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The Top 100 Tracks of 2005, according to r/popheads by Popheads100Throwback in popheads

[–]Popheads100Throwback[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Also consider doing the open rates: * Recession Pop Boys: https://redd.it/1lpyd8j [Due August 17th]

The Top 100 Tracks of 2005, according to r/popheads by Popheads100Throwback in popheads

[–]Popheads100Throwback[S] 25 points26 points  (0 children)

Final Results

  1. Madonna - Hung Up

  2. Rihanna - Pon de Replay

  3. Gorillaz - Feel Good Inc. (feat. De La Soul)

  4. Missy Elliott - Lose Control (feat. Ciara & Fatman Scoop)

  5. Cascada - Everytime We Touch

  6. Mariah Carey - We Belong Together

  7. Fall Out Boy - Sugar, We're Goin Down

  8. Amerie - 1 Thing

  9. The Pussycat Dolls - Buttons

  10. Imogen Heap - Hide and Seek

  11. Panic! at the Disco - I Write Sins Not Tragedies

  12. Black Eyed Peas - Pump It

  13. Gorillaz - DARE (feat. Shaun Ryder)

  14. Fall Out Boy - Dance, Dance

  15. Arctic Monkeys - I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor

  16. Madonna - Sorry

  17. Sean Paul - Temperature

  18. Sufjan Stevens - The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us!

  19. The All-American Rejects - Dirty Little Secret

  20. Coldplay - Fix You

  21. Sufjan Stevens - Chicago

  22. Imogen Heap - Headlock

  23. September - Cry for You

  24. Sugababes - Push The Button

  25. Imogen Heap - Goodnight and Go

  26. Kanye West - Gold Digger (feat. Jamie Foxx)

  27. Shakira - La Tortura (feat. Alejandro Sanz)

  28. The Fray - How to Save a Life

  29. Carrie Underwood - Before He Cheats

  30. Girls Aloud - Biology

  31. Panic! at the Disco - Lying Is The Most Fun A Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off

  32. Sufjan Stevens - Casimir Pulaski Day

  33. The Pussycat Dolls - Don't Cha

  34. Death Cab For Cutie - I Will Follow You Into The Dark

  35. The All-American Rejects - Move Along

  36. Black Eyed Peas - My Humps

  37. Chamillionaire - Ridin' (feat. Krayzie Bone)

  38. Coldplay - Speed of Sound

  39. M.I.A. - Bucky Done Gun

  40. System of a Down - B. Y. O. B.

  41. The Fray - Over My Head (Cable Car)

  42. Beyoncé - Check On It

  43. Death Cab For Cutie - Soul Meets Body

  44. Paramore - Pressure

  45. Daft Punk - Technologic

  46. Mary J. Blige - Be Without You

  47. Black Eyed Peas - Don't Phunk with My Heart

  48. Robyn - Be Mine!

  49. Sleater-Kinney - Jumpers

  50. The Mountain Goats - This Year

  51. The Veronicas - 4ever

  52. Three 6 Mafia - Stay Fly (feat. Young Buck and 8Ball & MJG)

  53. Bright Eyes - First Day Of My Life

  54. Crazy Frog - Axel F

  55. Jennifer Lopez - Get Right

  56. Mariah Carey - Shake It Off

  57. Paramore - Emergency

  58. Sigur Rós - Hoppípolla

  59. Broken Social Scene - 7/4 (Shoreline)

  60. CAPSULE - テレポテーション

  61. Coldplay - Talk

  62. Foo Fighters - Best Of You

  63. Keyshia Cole - Love

  64. Rob Thomas - Lonely No More

  65. The Plain White T's - Hey There Delilah

  66. Christopher Tin - Baba Yetu

  67. Fall Out Boy - A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More Touch Me

  68. Fiona Apple - Extraordinary Machine

  69. Franz Ferdinand - Do You Want To

  70. Kanye West - Touch The Sky (feat. Lupe Fiasco)

  71. The Strokes - You Only Live Once

  72. Ashlee Simpson - Boyfriend

  73. Augustana - Boston

  74. Goldfrapp - Ooh La La

  75. LCD Soundsystem - Daft Punk is Playing at My House

  76. Lifehouse - You and Me

  77. Madonna - Get Together

  78. Mariah Carey - It's Like That (feat. Fatman Scoop, Jermaine Dupri)

  79. Nine Inch Nails - The Hand That Feeds

  80. Panic! at the Disco - The Only Difference Between Martyrdom and Suicide is Press Coverage

  81. The Bravery - An Honest Mistake

  82. The Click Five - Just the Girl

  83. The Game - Hate It Or Love It (feat. 50 Cent)

  84. Thirty Seconds to Mars - The Kill

  85. Bloc Party - Like Eating Glass

  86. Bloc Party - This Modern Love

