17 items
The piano riff every kid who took lessons tried to learn. Vanessa Carlton's "A Thousand Miles" owned 2002 radio, then got a whole second life in White Chicks, with Terry Crews belting every word in absolute earnest. It belongs equally to burned CDs, karaoke nights, and the meme age that followed.
An Irish girl group that made denim a uniform and Irish-dance breaks a statement. Their debut single entered the UK chart at #1, making them — at the time — the youngest girl group ever to top it.
After a decade fronting No Doubt, Gwen Stefani reinvented herself as a solo pop force in 2004 — dropping "Hollaback Girl," parading her Harajuku Girls, and launching a fashion empire. It was maximalist, brand-savvy 2000s pop at its peak.
"Upside, inside out, she's livin' la vida loca..." — the horn-blasted crossover smash that made Ricky Martin a global superstar overnight and kicked the door open for 1999's Latin pop explosion. Five weeks at number one, and a whole summer of everyone yelling the chorus.
![Video thumbnail — Lou Bega - Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit Of...) [Official Music Video]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/n2qgHu7HJLw/maxresdefault.jpg)
"A little bit of Monica in my life, a little bit of Erica by my side..." — Lou Bega dug up a 1949 Cuban mambo, added a roll call of girls' names and a zoot suit, and created the most inescapable song of 1999. You still can't hear a trumpet stab without finishing the list.
![Video thumbnail — Michelle Branch - Everywhere [Official Music Video]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/HLCasyAh7ic/maxresdefault.jpg)
A teenager who wrote her own songs and played her own guitar in a sea of choreographed teen-pop — Michelle Branch's "Everywhere" was the anti-TRL anthem that somehow became peak TRL. That driving guitar, the spy-on-the-cute-neighbor video, and the fact that she wrote it herself made her the authentic alternative of fall 2001.
![Video thumbnail — Ne-Yo - Miss Independent [Official Video]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/k6M5C-oKw9k/maxresdefault.jpg)
The guy who wrote some of the biggest R&B songs of the mid-2000s before his own voice became equally unavoidable. Ne-Yo went from invisible hitmaker to chart-dominating artist in one album cycle — and never stopped being both at once.
The compilation-album franchise that dominated music retail in the 2000s, where rapid-fire TV commercials scrolled the entire current-radio tracklist, and every kid rushed to own the one disc that had everything on it. One CD, every hit on the radio — no allowance wasted on a single.
A teenager from Barbados who walked into a New York audition and walked out with a six-album deal, then spent the back half of the 2000s taking over pop radio. From the steel-drum bounce of 'Pon de Replay' to the umbrella-ella-ella hook that owned the summer of 2007, Robyn Rihanna Fenty went from island newcomer to global star before she turned 21.
"Chic-a-cherry cola"—the tongue-twister hook that introduced Savage Garden. Darren Hayes' impossibly fast verse delivery over jittery synth-pop became impossible not to remember.
An Australian pop-duo lightning strike: Savage Garden arrived in 1997 with a perfectly crafted self-titled album and didn't leave the radio for three years straight. Two studio albums, two #1 hits, 23 million copies sold — and then, in 2001, a quiet goodbye with no decline to mourn. A pop career that knew when to stop.
![Video thumbnail — Ne-Yo - So Sick [Official Video]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/IxszlJppRQI/maxresdefault.jpg)
The heartbreak ballad that made Ne-Yo a star, 'So Sick' hit number one the very week his debut album did. The premise is pure heartbreak: a guy can't escape love songs on the radio because every one reminds him of his ex.
"Wannabe," Girl Power, and five color-coded personas — Baby, Scary, Sporty, Ginger, and Posh — that turned a British pop group into a global phenomenon. Their faces sold everything from lunchboxes to soft drinks, and their debut became the best-selling album ever by a female group.
The wobbly-sweet Canadian brother-sister one-hit wonder: a hungover-sounding boy-girl trade-off over a looping disco sample, sun-bleached and effortless. If 1999 had an official lazy-summer-afternoon soundtrack, this was it.
"I like girls that wear Abercrombie & Fitch..." — LFO's nonsense-couplet summer anthem rhymed Chinese food with Bruce Willis and somehow became the sound of 1999. New Kids on the Block, macaroni and cheese; it made no sense and everyone knew every word.
"If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends" — the debut single that launched the Spice Girls, "Girl Power," and the immortal nonsense of "zig-a-zig-ah." Filmed in one continuous take storming a posh London hotel, it became the best-selling single by a girl group in history.
"Candy" arrived in 1999, when she was fifteen, in the same debut class as Britney, Christina, and Jessica Simpson. Critics sorted her into the softest lane of the four — and then she spent the early 2000s playing mean girls on screen, walked away from teen pop with an album of 70s and 80s covers, and quietly outlasted the category she'd been filed under.