as time progresses, a society gets more socially liberal and language that was once considered unacceptable enters the public square

WHOA

I guess I'd never really looked at it this way, and with such broad perspective.

biggest songs of the decade? OK

Hey Ya
Umbrella
Stronger
Any single from FutureSex/Lovesounds
D.A.N.C.E.
Mr Brightside
Crazy
Kids
Chasing Cars
Rehab
Paper Planes
Maps
Since U Been Gone
Clocks


best song of the decade?

Someone Great

I don't think Justice and MGMT are really big enough in the grand scheme of things...
though I feel like I can't go anywhere without hearing "Time to Pretend." That may be a different matter altogether.

don't know about you guys but MGMT blew up pretty fucking big down here last year. At least, at pretty much every party I went to they'd play Electric Feel and Kids.

D.A.N.C.E. and its remixes were huge in '07-'08, but I guess that's debateable. Oh well, I really like that song anywayz.

Like I said earlier, there's no way singles by MGMT could be considered unless Passion Pit and Amazing Baby start having #1 albums across the world. They can't be considered for impact unless a scene starts around their influences and it's too early to comment on that even if it was likely (which it isn't IMO)

Roger Mexico is a greater man than I ever will be. Not quite sure how he's managed to continue posting ITT.

Sure. There are still people who find the use of "that sucks" or "that blows" as offensive because of where the words stem from.
But the same was true long ago when people started saying things like "he's a jerk", because obviously we know where jerk was derived from. Now no one takes offense to using the term "jerk" in that context.

yeah

I'm not convinced that society continues to become liberal as time progresses.

nah it's true Waylon. give it another ten years and public fucking will be a socially accepted outdoor activity.

That means we're only about five years away from being able to make love in public, right?

a friend of mine just starting seeing this girl who keeps insisting that they do it right in front of the elevator in her apartment building, so maybe we're closer than we realize....

Auto-tune is ruining society.

My friend and his girlfriend often fuck in disabled toilets. And who hasn't enjoyed a passionate romp behind a disused petrol station?

well, people have been doing it for a while. It'll just take some time for it to become acceptable.

Tangent: has anyone incorporated an auto-tuned sample of orgasmic moans into popular song? It's an idea whose time has come, methinks.

It already is in Lake Powell

I think Kings of Leon are now at the same level as the Killers. Selling out arenas, hitting the hot 100 and enjoying big commercial success.

I'm going to jump back on this, as promised, now the decade has finished. Expect 2003 after work on film poll is done.

Good news. One of the last great music threads I can remember, when it stayed on track.

Great news, yeah. Looking forward to it even if we can never again reach the heights of posts #94 and #95.

refular radio

QFT. Quite spectacular.

Yikes! You can do that?

2003

OutKast - 'Hey Ya' and Beyonce - 'Crazy In Love'



Very little needs to be said either of these, both with large amount of popular and critical backing for best single of the decade. Both enormously successful across the world and still sounding fresh when they turn up on the radio, despite the millions of plays already. Neither is particular ground-breaking or proved to be particularly influential musically but it's they aren't all that conventional for such mass appeal, certainly at the time 'Crazy In Love' wasn't receiving massive backing from Columbia until Jay-Z got involved. Both are just a brilliant example of finding the right formula and knocking it out of the park.

50 Cent - "In Da Club"



Before the above two records there was only one person being discussed this year, everyone had to have an opinion on Fiddy. I still can't quite tell how much of a knowing wink the video of him being assembled by committee is. He had the perfect back-story, which managed to be equal parts against the grain yet was still in part so clichéd that still managed to put it on the big screen in the same way 8 Mile was. As has already been mentioned, if nothing else there's always the frat-boy mantra of "Go shorty" which will no doubt out live us all.


Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "Maps"



Who'd have thought it? If you'd said to me around the time of earlier singles and EPs that YYYs would gain recognition for something other than being another arty-rock band from New York I'd have cocked an eyebrow. An actual minor hit on both sides of the Atlantic purely on the strengths of the video and Karen O's fearful and powerful vocal. It may not have seemed like it at the time and it's taken a few years of hindsight but did this song and the cult of Karen O, along with the switch away from beery lad-anthems in the UK to more arty, cool, fashion conscious indie music that has allowed a much larger proportion of a generation of young women to get into more rock based music. More on this next year.

Goldfrapp - 'Strict Machine'



I think it's unlikely I'd have included this one had I continued with this when I first started it. Now it seems surprising that Black Cherry only made #19 in the album charts (it went on to go platinum) and that the band were criticised for "Ambulance chasing" by Pitchfork for moving into a more rhythmic based electronic style. That seems totally natural as the chillout wave they rode in on was dead barely while they were still touring Felt Mountain. Looking back it's easy to pin Madonna's change of direction to the success of a song like this (Cue Oldfrapp gag). There's also little doubt that the continuing dominance of lists like BBC's Sound of 20xx by the likes of La Roux, Little Boots, Ellie Goulding, Mariana and The Diamonds in the girls corner as well as MGMT, Passion Pit, Hot Chip, Cut Copy all managing to get radio play in the UK on the basis of either sounding like this or a single that will turn up next year. As well it's worth considering the directions taking by Phoenix, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Metric towards the end of the decade as well.

