The 250 Greatest Songs of the 21st Century So Far

Jason Isbell’s hyper-personal “Cover Me Up” stands as his signature song. On the cornerstone track of his 2013 album, Southeastern, Isbell sings candidly and vividly about getting sober, finding redemption, and falling in the kind of love that is equal parts passion and companionship. “Girl, leave your boots by the bed/We ain’t leaving this room,” he sings, his voice arching skyward. “Till someone needs medical help/Or the magnolias bloom.” Alas, Isbell is now divorced from the woman he wrote it about, but “Cover Me Up” doesn’t lose any of its power. Morgan Wallen’s version introduced the song to a whole new audience, but it’s Isbell’s aching original that remains the definitive. —J.H.

“Sicko Mode” exemplifies Travis Scott’s world-conquering maximalist style. It was made with more than 30 credited songwriters, eight producers, an opening verse from Drake, an uncredited melodic hook from Swae Lee, and allusions to Big Hawk’s “Victory Flow,” the Notorious B.I.G.’s “Gimme the Loot,” and Luke’s “I Wanna Rock.” Despite all of that, the track pulses with focused energy as Scott flows about his innate freshness. Hitting Number One on the Billboard Hot 100 and earning a diamond certification from the RIAA, “Sicko Mode” arguably represents the Houston artist at his peak, and an era when he molded the rap genre into his rage-fueled image. —M.R.

There was a claustrophobic, almost suffocating aspect to the initial wave of reggaeton, as it was entirely dominated by male artists. La Caballota subverted this with her visceral flow, establishing herself as the genre’s resident queen. The platinum edition of her third album, 2003’s Diva, included this wholesome lyrical manifesto. “Yo Quiero Bailar” states the obvious: Sharing a flash of sensuous perreo on the dance floor does not automatically equate sex. The message is as clear as day, but Ivy makes it even more compelling with the funky propulsion of her delivery, while the harpsichord flourishes add a dash of levity to the mix. —E.L.

Miguel’s 2012 album, Kaleidoscope Dream, was a master class in genre defiance, with the Los Angeles-born singer-songwriter flexing his musical muscles as he bent conventions to his will. But on “Adorn,” he proved that he can also write a simple, heart-eyed love song that’s equal parts lusty and reverent. Over a loping groove, Miguel pledges his fealty and his desire to his intended with a mini anatomy lesson — lips, eyes, fists, mind — that reveals the full-bodied nature of his love. His vocal performance matches the song’s all-encompassing scope, veering into full-on bellow and airy falsetto as the mood dictates; he closes things out with a whispered “you” that lands like a joyously playful wink. —M.J.

Zach Bryan’s arena-filling acoustic songs frequently have a hazy, half-remembered quality, as if the full story is a little too painful to say out loud. But with country queen Kacey Musgraves playing his foil, details start coming into focus in this powerful song about former lovers revisiting a wild romance. Through a scrim of cheap whiskey, Bryan gets misty-eyed as he remembers playing guitar for her in a dingy basement, and Musgraves recounts being on fire for him and wonders if he’ll ever bother trying to comfort her instead of himself. In the end, Bryan’s still a little too lost in the whiskey and memory to reach for her, making it seem like two very different people who were only fleetingly aligned. —J.F.

As well as a featured performer on it, Charli XCX is also one of the composers of this stampeding wonder — a glam-rock stomp doing business as peak EDM, with subtle nods to electroclash, and all of it pure pop. Even beyond its sheer energy, the song is endlessly quotable. We will go to our graves seeing social media variations on “You’re from the Seventies, but I’m a Nineties bitch” (from one of the defining anthems of the 2010s, of course), while “I crashed my car into the bridge” is as pure as imagery and character-arc gets. Especially as shouted by Icona Pop’s Aino Jawo and Caroline Hjelt, with increasing glee each time it comes up — just like that unforgettable chorus: “I don’t care, I love it!” —M.M.

K-pop exploded in the U.S. during the 2010s, and few songs sound the way that insurgency felt as much as “Ddu-Du Ddu-Du,” a 2018 track from the superstar girlband Blackpink. Fueled by whirling trap snares and glitching synths, “Ddu-Du Ddu-Du” showcases all four of the group’s members in thrilling fashion. Lisa and Jennie handle the verses with full-throttle rapping that’s as braggadocio-packed as they are nimble, while Rosé and Jisoo layer a sour-candy coating atop the proceedings with a sweetly delivered — yet gently menacing—prechorus that sets up the triumphantly sputter-along refrain. —M.J.