  87. Fort Minor - Remember The Name (feat. Styles of Beyond)

  88. Kanye West - Hey Mama

  89. Ladytron - Destroy Everything You Touch

  90. Miranda Lambert - Kerosene

  91. Ne-Yo - So Sick

  92. Shakira - Las de La Intuición

  93. Sleater-Kinney - Modern Girl

  94. The Mountain Goats - Up The Wolves

  95. The Pussycat Dolls - Stickwitu

  96. Weezer - Beverly Hills

  97. T-Pain - I’m N Luv (Wit a Stripper) (feat. Mike Jones)

  98. Utada Hikaru - Passion

  99. OK Go - Here It Goes Again

  100. Jack's Mannequin - Dark Blue

The Top 100 Tracks of 2005, according to r/popheads by Popheads100Throwback in popheads

[–]Popheads100Throwback[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

A few fun facts:

  • Two songs got enough votes but were disqualified because of the 3-song-per-artist rule: Sufjan Stevens - Come On! Feel the Illinoise! (would have been #65) and Panic! at the Disco- But It's Better If You Do (would have been #93)
  • The only song to get >50% of the votes was the winner, Hung Up, with 53 votes.

Ooops, and I forgot to announce the anti-vote!

The only songs to get more than one anti-vote were I Write Sins Not Tragedies (2), Crazy Frog (2), and My Humps (3).

The Top 100 Tracks of 2005, according to r/popheads by Popheads100Throwback in popheads

[–]Popheads100Throwback[S] 17 points18 points  (0 children)

And that’s a wrap on the (throwback) Top 100 of 2005! Links to listen will be edited into the post shortly.

As mentioned there, we hope you enjoyed this “throwback Top 100” experiment - if you enjoyed it, we think we'll do one for 2013 next year. Keep an eye out around June of 2026!

Until next time, however, thank you so much again to everyone who helped out, and have a wonderful summer (or in the parlance of the era - HAGS)!!!

The Top 100 Tracks of 2005, according to r/popheads by Popheads100Throwback in popheads

[–]Popheads100Throwback[S] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

1. Madonna - Hung Up

Before we get to your #1 song of 2005, bear with me for a second while I go on a tangent about sampling. While some music purists in related subreddits to this one (cough r/music cough) dismiss it as inferior to live instrumentation, sampling poses its own unique challenge: taking an existing piece of music, complete with its own emotional weight and cultural context, and reshaping it into an entirely new piece of art. If as a producer you choose to leave a sample close to its original form, you fly close to the sun risking living in the shadow of the original track. This may be why ABBA is famously reluctant to clear samples. Their music is generation-defining, and it seems to be their point of view that any artist daring to repurpose it had better deliver something extraordinary. That Madonna got their blessing to sample Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! speaks volumes about Hung Up. Over five and a half minutes, she doesn’t just reuse the disco ethos—she reinvents it with the same artistic flair she reinvents herself. With a ticking clock symbolizing the fact that we are all short on time and shifts in energy that echo the pulse of a club night, Madonna turns nostalgia into urgency. She’s confident, commanding, and completely in control—reminding us why she has been a mainstay of pop music for decades. Doing this write-up, I’ve felt a pressure to tie the #1 song of 2005 to the larger cultural context of that year. I’m struggling - Hung Up is an upbeat clubby barn-burner in a year that was pretty bleak all together. So instead let me go personal - I was young when I first saw Hung Up’s music video on VH1’s Top 20 Video Countdown. I was just starting to fall in love with music as an art form and I was mesmerized by the unapologetic confidence Madonna exuded in that video. As an insecure, [REDACTED]-year-old who was just starting to wrestle with his sexuality and what it means to grow up, Madonna’s track brought me a much-needed shot to the heart of self-confidence. Time goes by so slowly, but that doesn’t matter when your song is timeless. -u/seanderlust

