“Hold On” by Alabama Shakes

"Hold On" led the way for Boys & Girls, Alabama Shakes' 2012 album, going out as its first single that February, and it also turns up on the band's self-titled EP. Brittany Howard, Heath Fogg, Zac Cockrell and Steve Johnson wrote it together, and they produced it with Andrija Tokic, who recorded and engineered it, keeping it warm, loose and live-sounding, Southern rock with grit in its veins.

Everything hangs on Howard. She slides from a low, smoky croon to a full-throated howl, and the words carry a hard-won wisdom that belies how young she was. Rolling Stone named it the best song of 2012, and years later NPR ranked it the fifth-best song of the century by a woman or non-binary artist.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.