All good things come from loving George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass. For Chris Martin, it was “The Scientist.” The Coldplay frontman was trying to play the Quiet One’s “Isn’t It a Pity” on an old, out-of-tune piano in Liverpool. Instead, a devastating ballad about moving on flooded out of the frontman. “I said, ‘Can you turn on the recorder?’” he told Rolling Stone. “The first time I sung it is what’s out there.” People love to argue about this band, but there’s no denying the heart-wrenching magic of this song — and the fantastic live staple it became. —A.M. 

Don’t let the umpteen dance-movie placements in “Ante Up” fool you: M.O.P.’s smash single is the representation of a group of grizzled New Yitty residents who don’t breakdance, but break jaws. Brownsville’s Mash Out Posse were known for ruckus, uptempo tracks that become gym playlist staples, and “Ante Up” may be the crown jewel. Riding atop producer Dr. Period’s impossibly massive horns, Billy Danze and Lil Fame, two of Brownsville’s finest, rhyme about sticking up marks with the kind of impassioned delivery that could wake the dead. The song epitomizes a bygone era of New York that so many clamor for — even if it had its dangerous moments. —A. Gee

The 2004 song “Portions for Foxes” was a turning point for Rilo Kiley, bringing the band from indie darlings into the mainstream spotlight. The song is part confession and part warning about surrendering to a doomed relationship, knowing full well the consequences. Jenny Lewis’ delivery of the chorus, “Bad news, baby, I’m bad news,” carries both an admission and a warning, giving the song its emotional edge. The band’s sharp, power-pop arrangement infuses the song with energy. “Portions for Foxes” also proved Lewis wasn’t just an indie frontwoman, but one of the most distinctive voices of her generation. —A.W.

After Beyoncé stepped out as a solo star with “Crazy in Love,” she proved that she was built to last with “Deja Vu,” the first single from her sophomore album, B’Day. “Deja Vu” zoomed into the Top 10 in the summer of 2006, a blast of Seventies soul swagger, 808 beats, and live-band instruments. Produced by Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins, Jon Jon Tract, 808-Ray, and Bey herself, it kicks with funk bass and R&B horns. As with “Crazy in Love” three summers earlier, she brings in Jay-Z for a killer guest rhyme. It paved the way for B’Day hits like “Irreplaceable” and “Green Light” — but it also sounds like a blueprint for Beyoncé’s entire future career. —R.S.

Maren Morris begins her 2015 breakout anthem in the confessional booth: “I’ve cursed on a Sunday/I’ve cheated and I’ve lied,” she admits in the first verse of “My Church,” a song about finding salvation not in a brick-and-mortar cathedral, but on the radio. In the Texas native’s case, that’d be country radio, which ironically no longer plays her music. Nonetheless, “My Church” is a modern-day country classic, complete with Morris’ Lone Star twang, propulsive hand claps, and invocations to patron saints Hank Williams and Johnny Cash. Nearly 10 years later, it still makes us shout “amen.” —J.H.

This Houston rap classic is a triumph of evolution. The hook comes from an offhand line from a 1998 Slim Thug freestyle; the track itself debuted years later, becoming such a regional hit through word of mouth and force of will that it was eventually dramatically reworked, replacing a Chamillionaire verse with a Paul Wall one. Along the way the beat transformed from a fun but slight funk loop into something epochal, that sliver of a violin sample smashing opera up with DJ Screw. Slim Thug steamrolls the beat, Mike Jones makes the case for Mike Jones, Paul Wall cracks wise. The track made stars of everyone involved, putting label Swishahouse on the map and planting a cornerstone of early-aughts rap radio. —C.P.

