ROLLiNGStONE - PLAYLiSt SPECiAL - MARK RONSON

When Mark Ronson was in college, a friend turned him on to Stevie Wonder's Talking Book. "She said, 'You've never heard "Maybe Your Baby"?' and I said, 'No, what's that?' " Ronson remembers. "She threw it on. I was more than dumbfounded. I thought, 'Fuck, I could have been listening to this my entire life!' " For this list, he chose the songs that move him the most. "Stevie Wonder is the only musician I know who touches every single person I've ever met, from punk kids to indie kids to hip-hop kids."

1. "Big Brother" 1972
   I can't say enough to do justice to this song. He played every instrument on it, and he's one of the best drummers ever. There are political undertones, and an amazing chord progression — so beautiful. Then on a dime he turns it into the most awesome fucking blues melody.
2. "All I Do" 1980
   This was a disco classic — most hip-hop DJs had that somewhere in their crate — but it became my song. I would end every DJ set with it. This could be my wedding song.
3. "I Was Made to Love Her" 1967
   He was probably 16 when he sang this, and it's like hearing Michael Jackson sing as a child — you can't believe he could have possibly felt the pain and angst of love at that age, but the performance is so heartfelt and anguished and believable. If I'm in a certain mood and I listen to that song, all two minutes of it, it can move me to tears.
4. "Superwoman (Where Were You When I Needed You)" 1972
   When he hits "Where are you when I needed you" on this song, it's like fucking gulp city. The swelling of the Moog and the synth, the chords, the melody – it's perfect, like "Eleanor Rigby" perfect.
5. "As" 1976
   I played this one a lot during DJ sets too. It was like, "OK, I'm gonna throw this one on and everyone will have a soul dance-off/love-in." It's perfect; at the end he goes on a three-minute ad-lib. His ad-libs are better than most people's main melody.
6. "I Don't Know Why" 1968
   All I can say is that this is one of my favorite vocals of all time.
7. "Happier Than the Morning Sun" 1972
   I love the clavinet, the way it moves. Stevie was so amazing at borrowing from baroque and other classical forms of music.
8. "That Girl" 1981
   This is very Eighties, but it's one of his classics. It starts out a bit of a sleeper, but when that chorus hits, everyone on the dance floor says, "Oh, yeah, this is the best song ever."
9. "I Believe (When I Fall in Love It Will Be Forever)" 1972
   This is another one that makes me cry, especially when I'm with someone I love. It's so uplifting. It starts with those bossa nova- like chords he was playing so much at that point, then it lifts up into the most incredibly joyous chorus. Then there's that fucking badass coda — the meanest stomp I've heard.
10. "Living for the City" 1973
    This one still hits me the hardest. It's the weirdest progression ever. He's layering all these keyboard tracks. Then you have the narrative that comes in about New York. It sounds like he's desperate to get his message across.

ROLLiNGStONE - tHE PLAYLiSt SPECiAL - ERYKAH BADU

Growing up in the Seventies, I was a child of the funk," says Dallas-bred Badu. "My favorite songs were happy, funky love songs: They made my heart burn, they moved me, and they made me want to boogie, too."

1. "Don't Ask My Neighbors" The Emotions, 1977
   The singer has this voice that sounds like a primal wail, but it's very gentle and very romantic.
2. "Natural High"Bloodstone, 1972
   This is a sweep-you-away type song. I used to hear the chorus and imagine Prince Charming. It makes me feel like spinning around and around, looking up at the sky and hoping I never get dizzy.
3. "Aqua Boogie" Parliament, 1978
   They laid so far back on that bass. This song is some project shit, you know what I'm saying? It reminds me of pink rollers in your hair and Mama yelling, "Don't slam my screen door!"
4. "As" Stevie Wonder, 1976
   When I hear this song, nobody else exists. The shyest person, if they got any kind of taste, will be up on the floor.
5. "I Wanna Be Your Lover" Prince, 1979
   Radio used to play all six minutes, because it's perfect. PERIOD.
6. "Groove With You" The Isley Brothers, 1978
   That's the barbecue jam! As a kid, it made me want to groove with somebody when I heard it — a teddy bear or something.
7. "Mary Jane" Rick James, 1978
   Of course, I didn't know what "mary jane" referred to back when I first heard this. I thought that he was just talking about some chick! That's the beauty of allegory. Rick James has this voice that almost sounds operatic, but he uses this very simple phrasing. It's an example of a song where it doesn't take a lot to make you feel good.
8. "Free" Deniece Williams, 1976
   Oh, my God. This is my theme song. Every summer I would go to a recreation center where we did musicals and one-act plays and such. I choreographed a dance to this song and performed it wearing a black leotard and tights. What made it great was Williams' amazing vocal range — she sang like a bird.
9. "Our Love"Natalie Cole, 1977
   Every girl in second grade sang this at the talent show. It starts out, "You're my morning star, shining brightly beside me." It's such a sweet song, and it was so sincere, the purest song I'd heard up until that time as a child.
10. "That's the Way of the World" Earth, Wind and Fire, 1975
    When I heard this, it was like there was something that burst out of the ground and surrounded me — like children and flowers and Africa were appearing out of nowhere. And those horns! When Maurice White's voice comes in, it sounds like the voice of God.

