Two segments in a row with the first song about pyramids. Weird. Anyway! If you can stomach the almost ten minute-long runtime, Frank Ocean's Pyramids is one of the most startling tracks of the century. Cut up into a futuristic epic of many chapters, the song sits shoulder to shoulder with some of the greatest funk tracks of all time.
Grimes had a couple of albums prior to 2012's Visions but, truth be told, they are not very good and I find them inaccessible. So I treated this album very much as her breakthrough: and "Oblivion" was its standout. That childlike, breathy vocal almost teasing about being a physical threat herself is so, so good. The song is about Grimes' own experience as a victim of assault, and that never-ending fear that women experience when alone; so to take that and flip it, with a testosterone-fuelled music video full of frat guys, college football and night-time frolics, is somewhat magical. Pitchfork named it the best song of 2012, and the second best song of the entire decade... and that's fair! I just... am a whimsical slut!
Probably the most cheerful-sounding guitar riff of the list. The Strokes started off with this unbeatable ability to craft these punchy, incredibly short tracks that shook up rock music to its core and popularised the indie genre.
The UK was, for a long time, a hotbed of incredible dance music and I suppose, in ten or twenty years time, today's generation will still claim that the current wave is... but there really was no beating that 90s-2010 period. Basement Jaxx were one of the more dependable acts to put out an incredible song, and there were many: I tossed and turned over songs like Where's Your Head At?, Jus 1 Kiss, Bingo Bango, Good Luck and Red Alert but in the end I kept coming back to the memory of trying to copy the dance moves from the Bollywood-inspired Romeo video. There aren't many songs that provoke a bigger spark of joy within me.
Over in her native US, the response to this music video and Xtina's sudden shift from the girl-next-door image that kept her sex appeal strictly PG (Come On Over, What a Girl Wants, Genie in a Bottle) was a huge controversy.. so much so that the release of this in 2002, the lead single from 2003's Stripped album, bombed on the Billboard charts. Over here? We sent it straight to number 1, babes. Sometimes the UK do things right. I remember 13 year old Shaun finding the music video an enigma: puberty was about to strike, and here was Miss Aguilera, dripping with sweat, fighting other girls in the ring and showering with them. I mean... I wanted to learn the choreo, too, but... wow, what a moment.
I named this my favourite song of 2015 and I am still resolute in that opinion. Two thirds of the XX reunited on Jamie xx's solo album to create something truly magical. The rattling of glass bottles is looped into something mesmerising... and as Romy's voice does its thing, the chorus builds into this sample of Idris Muhammad's 1977 single Could Heaven Ever Be Like This? that is just awash with love, devotion and reverie.
Criminally held off the #1 spot by the nauseatingly-awful "Lonely" by Akon, Gorillaz's biggest hit is one of the century's most genre-defining and immediately recognisable. That bassline is forever embedded in everyone's head, and the song continues to rack up millions and millions of views. It's truly timeless, and one of the most incredible songs ever written. Credit too to De La Soul, for that insane laugh (and verses) that permeates the damn thing.
The sheer theatre of the intro to this is enough to warrant its place on the list, but to go ahead and surpass it with those phenomenal synths, playful vocal samples and that chorus... jesus christ this song was, and still is, so cool. 2007's Graduation album was a little bit of a disappointment to some, stood up to The College Dropout and Late Registration... but if it was the groundwork for West to step out of his hip hop box and turn to a more futuristic, electronic sound... then I think it paid off.
Every time I am reminded of this I am absolutely thrown. WHAT. A SONG. There aren't many better examples of a song that absolutely begs to be screamed along to by everyone of all ages. The video cleverly takes two stars of late 90s teenage movies (American Pie's Jason Biggs and American Beauty's Mena Suvari) to act out one of those cliche romantic high school tropes of the time, and I am transported back to 2001 and singing along on the back of school coach trips :love:
You might want to skip to 3:00 for the song to actually start. I remember hating the 1975's debut album, in spite of its string of relatively catchy singles... and then this came along and slapped me in the face. I wasn't experiencing a heartbreak at the time or anything, but the song is so masterfully created to be timeless that it calls back on every one you've ever had. Those echoed cries in the background... the verses sounding like an attempt to sober yourself up and say what you really want, before the chorus comes along and reduces you again to a drunken, sobbing mess. Wonderful! (Don't worry I'm fine! Really!)