Draping her breathy, iridescent voice over amapiano’s trademark thunk-thunk log-drum beats — arguably the most irresistible groove to emerge from the Afrobeats revolution — Tyla sidled onto the world stage like a 21st-century Sade. This breakout, an international hit that earned her the first-ever Best African Music Performance Grammy, mixes the choral call-and-response of old-school Afropop with South African slang (“haibo!” “asambe!”) and a bubbling flow of come-ons. The song was so undeniable that Travis Scott jumped on a remix, and you barely noticed him alongside the petite singer’s quiet dazzle. (The pleasingly sub-aquatic Marshmello remix couldn’t extinguish her flame, either.) The opening shot of what may well prove to be Afrobeats’ biggest global pop crossover artist. —Will Hermes

Compared with the massive success of 2017’s “Despacito,” the Latin music explosion of the late Nineties was a fleeting mirage. The Luis Fonsi tune, boosted by the Caribbean authenticity of reggaeton godfather Daddy Yankee and a high-profile Justin Bieber remix, illustrated Puerto Rico’s laser-like precision when it comes to shaking up the mainstream. In retrospect, “Despacito” is actually a modest song of limited creative ambition — and yet it became a gargantuan cultural phenomenon, making a solid case for Latin music as the perfect antidote for our litany of 21st-century woes. The lyrics, a plea for a more immersive intercourse style, are inconsequential, but the track’s Latin American sensibility — warm, hopeful, vibrant — shines through. —E.L.

A song so hot and heavy and hard-hitting people literally claimed it controlled the weather, inventing the idea of the “Rihanna curse” when its success coincided with huge storms in the U.K. “Umbrella” was a global Number One that mixed moody rock-guitar buzz, a whiplash beat, a peak Jay-Z appearance, and the singer’s imperious charisma to create something that felt at once distressed and tempestuous. About as unshakably catchy as R&B in the 2000s, “Umbrella,” written by ace song technicians Tricky Stewart, Kuk Harrell, and The-Dream, was originally intended for Britney Spears, who turned in down. Her loss was ours, and RiRi’s gain. —J.D.

Avril Lavigne came out swinging with her debut single — a slice of pop-rock excellence that made her the 17-year-old antithesis to all early-aughts pop princesses. With black-eyeliner-rimmed eyes and a no-bullshit attitude, the Canadian musician condemned posers with a unique candor that came from the heart. “I was feeling what the song talks about — that there are tons of people in the world who are fake, who are two-faced,” Lavigne told Rolling Stone in her 2003 cover story. “Complicated” had the type of authenticity that would set the foundation for the next generation of teen-girl takeovers. In 2025, Olivia Rodrigo dropped a “Complicated” cover in her live set, and invited Lavigne onstage in Toronto. —M.G.

Very few artists from the Brit-pop scene of the Nineties managed to pull off second acts in the 2000s. But Blur’s Damon Albarn switched things up ingeniously with Gorillaz, a new project with a wide range of guest collaborators presented as a “virtual band.” Their woozy, playful mix of alt-rock, hop-hop, reggae, and electronic music was a perfect fit for the early 2000s, when mainstream rock seemed to literally be dissolving. “Clint Eastwood” is a dub-pop delight, at once buoyantly catchy, deliciously opaque, and mildly foreboding, with Albarn’s dappled vocals heralding an intriguingly indeterminate “future coming on” and Bay Area hip-hop vet Del the Funky Homosapien coming through with an authoritatively off-filter freestyle. Somehow this left-field mix rendered a global hit. —J.D.

The third single from Selena Gomez’s 2015 album, Revival, depicts its conflicted central lyric — “Can’t keep my hands to myself” — in stark fashion. The Disney alum’s vocal is tentative at first, conveying the anxiety of her lack of impulse control over a skeletal skip-step beat; as the music swells, Gomez’s self-assurance causes her to raise her voice, even though she’s still musing on the confusion born by how “all of the downs and the uppers/Keep making love to each other.” A bright EDM-pop beat crash-lands into the mix, but Gomez remains fixated on her quixotic desires. While little is resolved before the moment “Hands to Myself” abruptly ends, Gomez’s journey has been enough of a sugar-rush ride. —M.J.

Megan Thee Stallion was an artist at the top of her game, vaulting into the hip-hop stratosphere when she released “Savage,” a highlight from her 2020 album Suga. ““Bitch, I’m a savage/Classy, bougie, ratchet/Sassy, moody, nasty/Acting stupid, what’s happening?” she rapped. Hooked to a popular TikTok dance, the song was the total viral package. Then Beyoncé got involved. Her remix showed a level of command that suggests the biggest R&B star of the century might’ve also been one of its finest rappers, if that had been her primary focus. It was a Houston rap summit that produced collab for the ages. —J.D.  

