"Tik Tok" by Ke$ha
One song, one glitter-caked hook, and the exact second the 2000s became the 2010s. "Tik Tok" arrived on August 7, 2009, as Kesha's debut single — then spent nine weeks at number one making sure everyone on earth had heard it.
Kesha's "Tik Tok" (she was styled as Ke$ha then, dollar sign included) was released on August 7, 2009, as the lead single from her debut album Animal, written with producers Dr. Luke and Benny Blanco. It opens with her waking up in the morning feeling like P. Diddy — and Diddy himself contributed spoken lines to the track. The song's party-girl kit was instantly recognizable: glitter, smeared eyeliner, brushing her teeth with a bottle of Jack. It was a party song that made partying sound like a mandate.
The track dominated. It spent nine consecutive weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 — the first new number one of the 2010s — and became the best-selling digital single in the world in 2010, moving 12.8 million copies according to the IFPI. It was eventually certified 12× Platinum in the United States. And it was everywhere: ringtones, school buses, mall speakers, every radio station, every party. For anyone who was young at the turn of that decade, the opening synth line is a time machine — the precise audio document of the moment the 2000s tipped over into whatever came next.
Similar items
"Fireflies" by Owl City
One guy, one laptop, one unfinished basement in Owatonna, Minnesota — and somehow the #1 song in America. "You would not believe your eyes, if ten million fireflies..." You know the rest. You will always know the rest.
![Video thumbnail — Flo Rida - Low (feat. T-Pain) [Official Video]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/U2waT9TxPU0/hqdefault.jpg)
"Low" by Flo Rida ft. T-Pain
Apple bottom jeans, boots with the fur. One line, and Flo Rida's 2007 debut single became the ringtone anthem of school cafeterias and bus seats everywhere — ten straight weeks at number one, and Billboard's #1 song of 2008.
Ringtones & Crazy Frog
Before smartphones, your ringtone was your personality — monophonic beeps, then polyphonic MIDI, then "real tones," each tier a status upgrade bought from services like Jamster. And looming over the whole era: a CGI frog doing a moped impression, outselling Coldplay.
"Promiscuous" by Nelly Furtado
Nelly Furtado flirting with Timbaland over crisp club production was the sound of a total reinvention: out with the earnest folk-pop, in with sleek and urgent. Released in April 2006, it spent six weeks at #1, became her first American chart-topper, and owned that summer outright.