Ammi
28-03-2021 06:51 PM
...I recall the first TiBB top song that I followed on the forum and Pyramids/Frank Ocean was the winner....:lovedup:../...TiBB nostalgia...
...I adore Frank Ocean’s version of Moon River, I maybe love it equally as much as I love Audrey’s....
Fetch The Bolt Cutters
28-03-2021 06:51 PM
Janelle
Ammi
28-03-2021 06:54 PM
...and Grimes...:love:..
DouglasS
28-03-2021 07:05 PM
I reckon it’ll be Kanye actually now (who places twice in the top 30) mainly because he’s just appeared now :laugh:
Legrand
28-03-2021 10:43 PM
Oblivion is great!
Shaun
30-03-2021 07:21 PM
WELL... I should be posting the top ten tomorrow. Until then...
By 2013 I was already a full convert to the church of Arcade Fire, so for them to come back with a layered masterpiece, that is packed with so many things going on that David Bowie chanting towards the tail end of the song isn't even one of the standouts, felt very much like overkill. Around 3 minutes the song kicks up several gears and turns into a sonic wall of incredulity that I'm still getting my head around... it's just a track that inspires so much excitement in me.
One of the most perfect and understated singles ever released by a pop group, 'Pure Shores' washed up in February of 2000 and has been a source of serenity ever since. Shaznay Lewis was always the best member of the band and is credited as the sole member who actually wrote this, along with mega-producer of the time William Orbit (who enjoyed other hits such as P!nk's "Feel Good Time" and Madonna's "Ray of Light" and Blur's "Coffee and TV"). It also featured on the soundtrack for Danny Boyle's "The Beach", which was apparently not a great film but that didn't stop this hitting the top of the charts :love:
Winehouse's appeal was and is timeless. Her talent and ability were so undeniable and universal that some of her songs felt like they could've been on rotation in the 1940s, 1970s or 2020s... and I don't think there's a better example of this than Love is a Losing Game, this brief cut from her mega-album Back to Black. The lyrics are so bleak and yet so beautiful, and delivered in a way that's so heartbreaking, that it appeals to everyone regardless of age, gender and social status. I don't know if there's ever going to be another story of a talent's demise that breaks me as much as Amy Winehouse's did in 2013, but I sure ****ing hope not because this one was devastating.
I'm a little annoyed that the music video has a version of the audio with twinkling effects that I don't think really add anything to the darkness of the song, but it's really not that serious. I don't know a more iconic song. Trying to picture the 2010s without this absolutely flooring everyone on a gay club's dancefloor isn't worth imagining. The combination of raucous electropop and pleading, desperate lyrics is genius. Even someone as monotonously tedious and bland as Calum Scott couldn't ruin it.
A long time ago, Ben (ukturtle) and I had a game on here to find the best song of the 2000s and I think this came pretty close to winning because we were voracious with our campaigning for it. It's still one of the most starkly beautiful things I've ever heard; this tale of a boyfriend who was dying from cancer ("not much hair left on his head/ he ate a slice of Wonderbread and went right back to bed"), themed around the biblical tale of Samson and Delilah and dealing with that metaphorical loss of power and love.
Bon Iver's self-titled 2011 album came out at the time I was heading off to university, and I would spend the train journeys to and from whenever there were holidays listening to it in its entirety, sometimes twice. The whole thing is beautiful but its standout was Holocene... just this really gentle, comforting and yet at the same time ominous, wonder.
I did say I loved the Little Miss Sunshine soundtrack! Sufjan Stevens' 2005 Illinoise album is one of the most experimental and grand things ever executed, and its centerpiece is this love letter to his neighbouring state. It's almost overwhelming, how much is going on in this track and how much there is to unpack, but even as a culmination it's just so good... I'm really running out of superlatives here. I should've just stuck with 150. Damnit.