When Death Cab for Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard and Dntel DJ Jimmy Tamborello started collaborating, distance and packed schedules meant they had to work on music by sending each other tracks through postal mail. At first, it seemed like the project was just a diversion on the side, but their album Give Up spun off some glittering indie-pop classics — perhaps none as bright or culturally ubiquitous as “Such Great Heights.” A love song hung over a menagerie of beeps and trills, it became a surprise entry on the Billboard Hot 100, hitting Number 21 before spreading through commercials and later covers. At its core, it stands as a testament to the weightless, gravity-defying feeling of love and having someone to float through the ether with. —J.L.

Lorde was already a multiplatinum star by the time she turned 20, but she still craved confirmation that she was on the right track — so she made this emotional atom bomb of a pop song, turning bitter resentment toward an ex into fuel for her most effortlessly ecstatic hit. As an album, Melodrama is as wonderfully unruly as anyone’s youth, but this single is where she and producer Jack Antonoff concentrated all that hypervivid feeling into its most concise and potent form. Lorde told Rolling Stone that the song represented “me shouting at the universe, wanting to let go, wanting to go forward, to get the green light from life.” And did she get it? “Oh, my God. Yes.” —S.V.L.

Breakup songs don’t come much grander than this six-and-a-half-minute epic, which starts with a killer opening line (“The first time I tasted somebody else’s spit, I had a coughing fit”) and never lets up. Dacus anatomizes an awkward coffee with some jerk in excruciating, novelistic detail in the quiet early verses, but what’s really stunning about “Night Shift” is the way she steadily ratchets up the rock & roll intensity as the song keeps going, until the guitars are screaming as loud as her words about never wanting to see this guy again. Years later, that cathartic payoff is something many indie rockers still wish they could match. —S.V.L.

“Hold You” by Gyptian boasts one of the most iconic riddims at the crossroads of modern reggae and dancehall, from its chipper, plucky keys to its deep, grounding bass line. Though it inspired many of the Caribbean’s hottest stars — including the song’s Jamaican-American producer, Ricky Blaze, and icons like Trinidad and Tobago’s Machel Mantano and Nicki Minaj — to render their own versions, Gyptian’s delivery in particular, drenched in passion and rasp, has always been most memorable. Equal parts sweet and sensual (OK, maybe mostly sensual, as a three-and-a-half-minute double entendre for a carnal lust that sounds a lot like love) “Hold You” has become a contemporary classic. —M.C.

Crafted by Dr. Dre originally with Rakim in mind, “Family Affair” ruled the Billboard Hot 100 for six weeks, marking the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul’s first and only Number One single. The beat’s synth-heavy key notes and crisp drums instantly ignite the spirit, while lyrics command only good vibes and energy by banning all “hateration” and “holleration.” Through blending her signature emotive voice with a slick hip-hop edge, the song makes it clear that Mary was better than ever. She’s always been known for making listeners feel deeply, but this time Blige also made you want to move, proving that soul music can party just as hard as it can cry. —J.J.

The saddest part of “Hackensack” is that our hero was just as distant from his crush back in high school as he is now that she’s a famous actress — he sat near her once, that’s it. No song about unrequited love has been quite so unrequited, and few narrators have been so pathetic. But the lilt of the melody and the detail and empathy of the lyrics (not only is bro stripping paint from floors, but the hours are bad) elevate Adam Schlesinger’s masterpiece into something both transcendent and achingly poignant. —Brian Hiatt 

After being concurrently dropped by her label, manager, and then-boyfriend, Azealia Banks chose to drop something of her own in order to flip a metaphorical middle finger up to the world. (“Y’all not gonna help me? I’m gonna get it myself,” she said of the inspiration behind this song.) Self-released digitally on her website, the Lazy Jay-produced song is a genre-smashing blend of hip-hop and house — sounds that informed Banks’ signature musical identity early on. She showcases her versatility from jump, delivering crudeness with an audible grin while effortlessly slipping between sharp, cunningly linguistic bars and melodic vocals. “212” became a Tumblr-era anthem, catapulting the Harlemite to It-girl status by being herself: cheeky, fearless, and trailblazing. —J.J.

