4 Short Songs That Impacted Rock Music in Less Than Three Minutes

Sometimes you only need a little time to say a lot. The rock songs on this list are all short and without a second wasted. It’s amazing how much one can accomplish in only a couple of minutes. The first track helped start a musical movement, while the next one ended another. A few years later, a Detroit duo made the blues contemporary by reacting against a world consumed by modern technology. And finally, we’ll end with a groundbreaking guitarist who did more to impact rock music in less than three minutes than many artists achieve in a lifetime.  

Videos by American Songwriter

“You Really Got Me” by The Kinks

The Kinks recorded one of the earliest and greatest rock riffs in history. With a total running time of two minutes and change, “You Really Got Me” helped break The Kinks in the United States before being banned in the country. It paved the way for punk but also offered a blueprint for the hard rock guitar riff. Van Halen’s excellent cover version appears on its 1978 debut. It follows “Eruption” on an album showing the groundbreaking effects of The Kinks’ short and perfectly arranged classic.

“Song 2” by Blur

One of Britpop’s giants had its biggest hit with a very American-sounding indie rock track. Blur recorded “Song 2” as a joke directed at the band’s record label. You want a hit, here’s a hit for you! However, to Blur’s surprise, the label loved the noisy anti-hit they’d recorded. Guitarist Graham Coxon plays the riff like a pop music saboteur. Meanwhile, singer Damon Albarn shouts distorted “woo-hoos” into a microphone, a far cry from the initial acoustic version he’d written. Britpop would soon be over.

“Fell In Love With A Girl” by The White Stripes

In less than two minutes, “Fell In Love With A Girl” helped launch The White Stripes to the forefront of the garage and indie rock revival of the early 2000s. No one made more noise with fewer components than The White Stripes. The Detroit duo didn’t have a bass player. But Jack and Meg White caused enough racket to help transform the American rock music scene. Yes, some of the gimmicks were strange: Are they brother and sister or husband and wife, and what’s up with the red, white, and black all the time? What was unrehearsed? The music and a new kind of blues.

“Purple Haze” by The Jimi Hendrix Experience

Speaking of making the blues sound new, “Purple Haze” feels almost like an epic as it nears the three-minute mark. Not because of the track’s running time, but because Jimi Hendrix crams one iconic riff after another in one of the most important psychedelic rock tunes in history. No one had heard guitar playing like this before. Hendrix caused Eric Clapton to second-guess himself, and that’s a guy they called God.

Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images