I know it's technically just two songs mashed together ("Freak Like Me" by Adina Howard and "Are Friends Electric?" by Gary Numan) but it's such an incredible combination that it makes cheese and wine look pathetic. Kicking off a new era following the departure of Siobhan Donaghy, the girls launched straight to #1 with this and it's genuinely one of the coolest songs I've ever heard.
Daft Punk have a whole range of incredible songs and its two members have had so many other side-projects - some of which I've included in this list, some of which were a year or two too early (like Stardust's Music Sounds Better With You) - that I gave myself a difficult challenge with just picking one Daft Punk single... but in the end it was not really a contest, because Digital Love is one of my all-time favourite songs. So incredibly feel-good and catchy.
#11 - "Comptine d'un autre été, l'après-midi" by Yann Tiersen
You're probably thinking that this sticks out like a sore thumb in a list like this, and you'd be right, but I was in a somewhat esoteric mood and there's only so much I can rely on my iTunes library to be accurate with. There have probably been a million other examples of film scores and sheetmusic from this century that I've adored, but I guess I never made the effort to go and download them. Tiersen has soundtracked two of my favourite movies; 2003's "Good Bye Lenin!" which was released in Germany, but more famously 2001's French masterpiece "Amélie", from which this is taken. This is an extremely short piece, but it's one that makes me yearn for the ability to play the piano... because it's just one of the most beautiful things ever recorded. On another day this'd be a #1 in this list, because it really does something to me that's inexplicable.
Marsh.
30-03-2021 07:29 PM
The Beach is an underrated gem. :nono:
Shaun
01-04-2021 07:07 PM
I've only heard bad things :worry:
Right then, the end of the list. Obviously this is just my opinion, these aren't the objective ten best songs of the century, but.. they kinda are! Turns out when I said "only one artist has two songs in the top 30" I was wrong... because there were two :( Both feature in this top ten.
Thanks all for reading.
10-1:
Spoiler:
#10 - "Lose Control" by Missy Elliott, Ciara and Fatman Scoop
Probably a choice that raises a few eyebrows because Elliott has songs that are definitely regarded more as "classics", but for me there was nothing more weird and exciting than this 2005 single. The music video more than matches its chaotic energy, with choreography that closer resembles a demonic possession than street/hip hop, but all three artists featured are the main attraction and giving 100%. Fatman Scoop's barking serves as the drill sergeant whilst Ciara gives the track layers of hooks.
I hadn't put anything else by Yeah Yeah Yeahs in the entire list because the grim reality that nothing else really comes close to 'Maps' had long ago set in. Not to say that they're underwhelming - throughout the 2000s they released album after album of exciting and feminine rock that saw them on the cusp of mainstream success - but Maps is just so perfect a song that nothing compares to it. Combining relentless romanticism with a yearning, agonising delivery makes it somewhat heartbreaking, and those drums are just incredible. The song would later go on to give Beyonce a hit, sampling the chorus refrain in "Hold Up".
#8 - "Ultralight Beam" by Kanye West, Chance the Rapper, The-Dream, Kirk Franklin and Kelly Price (and others)
I am by no means a man of faith or religion, but when Kanye dropped this in 2016 I had second thoughts. The man is a parody now, and provokes immediate feelings whether negative or positive, but just before he went all Trumpy he was, thankfully, capable of putting together this incredible song. Kelly Price's vocal is jaw-dropping, Chance's rap is maybe his best, but it's the featured choir that just ascends the track to another level. It's impossible to listen to it without getting chills.
I was torn between putting this or 'Make You Feel My Love' this high, but in the end plumped for the one that Adele wrote herself. Probably the song that put her on the map, 'Hometown Glory' is a phenomenally bittersweet ballad that showcases everything that made Adele the incredible star that she is: a deft touch for relatability in her lyrics, an agonising and beautiful vocal, and very little else to distract you from those qualities. The piano work is fantastic, though, and this song will forever endure as a song of the 00s generation.