You know you’ve tapped into something deep and dark when your song becomes shorthand for obsessive fandom. Eminem heard producer the 45 King’s loop of Dido’s downcast “Thank You” and thought of fans who’d written believing that his violent Slim Shady alter ego was real — thus, “Stan” was born. With a narrative that unfolds in a series of increasingly deranged letters that Em voices in character, “Stan” demonstrates serious emotional complexity, and is even more frightening for it. It’s a cautionary tale of celebrity for the ages, one that has only continued to grow in relevance over the past 25 years with the advent of social media and fan armies. —J.F.

“Survivor” opens with swelling strings before erupting into a mantra-driven anthem that solidified Destiny’s Child’s dominance as a trio. Beyoncé, Kelly Rowland, and Michelle Williams rap-sing affirmations aimed at their doubters — whether critics, exes, or the group’s former members (some of whom even sued after its release). “You thought that I’d be weak without you, but I’m stronger,” Beyoncé declares. Williams also delivers a standout bridge: “After all of the darkness and sadness, soon comes happiness.” Inspired by comparisons to the reality show Survivor over their changing lineup, the single became a Grammy-winning anthem and a defining moment for Beyoncé as a producer and writer. —T.M.

Sky Ferreira faces up to all the temptations and frustrations that define a will-we-won’t-we romance on “You’re Not the One,” one of countless gems from the pop singer’s 2013 debut (and, still, to this point, only album). With its gut-rumbling rhythm section and the crystalline screech of the lead-guitar riff, the song harkens back to Eighties goth rock and David Bowie’s Low, yet Ferreira’s booming, yearning vocals lend the song its contemporary-pop edge. Crafted alongside a murderers’ row of songwriting and production talent — Ariel Rechtshaid, Justin Raisen, and Dan Nigro — “You’re Not the One” is the perfect emblem of the 2010s moment when the indie and pop barriers began to fall. —J. Blistein

For the glistening, beguiling “Redbone,” Childish Gambino put away the puns and punch lines of his hip-hop past, instead hot-wiring the P-Funk Mothership for a memorable joyride. Armed with vintage Mellotron, Rhodes, and Telecaster — not to mention plenty of modern software — co-producer Ludwig Göransson created a velvety atmosphere that was at once retro and contemporary. Released in the middle of the social-justice era, Gambino’s psychedelic cry to “stay woke” resonated far deeper than the song’s narrative about suspicious lovers — it ended up soundtracking a waterfall of memes and a cultural event no less tectonic than the opening credits to Jordan Peele’s landmark Get Out. —C.W.

James Mercer wrote the song that changed his life while scrabbling in Albuquerque, New Mexico, wondering if music was going to be his career and chafing at the musicians surrounding him. “I was being honest about this melancholy that I felt at the end of my twenties,” he told Rolling Stone in 2012. “I had to say goodbye to being a kid, but I didn’t know where I was headed.” On the first single from the Shins’ 2001 Sub Pop debut, Oh, Inverted World, Mercer pairs his singsonged anomie with purposeful strumming, which belies his determination about being done with “looking in on the good life” — a hardheaded wistfulness that helped launch them into the upper echelons of Y2K-era indie rock. —M.J.     

When Bruce Springsteen reunited with the E Street Band in 1999 for their first tour in 11 years, he wanted to offer the fans something more than nostalgia. That’s why he showed up at rehearsals with a bright, optimistic, gospel-tinged song about the power of faith and friendship titled “Land of Hope and Dreams.” Twelve years later, Springsteen found himself sitting alongside Clarence Clemons in a Florida hospital shortly after the saxophonist suffered a stroke that would soon take his life. “I had a feeling he could hear me because he could squeeze your hand,” Springsteen said in 2023. Later that year, Springsteen and the E Street Band finally cut a studio rendition of the song, mixing in an archival concert recording of Clemons’ sax solo. —A. Greene

Just months before Chris Stapleton released “Tennessee Whiskey,” Little Big Town took country radio by storm with another slow-burning R&B ballad disguised as a country song. The premise was classic Music Row wordplay: Come for the song title’s queer-baiting implication, stay for the tormented tale of a narrator whose heartbroken jealousy for the woman who’s stolen her man has become so all-consuming that it transforms into something like desire. Little Big Town’s Karen Fairchild sells the song over a minimalist arrangement that immediately spawned covers from Miranda Lambert and Kelly Clarkson. “She … became,” Kimberly Schlapman said of her bandmates’ tortured and convincing vocal performance, “I would say, an actress in that song.” —J. Bernstein

“I just thought, how incredibly complex and interesting that character is … what kind of song would she write?” Swift said of the heroine in “Blank Space.” Max Martin and Shellback built a precision chassis of dry drums and air between the notes that forms an eerily hollow frame for Swift’s gleefully warped self-portrait as she snaps one-liners like “Darling, I’m a nightmare dressed like a daydream.” Leaning into her then-omnipresent “serial dater” lore, she stitched barbs from her old journals to create a mad woman’s ransom note organized into pristine couplets. When “Blank Space” replaced “Shake It Off” at Number One, it was the first time a woman leapfrogged herself to reach the top of the Billboard Hot 100. —S.G.

