Best Songs of the 2000s — Top 100

OutKast

Andre 3000's genre-defying burst of joy — part new wave, part funk, entirely unprecedented and utterly irresistible.

Eminem

The most viscerally effective motivational rap song ever written — a performance of total commitment.

Beyoncé

The brass hook, the Isley Brothers sample, Jay-Z's verse — Beyoncé announcing a solo superstar with total authority.

The Strokes

Is This It's calling card — New York cool distilled into three minutes of effortless guitar.

Usher

Lil Jon's crunk production and Usher's dance floor command — the defining party record of the decade.

Amy Winehouse

The most sardonic, soulful, and self-aware debut single of the decade — Winehouse arriving fully formed.

The White Stripes

The riff that became a football stadium staple worldwide — Jack White reducing rock to its essential bones.

Alicia Keys

Piano and voice — Keys arriving as a genuine soul powerhouse with no gimmicks.

Jay-Z

The Blueprint opener — Jay-Z coronating himself over an I Want You Back sample.

Kanye West

The song that proved hip-hop could be explicitly religious and commercially dominant simultaneously.

Kelly Clarkson

Pop-rock as emotional release — the most exhilarating breakup song of its decade.

Nelly Furtado

Timbaland's drumless funk and Furtado's comeback as pop's most self-possessed figure.

Justin Timberlake

Timbaland's production and JT's wounded confidence — the decade's great revenge pop song.

Rihanna

The song that transformed Rihanna from pop star to cultural fixture — sparse, perfect, unforgettable.

Arcade Fire

Funeral's communal climax — voices joining until the room is full.

Franz Ferdinand

The angular pivot from intro to verse — post-punk revival's greatest pop moment.

LCD Soundsystem

Piano repetition building to one of the decade's great choruses — James Murphy's middle-aged disco.

MIA

The Clash sample and gunshots on a pop track — M.I.A. making politics undeniably catchy.

Gnarls Barkley

The first download-only UK No. 1 — Danger Mouse's production and Cee Lo's voice over an Ennio Morricone sample.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Karen O's most vulnerable moment — the love song she wrote for her then-boyfriend as he was deployed.

Coldplay

Chris Martin's apology and devotion — the most beautiful thing in Coldplay's catalogue.

Radiohead

Amnesiac's most accessible track — Jonny Greenwood's guitar as the sound of approaching doom.

Interpol

Post-punk revival done with absolute conviction — darkwave as New York City aesthetic.

The Killers

The paranoid love song that has never left the UK charts — two decades and still arriving somewhere.

Bloc Party

Silent Alarm's most electrifying moment — angular post-punk at its most kinetic.

Arctic Monkeys

The most exciting debut single of the decade — Alex Turner's wordplay arriving at speed.

Kaiser Chiefs

Leeds post-punk with the best chorus of its year — sardonic and anthemic simultaneously.

Sufjan Stevens

Illinois's crowning moment — folk orchestration building to an emotional peak.

Modest Mouse

Isaac Brock's optimism breakthrough — the indie band's first and deserved mainstream hit.

Death Cab for Cutie

Plans's opening statement — Ben Gibbard's indie folk-rock at its most commercially accessible.

Norah Jones

Jazz-pop intimacy that won eight Grammys and sold 27 million albums.

Jack Johnson

Acoustic pop of such warmth that it became the decade's most-used wedding song.

Jason Mraz

Island pop-folk that charted for 76 weeks in the US — the most persistent hit of the decade.

John Mayer

The guitar performance and the lyric — Mayer operating at the intersection of pop and blues brilliance.

Feist

The Apple iPod ad that turned an indie song into a cultural moment — effortlessly charming.

Iron & Wine

Sam Beam's quiet guitar and whispered voice — indie folk before anyone called it that.

Bon Iver

Justin Vernon alone in a Wisconsin cabin producing one of indie music's great heartbroken documents.

Fleet Foxes

The baroque folk harmony opener that made Fleet Foxes the critics' darling of 2008.

Vampire Weekend

Afropop influences and Ivy League wordplay as a two-minute indie pop explosion.

Animal Collective

Psychedelic indie pop about domestic contentment — the most influential indie album of the decade.

Grizzly Bear

Harmony and orchestration as indie pop — Veckatimest's centrepiece.

MGMT

Oracular Spectacular's defining synth-pop moment — childhood nostalgia as something haunting.

Passion Pit

Micro-processed vocals and euphoric production — the most sonically innovative indie pop of its year.

Chvrches

Scottish synth-pop arriving with complete confidence — Lauren Mayberry's voice over immaculate production.

Lykke Li

Swedish indie pop of crystalline beauty — the Magician remix making it a global phenomenon.

The xx

The debut album's instrumental opening that launched one of the decade's most influential aesthetics.

Florence + the Machine

Florence Welch's operatic pop voice arriving as something entirely original.

Adele

The debut that announced one of the decade's great voices — piano-pop of total emotional honesty.

Duffy

Welsh soul revival — Duffy channelling 1960s R&B through a contemporary production.

Lily Allen

Ska-pop revenge comedy — Allen's debut as the sharpest pop songwriter of the mid-2000s UK scene.

Lady GaGa

The debut that promised everything — Gaga's electropop arrival as a statement of future intent.

Katy Perry

Max Martin and the most dynamic breakup pop song of its year.

Taylor Swift

The crossover that made Swift a pop phenomenon — country narrative with universal romantic appeal.

Ke$ha

The decade's most irresponsible party anthem — and the most purely fun.

