52 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.
The Detroit teenager who whispered where everyone else belted, and with Timbaland and Missy Elliott bent R&B toward the future. Aaliyah went from "Back & Forth" at 15 to "Try Again," the first song to top the Hot 100 on airplay alone, and died in a plane crash in August 2001 at 22, five weeks after her third album came out.
Mournful piano, Ryan Tedder's cracked falsetto, and Timbaland's clicking beat underneath — "it's too late to apologize" was inescapable in 2007. The remix took a dropped band from MySpace to number two on the Hot 100 and a US radio airplay record.
The younger Simpson sister got her own MTV show, a number-one debut album, and a top-five hit in "Pieces of Me" inside one summer in 2004. Then came October 23 on Saturday Night Live, when the wrong backing track played, she did a little jig and walked off, and one bad night followed her for the rest of the decade.
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.
The doo-wop bassline of "Stand by Me" under a Jamaican-American teenager crooning that beautiful girls have him "suicidal, suicidal" — the inescapable song of summer 2007. Every school hallway sang the hook; half of radio wasn't sure it was allowed to.
![Video thumbnail — Cher - Believe (Official Music Video) [4K Remaster]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/nZXRV4MezEw/hqdefault.jpg)
"Do you believe in life after love?" — though half the school bus could swear she was singing "life after life." Cher's 1998 comeback single was the Auto-Tune big bang: the first time most of the planet heard a human voice warble like a machine, and the moment a 52-year-old icon out-charted the entire pop landscape.
The girl-group superstar who bet on herself and became simply the biggest star in music. From "Crazy in Love" in the summer of 2003 to "Single Ladies" closing out 2008, Beyoncé's solo run WAS the sound of the decade.
The braids, the UPN sitcom, the glass slipper, and the duet that spent thirteen weeks at number one. Brandy was a star at 15 with "I Wanna Be Down," carried Moesha for six seasons, played television's first Black Cinderella in 1997, and with Monica turned a made-up rivalry into "The Boy Is Mine," the best-selling single of 1998.
The Quebec girl who slept in a dresser drawer, won Eurovision, and ended the decade owning the biggest song in the world. Céline Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" topped the charts in more than 25 countries, Falling into You won Album of the Year, and then she went to Las Vegas and showed every pop star what a residency could be.
The Mickey Mouse Club grad who became the 2000s' designated voice—every critic conceded she could really sing, which was the whole point of the rivalry with Britney Spears. She went from a 1999 debut that shipped ten million records to the leather-chaps reinvention of Stripped, proving she was more than a pretty face with pipes.
The summer-of-1998 single that got onto the radio before its singer had a publicity photo: a Los Angeles station started playing it in May, it reached number three on the Hot 100 by September and number one in Australia, Canada and New Zealand, and it left Jennifer Paige known everywhere for one enormous hit.
![Video thumbnail — Gym Class Heroes: Cupid's Chokehold ft. Patrick Stump [OFFICIAL VIDEO]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/eiiU-Fky18s/maxresdefault.jpg)
"Take a look at my girlfriend" — a hook borrowed from Supertramp, sung by Fall Out Boy's Patrick Stump, rapped around by Travie McCoy. "Cupid's Chokehold" shouldn't have worked, and then it was everywhere in 2007.
One of the best-selling girl groups of all time and the defining R&B girl group of the late 1990s and early 2000s, famous for the powerhouse lineup of Beyoncé Knowles, Kelly Rowland, and Michelle Williams. With hits like 'Say My Name,' 'Bills, Bills, Bills,' 'Independent Women,' 'Survivor,' and 'Bootylicious,' they defined an era of confident, sexually liberated pop music while launching Beyoncé toward her eventual superstardom.
The voice that floated out of every car radio in 1998 riding a nectarine through a CGI garden. Faith Hill went from "Wild One" to "This Kiss" to "Breathe," the biggest single of 2000, and took country to the pop charts, the Super Bowl, and the CoverGirl counter, with Tim McGraw beside her from 1996 on.
Stacy Ann Ferguson went from Saturday-morning TV to the voice that powered the Black Eyed Peas' commercial earthquake, then walked straight into solo stardom in 2006. "London Bridge," "Glamorous," "Big Girls Don't Cry" — three Hot 100 chart-toppers off one album — sewed her into the fabric of 2000s pop.
![Video thumbnail — Gnarls Barkley - Crazy (Official Video) [4K Remaster]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/-N4jf6rtyuw/maxresdefault.jpg)
CeeLo Green and Danger Mouse built a soul earthquake on a spaghetti-western sample, watched it make chart history — then deliberately pulled it from stores so nobody would get sick of it. It worked.