Natalia Lafourcade has had a few different lives in music, going from a candy-bright girl group to bouncy indie pop. However, the Mexican singer-songwriter seemed to strike a deep artistic vein when she made her album Hasta La Raíz, weighty with folk inspirations from across Mexico. She had previously recorded a tribute to Agustín Lara, the legendary boleros performer, and the idea of reconnecting with the past made a huge impression on her. The album’s title track felt like the thesis statement to it all: Lafourcade balances fortitude and fragility over a guitar-driven huapango, urging everyone to stay grounded in the place they come from. —J.L.

Las Vegas teenage pop-punk-rockers Panic! At the Disco cooked up a new flavor of Vaudeville-inspired emo on this tale of goddamn doors left scandalously unopened and cheating would-be brides — winding up with one of the least likely hits of the 2000s. The pizzicato cello and theatrical delivery of “I Write Sins Not Tragedies” only works because it shouldn’t. “They’re a freak of nature,” Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz told Rolling Stone in 2007. “They do absolutely the opposite of everything a label would recommend, and still thrive.” The song’s over-the-top music video even beat out Madonna’s “Hung Up” and Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie” to win Video of the Year at the 2006 VMAs, proving these theater geeks could go toe-to-toe with the biggest names in pop. —M.G.

Calle 13 was just starting out in 2005 when news hit that the FBI had murdered Puerto Rican independence leader Filiberto Ojeda Ríos during a botched raid. For the band, who would make a career out of unflinching political messages etched into wildly catchy rhythms, Ojeda’s death struck a deep, intensely personal vein — so much in fact that frontman and rapper Residente locked himself in a room to scribble out “Querido FBI,” an unapologetic screed that vehemently condemns the U.S. government and a history of imperialism, oppression, and colonialism. Residente convinced his label to release the song just 30 hours after Ojeda died, and instantly it spread across Puerto Rico, making Calle 13 breakout heroes. —Julyssa Lopez

Courtney Barnett first gained attention in this hemisphere for amiably skewed slice-of-life songs like 2013’s “Avant Gardener,” but there was always a streak of melancholy underneath her musings, and on this 2015 ballad it rose to the surface to stunning effect. Over a spare riff, she goes house hunting in a Melbourne suburb but ends up thinking about the people who lived there before. “You’ve built this life,” she explained. “You’ve worked to raise money for your family, and then you die.” The song closes with a haunting refrain — “If you’ve got a spare half a million/You could knock it down and start rebuilding” — that’s really about how pointless life can feel, and how we keep trying anyway. —S.V.L.

In 2019, “Tusa” unveiled to the world at large one of the most visionary partnerships in contemporary Latin: that of global diva-songwriter Karol G and a fellow native of Medellín, Colombia, the producer Ovy on the Drums. Ovy works on instinct, generating cinematic tracks filled with jagged staccato downbeats and futuristic synths. Karol provides the voice — vulnerable, all longing and joy — and chatty lyrics about steering off the post-breakup blues. And the ever awesome Nicki Minaj adds the frosting on the cake. Future Karol-Ovy hits like “Cairo” and “Provenza” sound more sophisticated, but “Tusa” is the pair’s first big flash of genius. —E.L.

Vancouver, Canada’s New Pornographers have been setting diagonal epiphanies to immediately grabby tunes for the entire century, and their story starts with “Letter From an Occupant,” the indie hit single from their brilliant debut, Mass Romantic. Tune wiz Carl Newman, alt-country firecracker Neko Case, and glam-folk wildcard Dan Bejar (also of Destroyer) were different types, but their chemistry was stunning. The lyrics are quite opaque for a song this hot; Newman later admitted even he wasn’t sure what a letter from an occupant is. But its swirling guitar buzz and stacked hooks made for power-pop poetry of the highest order. —J.D.