Flo Rida

Dead or Alive sampled into the decade's most inescapable hip-hop pop hook.

Black Eyed Peas

Twelve weeks at No. 1 and at every party for three years — the communal anthem of the late 2000s.

Nelly

Pharrell's Chuck Brown sample and an effortlessly cool summer anthem.

Ludacris

The decade's most confident rap party record — Luda at his commercial peak.

Lil Wayne

Bangladesh's minimal production and Wayne's stream-of-consciousness flow — the decade's most discussed rap verse.

T.I.

The most romantic trap music ever made — T.I.'s most commercially successful statement.

Young Jeezy

The sound of trap music crystallising — Akon's hook and Jeezy's Atlanta street sermon.

Gucci Mane

Trap music's founding father at peak power — the Atlanta aesthetic codified.

Rick Ross

The debut that made Ross a Miami legend — luxury rap as self-mythology.

Soulja Boy

The first viral internet hip-hop hit — MySpace and YouTube combining to launch a career from scratch.

Drake

Kanye-produced and Degrassi-star delivered — the mixtape track that launched one of the decade's biggest careers.

Nicki Minaj

The mixtape era Nicki delivering the most ferocious female rap performance of the decade.

Kanye West

Ray Charles and Jamie Foxx as the delivery vehicle for Kanye's biggest commercial moment.

Jay-Z & Kanye West

The Watch the Throne preview — two of hip-hop's greatest egos, no apologies.

Gorillaz

De La Soul over Damon Albarn's virtual band — Demon Days' commercial centrepiece.

Daft Punk

Discovery's centrepiece — the vocoder and the hook as the signature of electronic music's greatest duo.

Chemical Brothers

Q-Tip over a drum loop — big beat at its most collaboratively excellent.

Basement Jaxx

The most joyfully chaotic electronic track of its year — Basement Jaxx at their most anarchic.

Justice

French electro-pop as disco homage — the Michael Jackson tribute that became the year's best electronic single.

Massive Attack

Elizabeth Fraser's voice over the trip-hop groove — technically a 1998 release that defined the 2000s mood.

Portishead

The Third comeback track — one of the most startling returns in alternative music.

Radiohead

In Rainbows' quiet centre — the best self-released album in history containing this understated masterpiece.

Sigur Rós

The Icelandic post-rock song used in more inspirational montages than any other.

Explosions in the Sky

The Friday Night Lights soundtrack closer — instrumental post-rock as pure emotional statement.

Stars

The most cinematically heartbreaking song in Canadian indie pop — Set Yourself on Fire's centrepiece.

Broken Social Scene

Repetition as emotional devastation — indie rock as therapy.

Neutral Milk Hotel

Technically a 1998 release that was discovered by the blog generation — the Internet era's favourite cult record.

Bright Eyes

Conor Oberst's most nakedly confessional lyric — indie folk at its most emotionally unguarded.

Mountain Goats

The most cheerfully bitter song ever written about a failing marriage.

Gillian Welch

The most incisive response to Napster-era music piracy as a folk lament.

Wilco

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot's most accessible moment — the song Reprise refused to release.

My Chemical Romance

The emo anthem of its year — Gerard Way's theatrical presentation of grief as rock spectacle.

Fall Out Boy

The most commercially successful emo song — the hook impossible to resist.

Paramore

Hayley Williams's pop-punk declaration — RIOT!'s centrepiece and the decade's best female-fronted rock single.

Panic! at the Disco

Theatrical emo at its most commercially successful — the vaudeville pop-punk song that crossed over.

Taking Back Sunday

Post-hardcore as emo pop — the song that launched the scene's commercial wave.

Brand New

Deja Entendu's most explosive track — the song that divided emo from its own past.

Underoath

Christian metalcore as the decade's most emotionally invested hard music.

Thursday

The post-hardcore scene's most melodic moment — Full Collapse's emotional peak.

Hawthorne Heights

Emo as pure geographical heartbreak — the scene distilled into a perfect single.

The Used

Post-hardcore vulnerability over distorted guitars — the debut album's defining statement.

Linkin Park

Meteora's most emotionally resonant track — Bennington's voice channelling a generation's alienation.

Evanescence

Fallen's centrepiece — the rock-pop crossover that broke the album worldwide.

Nickelback

The most commercially successful Canadian rock band of the decade at their most anthemic.

Dashboard Confessional

Acoustic emo at its most romantically generous — the scene's best love song.

Death Cab for Cutie

The most quietly devastating declaration of devotion in indie music.

What was the biggest song of the 2000s?

"Hey Ya!" by OutKast (2003) is considered the decade's defining pop moment, though "Crazy in Love" by Beyoncé and "Lose Yourself" by Eminem are serious contenders for cultural impact.

What music was popular in the 2000s?

The 2000s were defined by pop-punk and emo in the early years, indie rock's blog era, hip-hop's commercial dominance, R&B crossover acts like Beyoncé and Usher, and the rise of electropop toward the decade's end.

What was the best rap song of the 2000s?

"Lose Yourself" by Eminem (2002) is the most critically acclaimed rap song of the decade, though "Jesus Walks" by Kanye West and "Izzo (H.O.V.A.)" by Jay-Z are frequently cited alongside it.

What was the best indie song of the 2000s?

"Hey Ya!" by OutKast, "All My Friends" by LCD Soundsystem, "Wake Up" by Arcade Fire, and "Soul Meets Body" by Death Cab for Cutie are considered the decade's greatest indie moments.