Top 10 major rock hits of 1968

The major rock hits of 1968 epitomise the ruthlessness of creative freedom between the Summer of Love and Woodstock... The best songs of 1968 largely avoided the hippie trappings that dominated the two years that followed. The most important bands of the decade, including the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, made some of their greatest albums that year. What's best on our list of the 10 best songs of 1968? Unequivocally, the timelessness of the music ...

10. Steppenwolf - "Born to Be Wild"

The counterculture classic Steppenwolf is practically a musical symbol of the late 60s. The signature opening guitar riff, John Kay's hoarse growl and the idealistic theme of complete and uncompromising freedom conjure up images of a parade of motorbikes roaming along endless stretches of grey highway in search of... what? Ah, the '60s!

9. The Kinks - "Waterloo Sunset"

By 1968, Kinks frontman Ray Davies had moved away from his band's familiar three-chord garage rock and replaced it with a more musically lush and ambitious setting. Over the next few years, he wrapped the mores of Victorian England in pastoral melodies that were both nostalgic hints at his country's heritage and sarcastic jabs... The Kinks' fifth album, Something Else, was a challenge for everyone: "Waterloo Sunset" is a decidedly cool late-'60s follow-up....

8. Big Brother & the Holding Company - "Piece of My Heart"

Without Janis Joplin, Big Brother & the Holding Company were a little-known blues-rock band from San Francisco that barely stood out in the city's crowded scene. But Joplin elevated them with her loud, muscular voice that conveyed as much joy as pain... Their breakthrough hit - a cover of Aretha Franklin's R&B song - was Joplin taking full control. It sounds magical...

7. Cream - "White Room"

The third album from power trio Cream, dubbed "Wheels of Fire" and consisting of half live and half new material, is beginning to rule when the band is on stage. But the studio track, the hit single that opens the record, "White Room" represents one of Cream's greatest performances! Of particular note is Eric Clapton's guitar, which sounds smoother than Jack Bruce's strained vocals...

6. The Rolling Stones - "Jumpin' Jack Flash"

The Rolling Stones were at the height of their popularity in 1968... After the failed 1967 psychedelic experiment "Their Satanic Majesties Request", the Stones did away with the kaleidoscopic imagery and embarked on a new set of blues-inspired songs. Most of the tracks were included in the magnificent Beggars Banquet album... And "Jumpin' Jack Flash" was the gem of the record!

5. The Beatles - "Hey Jude"

Recorded during the tense sessions with the White Album, but released as a single a couple of months before, "Hey Jude" displays the Beatles at their most popular form...It's a prime example of the whole band temporarily settling their differences for one of their most popular and fun songs....

4. The Band - "The Weight"

This band was an underground legend even before their debut album was released. They supported Bob Dylan on his controversial and confrontational 1966 tour of Britain and recorded a bunch of songs with him at their home in Woodstock, NY. And just like Dylan's "John Wesley Harding," released in late 1967, "Music From Big Pink" is a powerful record wrapped in hippie payoff. "The Weight" is a timeless classic of an album that is still being re-recorded by new generations of artists more than 40 years later.....

3. The Beatles - "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"

Despite the Beatles' heavy responsibility for the Summer of Love, thanks to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1968 proved to be a year of peace and love... The four members mostly acted as each other's backing bands on the double disc White Album. George Harrison's guitar epic is the centrepiece of the album. One of the band's finest works...

2. The Jimi Hendrix Experience - "All Along the Watchtower"

Like the Beatles, Hendrix followed up his two 1967 masterpieces with a double album that was more complex and daring than anything he'd ever recorded. "Electric Ladyland" is filled with guitar motifs, studio musings and excursions into psychedelic blues...One of the album's most traditional tracks is also its best - a cover of Dylan's recent song "All Along the Watchtower," proudly towering over the original....

1. The Rolling Stones - "Sympathy for the Devil".

Beggars Banquet - This Rolling Stones album is filled with blues covers and songs that sound like blues covers, as well as a heightened sense of menace that would consume the band over the next few years. "Sympathy for the Devil" is the introduction to it all: a simmering six-minute cauldron fuelled by conga fuelled reputations of darkness that boil over from one of Keith Richards' most brutal guitar solos ever... This is the flip side of Summer of Love.