“It was organic,” Cathy Dennis said of co-writing this perfect song with Rob Davis. “We didn’t try and do anything contrived, so when something did spark we were both able to embrace it and jump on it and go with it. I thought the song is very ‘left of center’ for pop.” She was right. Not only did it eat the global charts (Number one around the world, Number Seven on the Billboard Hot 100), but its slinky production and insistent beat also chimed right along with, of all things, underground dance music — Michael Mayer, the head of the moment’s hippest minimalist-techno label, Kompakt, was known to drop this one in his sets. —M.M.

Minimalism was the antithesis of One Direction’s ideal context — 80,000 screaming fans in packed stadiums, massive choruses crafted for those rooms. With the succinct yet spacious “Fireproof,” the U.K. quartet proved that less could be more. The song arrived with little notice, released for 24 hours only as the first preview of the album Four, but it surpassed 1.1 million downloads in that time. Its smooth groove moves along a Fleetwood Mac-esque bass line, swallowed in hushed harmonies and dreamy falsettos. The song’s only fault is that its 15-second bluesy guitar break should be a minute longer, but the devotional progression from “Nobody loves me, baby, the way you do” to “Nobody saves me, baby, the way you do” makes up for it. —L.P.

The Harlem musician’s 2003 hit, “Milkshake,” boasts a dirty, distorted funk-R&B beat from the Neptunes — paired with an infectious hook featuring confident lyrics that ooze both feminine mystique and braggadocious swagger. The track, which peaked at Number Three on the Billboard Hot 100, is not about one particular body part, but about the one individual thing that makes a woman magnetic, powerful, and unforgettable to potential suitors and onlookers. “It was really important for me to do something different than all the other female artists coming out at that time,” Kelis said of the song in 2017. “That was the plan.” —J.J.

With her 2013 megahit, Miley Cyrus seemed to shred the last vestiges of her Disney-pop image. The controversial music video, directed by Terry Richardson and featuring Cyrus swinging nude on a literal wrecking ball, may have drawn some attention away from the song, but its absolutely devastating lyrics and Cyrus’ stunning vocal range make it an unforgettable power ballad that defined her Bangerz era. Cyrus would change and evolve throughout her career — from psychedelia with the Flaming Lips to rootsy rock to glam and more, producing classic hits like “Malibu,” “Flowers,” and “End of the World.” But “Wrecking Ball” remains her peak moment of heart-stopping pop spectacle. —Lisa Tozzi

Pure joy is one of the hardest emotions to capture in music, but Florence Welch and her band did it as well as anyone has in this one-of-a-kind, harp-propelled folk-rock epic. It’s the obvious artistic apex of the Mumford-y stomp-clap era, harnessing all those stomps, claps, and yelps toward a series of cathartic, ecstatic peaks. “I recorded that song in a cupboard with no instruments,” Welch once said, “and the sound of the drums was me banging my hands on the wall, clacking pens on MPCs and generally causing a cacophony with anything I could lay my hands on.… For me ‘Dog Days’ symbolizes apocalyptic euphoria, chaotic freedom, and running really, really fast with your eyes closed.” —B.H.

If “Just Dance” was Lady Gaga’s breakthrough, “Poker Face” is what made her a pop queen. Packed with sly innuendos — including the “P-p-p-poker face” hook, in which Gaga masked her bisexual desires to “Fuh-fuh-fuck her face” — the track turned her into the fashion-first, strange, pop It girl. It was sampled by Kanye West and Common, covered on Glee, and became a defining anthem of the late 2000s, laying the groundwork for Gaga’s pop reign over the next decade. “If you listen to the lyrics in the chorus, I say, ‘He’s got me like nobody,’ and then I say, ‘She’s got me like nobody.’ It’s got a bit of an undertone of confusion about love and sex,” she said in 2009. —T.M.

To push music forward, Missy Elliott had to go backward. The buzzy, burbling “Work It” beat, co-produced by Timbaland and Elliott herself, was, even by their standards, so intergalactically freaky that Eliott needed a few tries at writing a song over it before she found the right approach. Running her vocals in reverse turned out to be the song’s signature trick. “When she got to that reverse part,” Timbaland once told Rolling Stone, “I was like, ‘Oh, we out here. We’re done.’ When you bake a great cake, you need the right icing on top.” —B.H.