White Stripes- 'Seven Nation Army'



I nearly didn't include this but it's hard to ignore the moment they turned into the figurative elephant of the alternate music universe. With one of the most memorable riffs of the decade Jack and Meg broke through the barrier of the New Rock Revolution in a way that The Vines, The Hives, The Datsuns, BRMC and even The Strokes hadn't and never will. They (and in particular Jack) are the most important rock band of the 21st century and this is their most important and biggest moment. Both bands toured together this year and even supported The Rolling Stones, who tellingly only watched the Detroit band from the sidelines. The Strokes aren't ever going to be on The Simpsons are they. Nor are they going to be on the front cover of Mojo or Uncut in 15 years time every six months in the way that The White Stripes no doubt will.

Others from this year that I feel are important but not worth blurbing

Kelis - 'Milkshake' Slightly less gargantuan than those three at the top of this post but after European success at the start of the decade this playful single got her noticed at home. Boobies.

Black Eyed Peas - 'Where Is The Love' See first sentence above. While this is their best single in keeping with most of the massive hip-pop songs this year, it's the only one by the group that doesn't want me to fill my ears with cement.

t.A.T.u. - 'All The Things She Said' No-one fell for the back-story on this one, did they? Good work Russian Shapovalov!

Punjabi MC - 'Mudian To Bach Ke' The continuing globalisation of the music industy, aided by the internet continues at pace.

The Knife - 'Heartbeats' A better song but less immediate impact than 'Strict Machine' Similar influence though.

can't disagree with any of these.

i don't at all understand the logic of deriding someone like MGMT for not being influential enough and then saying that "Maps" is an important song on any level. "Maps" is a goddamned throw away in terms of relevance.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. It was the first thing to come out of that New York scene that 'normal' music fans latched on to. This thread is about singles that were important. No one has come up with even half a reason why any MGMT single would fit in here.

agree with Mitch's selections, but where's the Kanye?



Kanye West – Through The Wire
the launch of the decade's biggest star

Justin Timberlake – Rock Your Body
ditto on the comments on “Cry Me a River”

Ludacris – Stand Up
Ludacris didn't truly come into his own until this point. Few can match his consistency through the Oughties

Junior Senior – Move Your Feet
am I just seeing what I want to see in the past to think that what this song did is important and is still echoing to this day in MGMT and a million other things?

you mentioned "Hard to Explain" up thread but I think "Last Nite" would fit that stipend just as appropriately

has no one nominated "Lose Yourself" yet?

The "normal music fans" part is pretty crucial to understanding Mitch's argument, though. "Maps" proved that a rackety NYC buzz band could craft a pure pop song that sounds positively forward thinking rather than retro. It's a fucking anthem with gorgeous production and a massive chorus. The Strokes almost got there with "Hard To Explain" but both "Last Nite" and the presence of the band itself overshadow it to this day in terms of memorableness (at least in the U.S., anyway... Mitch claims that the song was a bigger deal in the UK (they got it right, in that case.))

I actually took the time to go back and see which post you were referring to. Thanks

Can't agree with this part - though Stand Up definitely established him as a long-term force to be reckoned with, What's Your Fantasy, Rollout, and (to an extent) Southern Hospitality showcase Luda at his finest as well. I could hear an argument for Stand Up being the most "important" single because of the Kanye connection, its crossover appeal and that music video, but he came into his own much earler, imo. Definitely one of the greatest singles artists of the decade though.

I'll tackle him next year, but yes you are right.

Yeah, 'Maps' isn't important enough in isolation but fits perfectly with what I'm going to come on to in 2004. The big difference between that and 'Last Nite', (Which did almost make it across the line, but they didn't capitalise on it in the way say the White Stripes did commercially.) is that the normal music fans in question were closer to a 50:50 gender split. This is important.

The whole thing about the 'new rock revolution' and the Strokes/Stripes being a bigger deal in England than in the U.S. during that time - it wasn't just England. I was in Italy in the spring of '03 and you could not escape "Seven Nation Army". I'm not talking about it being a hit on 'modern rock radio' like it was here. I'm talking about a Michael Jackson Thriller, kids playing it all over the place, inescapably BIG hit song.

where did 'normal' music fans latch onto "Maps"? that's fundamentally what i was asking. the song wasn't very commercially successful, and the YYY's still aren't a well known band. who has it influenced but a few still-not-quite-breakout indie-rock outfits? Oracular Spectacular has almost sold more records than the YYY's did in their entire career.

just trying to get you to double check on what i believe to be some insular thinking.

maps is important because of kelly clarkson. and yeah, i think that in terms of influence, yyys are on the same level as the strokes. strokes inspired nearly a whole decade's worth of bands that looked, if not sounded like them. yyys changed the mainstream in one very specific way. different kinds of impact, but both were trememdously important to the 00's.

and yeah, yyys are still relevant. as for the strokes, well, boombox was pretty funny/catchy. maybe they still have it in them.

^ good points.

The clearest way I can put it is this. In 2002 you might have seen the odd women or two at a gig or a festival dressed like Karen O. Now, be it via her, Kate Moss, Beth Ditto, Kate Jackson whoever I can't walk down the street in a middle sized English town without seeing several.

'Maps' wasn't a massive hit, no. It was a top 30 though, it did hang around the charts longer than most indie rock singles did pre-downloads inclusion, the video was all over MTV2 and NME chart, even to an extent MTV. I dare say it has a fair few YouTube hits now. YYYs would probably bill about the same as MGMT at a festival, 1930 on other stage. MGMT might be higher if they weren't such utter wank live.

Shilouettes