! A clock! A clock!”) Ana Da Silva’s guitar clatters over the high-speed power-drone of Vicky Aspinall’s violin, Gina Birch’s bass, and Palmolive’s drums. The Raincoats chant about figuring out your identity, steering clear of misogynistic traps, warning, “No one teaches you how to live!” As Birch says in Jenn Pelly’s book on the band, “It was a homemade, chaotic sound.” R.S. 

With a gritty guitar riff and scuzzy lyrics, “Touch Me I’m Sick” was the first genuinely great grunge song. It starts with what sounds like a burp, a sound that can only be followed by frontman Mark Arm boasting about being a creep, a jerk, and diseased — “and I don’t mind,” he sings at one point, as he tries to seduce a sweet young thing with probably the worst pickup line ever … “Touch me I’m sick!” It turns out, it was the start of something beautiful. Cameron Crowe later appropriated it for the movie Singles, in which Matt Dillon’s fictional band, Citizen Dick, sings, “Touch Me I’m Dick.” K.G. 

Nothing much sounded like M.I.A.’s “Galang” in 2004. A minimalistic collision of stuttering dancehall rhythms, buzzing electronic noise, and Maya Arulpragasam’s brash, slang-filled rapping, “Galang” (co-written by Elastica’s Justine Frischmann!) was as singular as it was danceable. It was also a big step forward for globally minded pop music, with M.I.A. — a London-raised performer of Sri Lankan Tamil descent — adopting a Caribbean patois in the song’s chorus and calling up a Buddhist-style chant for its rapturous final vamp. She delivered it all with a punk attitude befitting its lyrical reference to the Clash’s “London Calling,” describing scenes of paranoia and violence that sounded alternately murky and sexy. It was a fitting introduction to one of pop music’s most adventurous and provocative figures of the past decade and a half. J.F. 

“Candy Girl” was a knowing echo of early Jackson 5 hits — an “ABC”-like melody spruced up with the latest blurting synthesizers, thunking drum programming, and an endearingly goofy rapped bridge. Ralph Tresvant did his best impression of a young Michael, innocent and squeaky as he lathers on charm like a Hallmark card: “You are my world/You look so sweet/You’re a special treat.” In May 1983, New Edition actually beat out their inspiration — “Candy Girl” hit Number One on the R&B chart ahead of Jackson’s “Beat It.” “That was amazing to me because I had been watching the Jacksons and Michael Jackson’s success for most of my life,” New Edition member Ronnie Devoe said. “At that point, I realized we had something going for us, and as long as we stayed together and focused … we could last a long time.” E.L. 

So many indie bands were jumping all over the South in the early Nineties. Archers of Loaf turned out to be catchier than most, but the brilliance of “Web in Front” is how archetypal it is. These Chapel Hill, North Carolina, jokers debuted with this two-minute punk wonder, later the highlight of their 1993 gem, Icky Mettle. “Web in Front” has snotty, slack-ass vocals and raggedly glorious Pavement-style guitar clatter, hammering away at the hook with total conviction: “All I ever wanted was to be your spine.” R.S. 

Rihanna has lived a million different pop lives: EDM singer, rapper, soulful belter. Her 2005 debut, however, was a simple launch to nearly two decades of party-starting. “Pon de Replay” is not only a product of dancehall and dance-pop’s sonic melding of the time, but also a tribute to her home of Barbados, with the title translating to “play it again” in Bajan Creole. It’s her version of Madonna’s “Music,” with Rihanna making demands no DJ could resist obliging. It was a runaway hit for her, but it’s not even the biggest of the runaway hits in her unmatched catalog. B.S. 

Elias McDaniel turns into the great Bo Diddley, a self-described “young hoodlum from Chicago,” rising out of the South Side with his distorted guitar, his theme song, and his own shave-and-a-haircut beat. “The words was a little rough,” Bo told Rolling Stone in 1987. “It had lyrics like, ‘Bow-legged rooster told a cock-legged duck/Say, you ain’t good lookin’, but you sure can … crow.’ The old folks didn’t understand that. It took me about seven days to rewrite it, and that song became ‘Bo Diddley.’ ” R.S. 

“I’m not over the top; I’m not wacky,” Sade Adu (a.k.a. Sade) told Rolling Stone in 1985, a year after “Your Love Is King” became the urbane opening shot in a singular four-decade career. “I’m fairly understated, and that reflects in the way I sing.” While Van Halen and Culture Club were battling for the most popular song in the country, Stuart Matthewman’s jazz sax and Adu’s vocals — an intensely sultry coo that blended the romantic (“Crown you in my heart”) with the erotic (“I’mmmmm commmmmminggggg”) — found their own place on the charts by eschewing bright synths and drum machines for a worldly, sophisticated sound unlike anything heard in pop music at the time. J.N. 

Unpopular but true opinion: “Africa” is merely Toto’s second-best song, because “Hold the Line” is even better. (There will be no questions taken at this time.) The guys in Toto were the cream of the 1970s L.A. studio pros, playing on session after session. When they hung out their own shingle and started their own band, they went for the golden ratio of Seventies rock. “Hold the Line” has a stuttering piano hook, Steve Lukather’s power chords, and a sad-but-true chorus: “Love isn’t always on time/Whoa, whoa, whoa.” R.S. 

Two of the pastiest English boys MTV had ever seen, with a synth-pop rap about gay cruising that hit Number One in the USA, mostly because it was cleverly disguised as an ode to shopping. Neil Tennant was already a big-name U.K. pop critic when he formed this duo with Chris Lowe. The original 1984 “West End Girls” was a raw club 12-inch with producer Bobby Orlando, but the lush 1986 Stephen Hague production was the radio hit. They had just released their excellent new album, Hotspot. Cardi B has often cited the Pet Shop Boys as one of her huge childhood influences. R.S. 

Pylon rode out of the Southern boho scene in Athens, Georgia, along with kindred spirits like the B-52s and R.E.M. When R.E.M. covered a Pylon song on Dead Letter Office, Peter Buck noted, “I remember hearing their version on the radio the day that Chronic Town came out and being suddenly depressed by how much better it was than our record.” “Cool” is Southern-gothic post-punk designed for boozy dance floors, with Vanessa Briscoe Hay chanting art-school sex magic (“Pure form! Real gone! Like wiiiild! Good viiiibes”!) over the herky-jerky rhythm guitar. R.S. 

A garage band of Cleveland art-noise crackpots sends a roar out of the mid-Seventies’ Midwest industrial wasteland. Pere Ubu released “Heart of Darkness” in December 1975 on their own Hearthan label, an obscurity that nonetheless went on to reach like-minded bands and listeners around the world. “Heart of Darkness” is a full-on psycho-destructo breakdown — a hypnotic bass line, primitive synthesizer swoops, Crocus Behemoth’s paranoid whispers, and proto-punk guitar from the doomed Peter Laughner. R.S. 

Eighteen months before Illmatic, 19-year-old rapper Nasty Nas recorded this Zebrahead soundtrack cut that would later become the debut single off of his landmark album. Crate digger, producer, and friend Large Professor — who would go on to introduce Nas to many of Illmatic’s producers — flipped everything from Average White Band to the Japanese cast of Hair into a beat that almost went to Busta Rhymes. But it was Nas’ tenaciousness and raw drive on every syllable that made New York hip-hop fans salivate. “The idea behind it was that it was like intermission for rap music because something new is being introduced,” Nas told Rolling Stone in 2014. “I knew I was onto something, and I knew it would go over well. You just know.” J.N.