The 15 Best Songs About the End of the World

Related: The Best Songs of 2014 (So Far)

Though not typically known for taking on a darker tone, pioneering Bay Area duo Blackalicious took time out on their 2002 LP Blazing Arrowto lament the state of the world. While Chief Xcel set the stage with his anxious, densely melodic production, Gift of Gab painted a picture of a world in decline, morally corrupt from top to bottom. "Sky Is Falling" provides images of apocalypse and invokes the biblical Book of Revelation, but speaks more of social, ethical breakdown making way for worse times to come.

While there isn't one particular song in Busta Rhymes' catalog that chronicles the end of days, the animated, fast-rapping emcee spent much of his early career fixated on apocalypse. From his debut solo album The Coming, to its follow-up When Disaster Strikes, up to his third album, the quite explicit holy-shit-we're-all-dead titled Extinction Level Event: The Final World Front, Busta peppered skits, lyrics, and visual references to the oncoming hellfire and brimstone of Y2K. Unfortunately, we all stuck around in the new millennium and he decided to make that song with Mariah Carey.

Few musicians do doom and gloom like Nine Inch Nails mastermind Trent Reznor. Typically, he sulks and screams to a stomping beat, and much of 1999's bloated The Fragile was no different. On "The Day The World Went Away," Reznor eschews percussion entirely for altering sections of crunching, distorted guitar crushes and eery, lilting acoustic guitar and synths. It is a typical NIN arrangement made fresh with the smart choice to cut the drums, building an intriguing atmosphere to tackle armageddon.

As Busta Rhymes warned of the coming apocalypse across his first three albums, fellow New York emcee Method Man crystallized Y2K paranoia in his 1998 single "Judgement Day." Though the verses comprised Meth's typically intricate shit talk, the chorus counted listeners down to a new millennium that promised "anarchy, genocide, starvation," plague, and generally taking a turn for the unpleasant.

After rising to fame in the UK, Robbie Williams hit American shores with his apocalyptically minded single "Millennium." Singing of a superficial society that "lives for liposuction" and will "overdose for Christmas," but "give it up for Lent," Williams lampoons the lux culture that had helped make him into an international music star while warning of our demise. The symphonic chorus sums up his outlook succinctly: "We got stars directing our fate/And we're praying it's not too late/'Cause we know we're falling from grace/Millennium."

Before taking a turn for the dub side of the moon, Muse fused Queen-level histrionics with arena ready guitars and wails. Perhaps no event is more suited for Muse's early musical stylings than the apocalypse, with lead-singer Matthew Bellamy announcing "it's time for something biblical" before declaring "this is the end of the world," as drums and guitars chug along behind him.

No one knows how to have a good time like Morrissey knows how to have a good time. After all, nothing says party all the time like the lyric "everyday is silent and grey." Telling the story of a survivor of nuclear holocaust ("Hide on the promenade, etch a postcard/How I dearly wish I was not here/In the seaside town that they forgot to bomb/Come, come, come, nuclear bomb"), Morrissey uses a surprisingly light-spirited orchestral arrangement to lend a layer of irony to the bleakest of outlooks.

Beginning with the mocking welcome, "At last/the day of the blast/disaster/welcome to the hereafter," Mr. Lif ushers in man made destruction over sampled explosions and a slapping beat. While Def Jux's early 2000s output inhabited a generally apocalyptic mindset, Lif tackled man's demise headlong and in a political context, lamenting nuclear proliferation and mutually assured destruction close at hand. A take on the topic as visceral as it is intelligent.

Well, you didn't exactly think this would be a cheery number with a title like that, did you? True to its title's promise, "The Earth Died Screaming" is a harrowing, bizarre three and a half minutes, delivered with Tom Waits ineffable rumbling wit and growl. The first two verses set an unmistakably apocalyptic tone, but it is the final verse that invokes the most horribly surreal images, perhaps on this whole list: "There was thunder, there was lighting/ And then the stars went out/And the moon fell from the sky/It rained mackerel, it rained trout."

The list of horrors in the Clash's "London Calling" paints a picture of man made destruction and societal breakdown: "The ice age is coming, the sun's zooming in/Engines stop running, the wheat is growing thin/A nuclear error but I have no fear/'Cause London is drowning and I, I live by the river." With its stomping rhythm and roiling bassline, "London Calling" matches its bleak outlook with a darkly uptempo march towards oblivion.

Perhaps no band has ever sounded as cheery for the world to end as R.E.M. on their signature 1987 single "It's the End of the World As We Know It." Though the band tackles typical apocalyptic imagery("That's great, it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes, an aeroplane/Lenny Bruce is not afraid. Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn"), the jarring juxtaposition of the upbeat melody, Michael Stipe's declaration, "It's the end of the world as we know it/And I feel fine"), and end of days visions that makes "It's the End of the World" one of the most unnerving and effective entries on this list.

As the closing song on Peter Gabriel solo debut--his first album after splitting from Genesis--"Here Comes the Flood" laments the end of days within the framework of the multi-talented singer's grandiose rock. "Drink up, dreamers, you're running dry," Gabriel sings at the song's opening, later warning "Lord, here comes the flood/We'll say goodbye to flesh and blood."

Towards the end of Johnny Cash's life, the iconic country singer teamed with famed producer Rick Rubin to create a series of stark, stripped down albums known as the American Recordings series. The title track of the final album in the four disc sequence, American IV: The Man Comes Around, provided one of Cash's most hauntingly inspired moments, as the man in black mined the Bible's apocalyptic Book of Revelations for inspiration.

In an interview with NPR, Mick Jagger said of "Gimme Shelter": "It was a very moody piece about the world closing in on you a bit...When it was recorded, early '69 or something, it was a time of war and tension, so that's reflected in this tune. It's still wheeled out when big storms happen, as they did the other week. It's been used a lot to evoke natural disaster." Indeed, one of the Rolling Stones' greatest recordings is a thorough invocation of dark times, a tense, bristling arrangement with lyrics that warn of the threatening storm, war, sweeping fires, rape, and murder.

The ultimate in end of the world odes. During his 80s reign, the Purple One always knew how to infuse infectious life into even the most morbid topics, and "1999" is certainly no different, framing Y2K (still almost two decades away at the time Prince released "1999") as cause for the party to end all parties. Even though the earth kept spinning in 2000, Prince's "1999" remains one of music's finest party anthems, a paranoid invitation to get down while you still can.