Top 100 Favorite Songs of the 2000's (Part I)

Hey all,

Welcome to my blog! It's been dormant for a few months but I now want to get it back up and running. First order of business: we are coming to the end of this decade! And as such, I figure a good ol' countdown is in order.

Most of you who'll read this already know how much I love music, so the topic of this countdown is fairly simple...what were my favorite songs of the "aughts"? In this decade, indie and R&B exploded, the Billboard charts became all but obsolete, and musical tastes were more diverse than ever before. For few people could that be more true than myself -- when the decade began, I'd never heard of half the artists and bands on this list, much less would I consider listening to them.

Times change, however. And now, this list is meant for your enjoyment. It's not a "best-of" or "most popular" list, I'm not interested in debating what was the most influential or impactful song. The criteria I used to put together this list were simple:

1. Was the song commercially released in this decade? (e.g. since January 1, 2000) This specification pained me a bit, as it wiped out some integral songs of my formative years -- Vertical Horizon's "Everything You Want" comes to mind -- which were released at the tail end of 1999.

2. Did I like the song? (Simple, yet elegant.)

3. If the song was commercially successful (lots of radio airplay + CD and MP3 sales + music media buzz) but not an absolute favorite did it have a large enough cultural impact to merit inclusion on my list?

Most of the songs under this third criterion, including essential tracks by artists like Amy Winehouse, Eminem, and Usher, just missed the cut of the Top 100. I'll recap a few of these in my next post.

All in all, I'm happy with the way the list turned out. Would've liked a few more songs from this year, but in all honesty most of the current big hits were actually released back in 2008. I'll reveal, let's say, ten songs at a time over the next few weeks. And when we get to the top 20 or thereabouts, I'll go into more detail about each of the individual songs. So stay tuned, and thanks for reading!

-- pl