ROLLiNGStONE - tHE PLAYLiSt SPECiAL - DRAkE

The Canadian rapper has always admired Hendrix, but when he got a DVD of the guitarist performing at Woodstock, admiration grew into obsession: "I play it constantly on my tour bus," Drake says. "He had to play around 8 a.m., after a huge storm, but he went out there and put on one of the greatest shows I've ever seen. I love watching that before I go onstage. When I played Seattle, we drove out to his grave site. I left a note for him that said, 'Still inspired.' "

1. "Voodoo Chile" 1968
   I use "Voodoo Child" as my nickname when I DJ. This song's just got that classic Hendrix sound. I'm very much into the lyrics — they have a real eerie vibe to them.
2. "All Along the Watchtower" 1968
3. "Machine Gun" 1970
   This song was a protest against the Vietnam War — it's from a time when music was being used to address real-life situations as opposed to just money and cars and women. That's what's most inspiring to me: It's revolution music.
4. "Purple Haze" 1967
   It's one of the greatest guitar songs of all time, and it's also a classic for anybody who likes to indulge in, you know, leaving this world occasionally.
5. "The Wind Cries Mary" 1967
   It's, like, psychedelic bluegrass rock — a sound he invented and really crafted and perfected.
6. "Little Miss Strange" 1968
   It's got a crisper sound than most of his songs.
7. "Hey Joe" 1967
   My guitar player and I talk about Hendrix a lot. He knows way more than I do. When I hear this song, I imagine I'm a kid at Woodstock.
8. "Star Spangled Banner" 1970
   He's ripping the national anthem apart with a sound that's just so aggressive. You can hear his pain in his playing.
9. "House Burning Down"1968
   Hendrix's music was very psychedelic, but it could also be nightmarish. I didn't realize until later that this song was about riots in urban communities. The burning house, the smoke: He paints a really scary portrait.
10. "Foxy Lady" 1967
    That opening riff, it's like a drop off a cliff. I've been trying to figure out how to sample it for, like, six months now. I'm not sure if I should even touch it.

ROLLiNGStONE - tHE PLAYLiSt SPECIAL - ?UEStLOVE

Artists Pick Their Personal Top 10s

The Roots drummer converted to the Purple side at age 11 listening to "Lady Cab Driver." "He pulls off a snare battle with himself — you can hear the wood chips hit the floor," ?uestlove says. "It was there that I first felt the passion in his musicianship."

1. "Baby I'm a Star" (Live from Landover, Maryland, Purple Rain tour) - 1984 His "James Brown on The T.A.M.I. Show doing 'Night Train' " moment. He's the best bandleader of his generation — and if I ever need to prove that to someone, this is my surefire crash course.
2. "Movie Star" - 1986 Prince's best display of humor, quirkiness, self-mockery and a dash of funk. This was originally a demo intended for the Time, but I can't see Morris Day waxing poetic about potato chips like this.
3. "Irresistible Bitch" - 1983 "Tricky" - 1984 "Cloreen Bacon Skin" - 1983 A three-way tie between songs that share DNA: funky drums and a bass line in the key of A. No way I could separate 'em.
4. "Little Red Corvette" (12-inch extended version) - 1983 A major face-lift: Prince transforms the song into this sweaty funk-out and — sorry, Diddy! — Prince invented the remix.
5. "Lady Cab Driver" - 1982 "1999" was the kind of album where you couldn't just bite one chip, and this was the mightiest chip.
6. "The Bird" (Rehearsal demo) - 1983 I'm certain Prince would be chagrined by this list of hard-to-find classics (in his eyes: illegal), but practicing and absorbing this song has shaped many a musician's life, including mine — it was all the college I needed. He builds a groove here from the ground up, note by note. This one shows that even the smallest detail is crucial to a song.
7. "The Ballad of Dorothy Parker" - 1987 If Graham Central Station's Release Yourself and Joni Mitchell's Hissing of Summer Lawns fell in love, got married and had a baby.
8. "The Sex of It" (Demo for Kid Creole and the Coconuts) - 1987 Our hero reflects on his dead-end relationship, feeling like a used piece of meat — but don't cue the strings, because we'd all love for women to just want us "for the sex!" This brings his vulnerability to light.
9. "How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore" - 1983 A bare-bones song that shows off his gospel side (the piano), his soul side (the falsetto) and his jazz side (the way he phrases his ad-libs toward the song's fade-out). This song has wound up on every mope/breakup mix I ever made.
10. "Erotic City" - 1984 This is one of his most popular B sides. It's his ode to P-Funk, and it makes for the perfect counterbalance to its A side, "Let's Go Crazy." It also marks the beginning of him singing as a helium-voiced female character named Camille.
11. "A Million Miles (I Love You)" - 1984 I could be the minority here, but I truly believe that if she had been given half a chance, Brenda Bennett (Prince's wardrobe mistress in 81, later one third of both Vanity 6 and Apollonia 6 projects) coulda been a contender.
12. "Something in the Water (Does Not Compute)" - 1982 "Water" is the soundtrack in my head everytime a girl does me wrong.
13. "All My Dreams" - 1986 This song always gave me the impression that perhaps Prince was hip to the "You Can't Do That Onstage Anymore"-era Zappa, using this song as an homage. Shame this never made it as an official release.
14. "Power Fantastic" - 1986 My all time favorite ballad of his. The perfect Sunday afternoon driving song. The flute part kills me everytime.
15. "Strawberry Shortcake" - 1984 A hot sweaty purple funk instrumental workout!