![Video thumbnail — Vitamin C - Graduation (Friends Forever) [Official Music Video]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/tz_NxOF7RB4/maxresdefault.jpg)
"As we go on, we remember all the times we had together" — Pachelbel's Canon with a school choir under it, released in March 2000 and played at every commencement since. The song the Class of 2000 marched out to.
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.
One guy, one acoustic guitar, and a song about a girl who turned him down. Two years after it appeared on an album, it was the #1 song in America — and the real Delilah had to live with being everyone's idealized dream girl.
A thirteen-year-old telling off a no-good boyfriend with the vocal control of a grown soul singer. "Get out — right now!" was the kiss-off anthem of 2004, belted into a million hairbrushes by kids exactly JoJo's age.
The candy-striped retro-pinup pop star who opened summer 2008 with a song that topped charts for seven straight weeks and didn't let go all year. Katy Perry was inescapable.
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.
A New York songwriter who wrote for Britney and the Pussycat Dolls — and got dropped by Def Jam — reinvented herself as Lady Gaga and detonated across 2008–09. The Fame sent "Just Dance" and "Poker Face" to #1, and within a year she'd gone from songwriter-for-hire to the sound of pop.
"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.
"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.
![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.
"We've got stars directing our fate" over sweeping James Bond strings — Robbie Williams' pre-2000 anthem gave him his first solo UK number one in September 1998. In America it was supposed to be his big breakthrough; it stalled at #72, which tells you the whole strange story of his career on this side of the Atlantic.
![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.
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.
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.
The boy band America watched get built. O-Town was assembled on ABC's Making the Band in 2000, under Lou Pearlman, and for two years it delivered exactly what the show promised — "Liquid Dreams," "All or Nothing," a platinum album — before the label let them go in 2003.
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.
The raspy-voiced anti-pop-star of the TRL era — the one who mocked the pop machinery while beating it at its own game. Missundaztood sold 13 million copies on pure attitude, and "Get the Party Started" is still doing exactly what it promised.
"Don't Cha" wish your girlfriend was hot like them — the question every radio in 2005 asked roughly once an hour. The Pussycat Dolls arrived fully formed in matching choreography and smoky eyeliner, a burlesque act reverse-engineered into a chart juggernaut, with Nicole Scherzinger doing most of the singing and all six doing the strut.
The three-part harmonies behind "Bless the Broken Road" and the Cars version of "Life Is a Highway." Rascal Flatts were sneered at as country's boy band and had 2006's second-best-selling album, behind only High School Musical, winning the CMA's Vocal Group of the Year six years running while "What Hurts the Most" spent a year on the Hot 100.
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.
Around the year 2000 he was one of the biggest pop stars on the planet — record-breaking EMI deal, 375,000 people at Knebworth — and Americans only half-knew who he was. The Take That bad boy turned solo megastar is the great transatlantic asterisk of the era: everywhere, except here.
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.
"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.
The call-and-response hook that defined an era of R&B, and the most dramatic lineup announcement in pop memory — disguised as a music video premiere. 'Say My Name' introduced the world to Destiny's Child in their most iconic form — and to the concept that your favorite song's original singers might not be the ones who got famous for it.
The Colombian rock poet who learned English, kept the belly dance, and conquered the 2000s — from "Whenever, Wherever" echoing out of every mall to "Hips Don't Lie" taking over the planet in 2006. Those hips, famously, do not lie.
The breakup-scream anthem of the 2000s. Kelly Clarkson needed an identity beyond American Idol; Max Martin and Dr. Luke handed her a pop-rock chorus that demanded everything a voice could give, and every car ride since has been a rehearsal.
![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.
The curly-haired country teenager with a guitar who ended the 2000s as the name on everyone's radio. "Love Story" and Fearless made her a household name; the Kanye moment made her a headline. Everything after is a much bigger story—this entry is about when she was new.
Four New York friends, a girl group, and matching cheetah print. The Cheetah Girls premiered August 15, 2003, as Disney Channel's first musical original movie, drew 6.5 million viewers, and turned Raven-Symoné, Adrienne Bailon, Kiely Williams, and Sabrina Bryan into a real touring act with two sequels and an arena tour.
"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.
![Video thumbnail — James Blunt - You're Beautiful (Official Music Video) [4K]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/oofSnsGkops/maxresdefault.jpg)
James Blunt's fragile falsetto confession — a stranger's glance on the London Underground stretched into three minutes of 'it's true.' It conquered the charts on both sides of the Atlantic in 2005–06, then got played until nobody could stand it. Including Blunt.