The 250 Greatest Songs of the 21st Century [An Arbitrary List, #10-1]
I've had this file sitting on my laptop since 2019, of songs that I considered to be the best of the century so far. As such: it's missing a lot of music from 2020... so I guess it could be interpreted as a "Best of 2000-2019"... twenty years of music, etc.
I've been chopping and adding to the list at random over the past year or two and - let's be honest - the whole thing is meaningless and not really concrete at all. There are a good 1000 other songs that, on a good day, could wriggle their way into this list because of personal attachment, objective banger status, or artistic merit. I also tried to keep the list pretty diverse: the most one particular artist will pop up in this countdown is thrice. Otherwise this pretty much becomes a Sufjan Stevens, Beyonce and Kanye West love-in.
All that preamble out of the way... we'll be taking this ten songs at a time! Feel free to share your thoughts on the songs... do they conjure nostalgia? are they complete unknowns? are your comments going to be unanswered because of the ignore list? So many mysteries! So many songs!
Spoiler:
#250 - "Rock Star (Jason Nevins Remix)" by N*E*R*D
Fresh off the back of producing one of the 90s' biggest remixes (Run DMC's "It's Like That"), Nevins loaned his hand to this random N*E*R*D single and set off a wave of copycat dance-rock bangers at the start of the century. Pharrell Williams actually sounds relatively cool here... or at least, in a 2002 "appearing on soundtracks for snowboarding and racing video games" kind of way.
There was actually a brief period where Example was capable of releasing extremely enjoyable singles! Emphasis on the brief. This song was one of a handful that defined 2009 for me... not necessarily in a good way, but... it's a pretty song.
As I've already mentioned, I composed this list waaay before Dua Lipa went and brought back disco in a major way last year... so I was working with scraps when it came to her pop material and this - her very first single, I believe?* - is by far my favourite. It's breezy, summery, seductive and wonderful. *It was her second. Well... ****.
Both of BFL's best songs are titles consisting of just a person's forename, and it was really difficult to choose between this and the stunning ballad 'Laura'. This eventually won out for being more identifiable as her signature style: a slice of 2000s indie-pop that was released with a cover of The Cure's A Forest. A pretty good companion, sonically.
Picking two Strokes songs for this list was pretty much impossible, since Is This It? and Room on Fire are so stacked with excellence... this was my pick off the latter since it's just got endless guitar highlights and a bassline that thuds away underneath in a captivating way.
Perhaps now better known as "that song off the dating website advert" (I don't remember which one, sorry, but it always catches me off guard), this has been slowly ebbing away at me since 2013 and making me swoon and swell in slightly embarrassing ways.
I have to get her out of the way early because whilst there's no denying her impact since 2009, very little of her music has stuck with me in a significant way. As such: here's her best pop song, taken from 2014's 1989. Punchy lyrics, a richly melodramatic synthpop backing, and still just as catchy as it was seven years ago.
For a brief period between 2005 and 2010, French act Justice had the world in their talented hands. Aside from their many, many remixes of hits from that period (Klaxons, Franz Ferdinand, Justin Timberlake, MGMT) they also released a hugely-successful album called † and set the world dancing.
#242 - "Let's Make Love And Listen to Death From Above" by CSS
Brazilian band Cansei de Ser Sexy found unexpected success back in 2005 with their debut album: this single really encapsulated their appeal and set off around Europe and America thanks to their tours with Diplo (who himself pretty much defined a lot of 2000s alternative pop). The album was, sadly, very much a one-off - the band have released three others that are largely crap. But this was a wonderful time capsule of how indie really did take over the world, and is one of those immediately-recognisable hits from that era.
#241 - "Heartbreak (Make Me A Dancer)" by Freemasons & Sophie Ellis-Bextor
Despite having a string of extremely enjoyable solo hits, Sophie Ellis-Bextor makes this list twice for collaborations she did with dance and electronic acts. Her voice really lends itself well to floorfillers, and this was no exception: the last of Freemasons' singles to hit the charts (and it apparently dominated in Europe for a while, which is lovely!) came at the tail-end of 2009, crowning off a stellar decade for both the producers and herself.
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Originally Posted by Saph
You're giving me a million reasons about a million reasons
27-02-2021, 07:08 AM
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The 250 Greatest Songs of the 21st Century [An Arbitrary List, #10-1]
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