What, not Mr. Brightside? No... a lifetime of terrible nights out ending with that definitely ruined its appeal for me, though I can definitely still appreciate it for the anthem it is (I believe it's just celebrated its 260th week in the UK Top 100 singles... which really is incredible when you consider the second song, Chasing Cars, only managed around 160). For me, the Killers' best single was always the one that kicked off their second album, Sam's Town. Those guitars, as soon as they rev up, get me going and the chorus is just... heroin.
#5 - "Song 4 Mutya" by Groove Armada and Mutya Buena
Anyone who really knows me will know that I regularly espouse that this is the greatest song of all time, and sometimes I am serious in that assertion. I might only be placing it fifth here, but... I did say it was arbitrary! Fresh off the back of leaving the Sugababes, Mutya Buena put out a pretty great solo album and then teamed up with dance giants Groove Armada (previously best known for Superstylin', I See You Baby (shaking that ass), and At the River. The end product was Song 4 Mutya... this sugary-sweet reminder that Buena was always the soul and the voice of Sugababes, and without her the band tanked. I never even interpreted the lyrics to this as a middle finger to her former bandmates and label though ("that's who has replaced me? What a diss") until a year or two after its release.
Just... one of the best songs ever written, period. So unlike anything else ever released, which is remarkable since it literally is a sample of the Clash's "Straight to Hell" given the contemporary rework by Diplo. The song is a punk, political commentary on the West's attitude to immigrants, and those from the Middle East and South-Asian parts of the world in general, based on M.I.A.'s own experiences trying to get a permit to work in America... and there's definitely a malevolent, bitter undertone to the song, but is there anything more American than "all I wanna do is ... take your money"?
#3 - "Hope There's Someone" by ANOHNI (formerly Antony & The Johnsons)
I don't even know where to begin describing the beauty of this song... so fragile, insecure, frightened and poetic. It's so bleakly emotional and forthright, stating, "Oh I'm scared of the middle place between light and nowhere, I don't want to be the one left in there, left in there" with a voice that honestly channels Nina Simone. The track closes with this prolonged wailing that... only seems fitting after such a heartbreaking confession.
I still think it's something of a miracle that this hit the top of the UK charts all the way back in 2007, because the charts were dominated by either superstars backed by mega-labels like Leona Lewis, Rihanna and Kanye, or overtly safe and tedious British acts like Take That and Kaiser Chiefs. For one magical week in the summer, though, Swedish superstar Robyn made the comeback of all comebacks and cemented herself in my heart as the greatest popstar of all time. This song is so masterful... breaking up the electronica with strings segments and that repeated song title thudding away with a literal heartbeat. Genuinely magical, but then what else do you expect from Robyn?
#1 - "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" by Scissor Sisters (and Elton John)
There was an inevitability to me placing this at #1, because since 2006 it's been at the forefront of my mind and one of the most reliable tracks to raise my spirits and get me dancing. The Scissor Sisters were often likened to Elton John when their debut album circulated, so it seemed a natural response to get the man himself to provide a piano performance for them on the comeback single from their second album. I had the pleasure of seeing them perform this at the O2 back in 2007 (and got soaked by Jake Shears spraying his bottle of water over the crowd :love:) and it's just such a joyous, phenomenally catchy monster that will catch me off-guard all the time and make me want to dance.
So I did think the answer was Robyn, so well done Douglas, but turns out there was another Kanye song as well, oops!
Alf
01-04-2021 07:12 PM
Right, I believe I said I'd name 10 you missed out that should be in, and I'm a man of my word.
I'll have to go through your full list to see what you haven't chosen.
Is "Hurt" by Johnny Cash in there?
Daniel.
01-04-2021 07:20 PM
Good read :clap1:
WHERE was king of the mountain tho
Daniel.
01-04-2021 07:20 PM
Also, have you decided about doing albums?
Alf
01-04-2021 08:17 PM
Good choice on your Strokes song, "Someday" is my favourite of theirs.
Disagree with your choice of Gorilaz, "Dare" is the best.
