Song · Rodriguez
“Sugar Man” by Rodriguez
From the album Cold Fact (1970)
“Sugar Man” by Rodriguez appears on 6 radio countdowns from 5 stations between 2012 and 2026. It was first released in 1970 on the album Cold Fact. Its best result is #125 on the WXPN Year in Review: Top 200 Songs of 2012. In the combined RockLists rankings it is the #227 indie & aaa song of 2012 and #7,526 indie & aaa song of all time.
Sixto Rodriguez wrote and recorded "Sugar Man" in August and September 1969, and it came out on his debut album, Cold Fact, on Sussex in 1970. Dennis Coffey and Mike Theodore produced it, with Theodore and Milan Bogdan engineering, and every word and note belongs to Rodriguez alone.
Its lyrics carry drug references, and that was enough for South Africa's government to ban it in the 1970s, going as far as scratching copies so radio couldn't play them. The song refused to stay buried: Nas sampled it for "You're Da Man" on Stillmatic in 2001, and David Holmes remixed it for his album Come Get It I Got It in 2003.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Indie & Adult Alternative
All Rock Formats
Year-end countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 125 | WXPN Philadelphia, PA | WXPN Year in Review: Top 200 Songs of 2012 | 200 |
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 581 | WTMD | WTMD Listeners' Top 897 Songs, 2003-2018 | 896 |
| 2019 | 593 | KEXP | KEXP Listeners' Favorite Songs of All Time | 627 |
| 2022 | 705 | 90.9 The Bridge | 90.9 The Bridge Top 909 Songs of the '70s | 908 |
| 2022 | 982 | The Colorado Sound | The Colorado Sound Top 1055 Colorado Sound Songs of All Time | 1055 |
| 2026 | 917 | The Colorado Sound | The Colorado Sound Top 1055 Songs You Discovered on The Colorado Sound | 1055 |
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