I'd lean toward something like a track from Glen Gould's 1981 recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations. Does that count as a "song"?

"Ode to Joy" -- And I start with the slow buildup to the CHORUS OF VOICES SINGING TOGETHER AND OH HOW BEAUTIFUL IT IS!

I am reasonably sure they'd want to hear more after that first 10 seconds.

f*** a culture, I'm running

Well, I hope the album cover doesn't scare them, but maybe Archangels Thunderbird.

Guaranteed irreversible metaquantum dissociation of the planet: Disco Duck.

Glenn Gould and Bach (though not the Goldberg) are already in outer space, perhaps meeting the aliens halfway.

Right this moment I am playing Liszt's "Fantasie ueber ungarische Volksmelodien". That works for me.

Guaranteed destruction of our planet: O Holy Night.

I encourage you to listen to the whole thing if you never have. You'll thank me later.

I've sung the whole thing, English AND Latin.

Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft

Wait, ten seconds? I need seven minutes.

If I had one piece of music to play, I think I'd choose Charles Ives' The Unanswered Question. Different parts follow different tempos; treble strings emerge from the cosmic landscape -- Ives calls this "the Silences of the Druids—who Know, See and Hear Nothing" -- until a plangent trumpet asks "The Perennial Question of Existence" several times. The woodwinds seek "The Invisible Answer" and they fail each time. Their attempts, at first earnest, grow increasingly antic, jeering, and sullen. Finally the woodwinds give up, leaving the Question to the Silences.

I believe it would be well-received by aliens. It's enlightening, it's about humans, and I figure aliens impressed by earthlings who pose such concepts in musical form might respect our evolution and spare our elimination.

Here is our present day culture summed up in 3 minutes. Sorry, I'm ashamed of myself.

But actually, I'd go with this. (nsfw words)

Nonstop Mozart. We've never topped him.

Raymond 'Powerhouse' Scott's "Manhattan Research Inc." album. One of the few examples of experimental musical genius I've ever actually enjoyed listening to. Then throw in more of the electronic music he did in the infancy of the equipment and his earlier pieces of small-big-band music that were hits despite not being easy to dance to.

10 seconds? I got nothin' in that time-frame. Give me 10 minutes and I'll give them 'Amused to Death'. You know, just to explain what they're seeing.

I'd ask them how they justify a culture that goes around asking other cultures to justify themselves. Then I'd give them the smallpox blankets.

Chopin preludes!

Clarify: 10 seconds to put on a song (make up your mind on what to play).

Honestly, I totally didn't see Roger Waters being pulled up and I lulz at Rickroll.

Eideteker: rub it in there good! be sure to get the corners.

Safety Dance. I've always thought aliens would like that song.

What? No way. The one true answer is

Monster Magnet, "Space Lord Motherfucker."