Jay-Z Writes For Rolling Stone, Shares Which Of His Songs Are Classics

Oh Jay-Z. Even if she doesn’t have an album out he finds some kind of way to stay on the blogs, I guess we’re not helping that though since I’m writing about him right now. Anyway, Jay recently sat down and wrote for Rolling Stone magazine about his thoughts on what makes a song a classic. He also decided to tell us which of his songs he considers to be classics:

“A great song doesn’t attempt to be anything — it just is,” he begins, lauding Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” “When you hear a great song, you can think of where you were when you first heard it, the sounds, the smells. It takes the emotions of a moment and holds it for years to come. It transcends time. A great song has all the key elements — melody; emotion; a strong statement that becomes part of the lexicon; and great production.”

And which Jay-Z song is classic?

“Some of my best songs aren’t the biggest ones. A song like ‘Can I Live’ is so full of emotion to me — it was better than ‘Hard Knock Life’ or  ’Empire State of Mind,’ but it lacked that accessibility. ­Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall album may not have been bigger than Thriller, but the songs had better melodies.”