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Jeremy Urquhart
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Jeremy has more than 2100 published articles on Collider to his name, and has been writing for the site since February 2022. He's an omnivore when it comes to his movie-watching diet, so will gladly watch and write about almost anything, from old Godzilla films to gangster flicks to samurai movies to classic musicals to the French New Wave to the MCU... well, maybe not the Disney+ shows.
His favorite directors include Martin Scorsese, Sergio Leone, Akira Kurosawa, Quentin Tarantino, Werner Herzog, John Woo, Bob Fosse, Fritz Lang, Guillermo del Toro, and Yoji Yamada. He's also very proud of the fact that he's seen every single Nicolas Cage movie released before 2022, even though doing so often felt like a tremendous waste of time. He's plagued by the question of whether or not The Room is genuinely terrible or some kind of accidental masterpiece, and has been for more than 12 years (and a similar number of viewings).
When he's not writing lists - and the occasional feature article - for Collider, he also likes to upload film reviews to his Letterboxd profile (username: Jeremy Urquhart) and Instagram account.
He is also currently in the process of trying to become a Stephen King expert by reading all 2397 novels written by the author.
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Before jumping into talking about some great classic rock songs, it’s important to establish what “classic rock” means for present purposes. If a song’s approachable, high-energy and/or passionate, contains guitars (usually electric) in some way, and came out during the 1960s, 1970s, or 1980s (and got some degree of radio play), then it can probably count as classic rock.
Here, it’s anything that’s rock or rock-adjacent that came out between the years 1965 and 1989, with the cut-off sort of being the time just before grunge started getting popular. Below, there’s soft rock, hard rock, psychedelic rock, and even some progressive rock, plus a bunch of other sub-genres. So, some of these songs are milder than others, but if it’s rock in some way, it can be here. Also, there’s a limit of one song per artist, just to keep things a bit more varied and interesting, and because otherwise, maybe half a dozen artists would pretty much dominate a top 25 like this.
25 "Welcome to the Jungle" (1987)
Guns N' Roses
Starting at the end of things, kind of, Guns N’ Roses were probably one of the last massive bands that could be considered classic rock, even keeping that sound going, to some extent, into the 1990s, when “rock” had moved on, to some extent. Appetite for Destruction was the band’s debut album, and quite comfortably their best, and it’s one that gets off to one hell of a start thanks to “Welcome to the Jungle.”
It's a bit on the nose, as an opening track, but you can’t deny that it works incredibly well. Guns N’ Roses just own the bombast of it all, and though it’s one of those classic rock songs that has been replayed almost too many times for its own good (you get that a bit with this and some other soon-to-be-mentioned songs), it earned the right to be everywhere; just a song you hear constantly, even if you don’t go seeking it out.
24 "Sunshine of Your Love" (1967)
Cream
Since Eric Clapton was in more than one significant classic rock band (and a solo artist), he sneaks through with a couple of songs in this ranking, with the first of those being “Sunshine of Your Love,” Cream’s most recognizable song. But it was a team effort, and not just a Clapton song, since both he and Jack Bruce are credited as writers, with both also doing the vocals, and Pete Brown was credited with writing the lyrics.
It's a song that’s all about that main riff, because once you hear it, it’s in your head until the day you die. The song constructed around that riff is also good, of course, but “Sunshine of Your Love” shows how a great classic rock song can get by with just one super memorable and punchy element, but that can be said about most great pop songs, too, when they're only a few minutes long. Also, it was used perfectly in Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas, with that film also memorably using another song Clapton did… but more on that in a bit.
23 "Eye in the Sky" (1982)
The Alan Parsons Project
Yeah, okay, “Eye in the Sky” is mellower than a good many classic rock songs, but it still counts… even if it’s sometimes referred to as belonging to the “yacht rock” sub-genre, which probably sounds like the most unappealing thing ever if you're below a certain age. But the melody here is too good to deny. It’s atmospheric, and the song is just a pleasant one to fall into, regardless of your mood.
This Alan Parsons Project song is also aggressively 1980s in its sound, which could be a further turn-off, but it’s ‘80s in a good way; like, dated, sure, but not to the point of feeling kitschy. It’s also strangely ominous lyrically, if you can get past the intoxicating non-lyrical side of things, which adds a nice contrast. You’ve got a pleasant sound and feel, but then a bit of an unsettling energy with what the song’s actually about. Also, if you're still grumpy about this being too soft to count as classic rock, listen to the outro, because you get some prominent electric guitar stuff there.
22 "Smoke on the Water" (1972)
Deep Purple
Most of the things that can be said about “Sunshine of Your Love,” and its phenomenal riff, can also be said about Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water.” If anything, the main riff here has probably become even more of an earworm, and if you hear it in the wrong context, or if you’ve just heard it a few times too many, maybe it would inspire an eye-roll. Or maybe just if you hear someone who’s not very good at guitar trying to play it (it’s the 1970s equivalent of “Wonderwall”), it could be grating.
But it’s become iconic and a bit of a meme of a riff because it just hits hard and, again, it refuses to leave the brain, once heard. Maybe the rest of “Smoke on the Water” (solo aside) is a little limp in comparison, though this is one of the tracks you're likely to think of first if you hear the term “classic rock,” so it’s almost like it has to be included here by default, really.
21 "Paranoid" (1970)
Black Sabbath
The title track of Paranoid, this is one of the most approachable and instant Black Sabbath songs, technically still being heavy metal, but particularly punchy and catchy. You couldn’t quite call it pop, but it also wouldn’t sound too out of place on a classic rock sort of station, so it’s worth including here (and metal is a kind of rock, or like a sub-genre, so it’s all good, baby baby).
“Paranoid” is also very appropriately named. It’s a fast-paced and anxious sort of song, and though there’s an energy to it, the whole thing thunders forward at a speed that continually threatens to spiral out of control. The rest of the album is mostly made up of longer and more varied songs (the kinds that speed up and/or slow down at different points, thanks to running for multiple minutes each), but “Paranoid” gets to the point and feels immediate, but not in a cheap or overly poppy way. It's still Black Sabbath, it’s still technically metal, and it still sounds great more than 50 years later.
20 "All Along the Watchtower" (1968)
The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Yes, “All Along the Watchtower” was originally written and performed by Bob Dylan, but he’s got some other songs that are even better and, in any event, the cover by the Jimi Hendrix Experience now feels like the definitive version. It’s also more of a rock song, because Hendrix was obviously one of the greatest guitarists of all time, and he makes the song more epic in scope while keeping it feeling ominous and dark, to some extent (the qualities that shine brighter in the more restrained Dylan version).
The Jimi Hendrix Experience also had its fair share of original songs, but Hendrix was one of the best artists of all time when it came to covering. Hell, he arguably (and famously) made “The Star-Spangled Banner,” of all songs, his own, when he performed it at Woodstock. If you want to count that as a song, consider it a runner-up, but “All Along the Watchtower” is everything great about Hendrix (plus the other members of the Jimi Hendrix Experience) condensed into one iconic track.
19 "Kashmir" (1975)
Led Zeppelin
As mentioned before, there are a handful of artists who would probably run the risk of dominating a ranking like this if multiple songs per artist were allowed, and Led Zeppelin would be one of those artists/bands. The easiest pick for the band’s most iconic song would be “Stairway to Heaven,” and it is incredible, but if you want something that really feels like rock with a capital “R” (plus a capital “O,” “C,” and “K,” too), then you have to go with “Kashmir.”
It's about as long as “Stairway to Heaven,” but it chugs along and feels like quintessential hard rock the entire time, instead of starting quiet and ending loud. “Kashmir” is still dynamic, and it has a more subtle build, but it feels big at the start, and then it feels bigger somehow near the end. For lack of a better word, it’s a truly epic song, and might well represent Led Zeppelin at their very best.
18 "The End" (1967)
The Doors
It’s so long, ominous, and sprawling that it feels a little strange to label “The End,” by the Doors, as classic rock in the traditional (or, well, “classic” sense), but it is one of the most significant and brazen rock songs of the 1960s for sure. It fittingly concludes the band’s self-titled debut album, though if you're more of a movie person than a music one, you might know “The End” for playing at the beginning of Apocalypse Now.
"The End" feels like a 12-minute-long music equivalent of a mental breakdown, and where it goes lyrically near the end is still disturbing.
But it’s not too much of a paradox there, since that film also uses the song again near the end. Having it be tied into such an intense Vietnam War movie does add a certain additional visceral quality to the whole thing, but “The End” is also a total – and absorbing – nightmare of a track in its own right. It feels like a 12-minute-long music equivalent of a mental breakdown, and where it goes lyrically near the end is still disturbing all these decades later.
17 "Where the Streets Have No Name" (1987)
U2
And then on the complete other end of things tonally, to “The End,” is U2’s “Where the Streets Have No Name,” and this is a song that also kicks off an album rather than concludes it. There is a sense of things taking off with this song, and “euphoric” might be the best word that comes to mind, if you want to describe it succinctly. There’s that long build at the start, everything swells beautifully, and then once the song properly gets underway, it’s a real rush.
The catharsis here is undeniable, and it’s the kind of song you could probably play to someone who dislikes everything else U2’s done, and they might be like, “Yeah, okay, that one’s not bad.” The band’s earlier music was a bit rawer, and there’s an argument to be made that the artsier Achtung Baby is the band’s most impressive album, but The Joshua Tree was a mammoth hit for some pretty clear reasons, and “Where the Streets Have No Name” is one of them. It might be one of the best album openers of its decade, in all honesty.
16 "Bohemian Rhapsody" (1975)
Queen
There wouldn’t be riots in the streets or anything if you ranked great classic rock songs and didn’t include something by Queen, but there might be riots in the comment section. That’s not as bad, but it’s still worth avoiding. So, yes, here’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which kind of has to be here for similar reasons to “Smoke on the Water” and “Sunshine of Your Love,” but this one’s worth ranking higher because even with overplay, the song’s still great.
Maybe that varies. To some, a breaking point may have been reached, but it takes longer to get there, in any event, with “Bohemian Rhapsody,” compared to other utterly ubiquitous classic rock songs. It’s also got that opera section (between a guitar solo that concludes a longer ballad section, and the hard rock section), so that’s not really rock, but it sure is something. It works, is the main thing, and the way “Bohemian Rhapsody” shifts around and does daring stuff, all the while still being so approachable, does make it an undeniably impressive song.
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