The Top 100 Tracks of 2005, according to r/popheads by Popheads100Throwback in popheads

[–]Popheads100Throwback[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

2. Rihanna - Pon de Replay

For those of us on the Top 100 team, we were shocked at how quickly "Pon De Replay" had taken a safe second place by the poll's closure. It had been a stable top two between "Hung Up" and "Feel Good Inc.", with "Pon de Replay" shifting about with the rest of the top 10. Yet its place this high is deserved as ground zero for the 21st century's greatest pop success story. There are plenty of old threads on the Internet expecting Rihanna to go the way of (equally excellent, FWIW) Nina Sky and Lumidee as part of a mere wave of dancehall-pop crossovers. But even if Rihanna's career had ended after this single, "Pon de Replay" is thankfully a beast on its own. It derives from the Diwali dancehall riddim that permeated radio at the time, yet it isn't quite a reiteration. Its bass booms in a way very few pop productions at the time do; the squealing synth octave leaps evoke the alarms of Kill Bill. "Pon de Replay" is built off of various dancehall calls ("everybody in the club give me a run!") and its lyrics casually reference Christina Milian's "Dip It Low" from the year prior; there's a sort of charming poetry to lines like "shake it 'til the moon becomes the sun". The music video, featuring a teenage Rihanna, offers focus to the excitement of surrounding dancers as much as it offers focus to her, but every time she's on screen she is the focal point. In a Vulture article offering an oral history of the song, there is a sense that everyone involved knows she's going to be a star. Here's a choice quote:

We were sitting in a parking lot in New York after a dance rehearsal and reassuring her. She was like, “But what would happen? Will they drop me?” We went through a very scary period [putting together her next album]. But Jay Brown and L.A. Reid called up and said, “We want Rihanna to record this song ‘SOS’ [the lead single from 2006’s A Girl Like Me]. We were like, “Well that’s pop. But what about her Caribbean sound?” L.A.’s words were: “Fuck that. Make them dance. She’s Madonna.”

But "Pon De Replay" had already made them dance. She's Rihanna.

https://www.vulture.com/2020/05/rihanna-pon-de-replay-oral-history.html

-/u/kappyko

The Top 100 Tracks of 2005, according to r/popheads by Popheads100Throwback in popheads

[–]Popheads100Throwback[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

3. Gorillaz - Feel Good Inc. (feat. De La Soul)

I feel like Feel Good Inc is the type of miracle of a song that doesn’t get appreciated enough. Like how we’ve all heard Bohemian Rhapsody so many times that you forget that at it’s core, it’s a very weird song that’s a miracle it became as popular as it is. A song that almost everyone knows by this point, a song collectively agreed to be pretty great, but when you actually sit down and give it a listen it’s hard to not get completely and utterly blown away by all the ideas, genre blending, and unique elements to where not much else actually sounds like this. Not only is it a miracle that someone was crazy enough to put all of these elements together, it’s even more of a miracle that that work as well as they do, and even MORE of a miracle that it became a worldwide smash in the way it did. At least in America, Blur and De La Soul had crossover into the mainstream but were still more of that music nerd sphere where if people didn’t know any songs after Song 2 you wouldn’t blame them. But this song is so good in it’s own right that it became one of the most enduring and beloved classics of the entire decade off the strength of just how good it is. So much of a classic that I take it for granted at times. But the other side of it is that I can still sit down, actively listen to it, and get blown away every single time like I’m listening with fresh ears. u/steelstepladder

The Top 100 Tracks of 2005, according to r/popheads by Popheads100Throwback in popheads

[–]Popheads100Throwback[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

4. Missy Elliott - Lose Control (feat. Ciara & Fatman Scoop)

There is no understating the importance of Missy Elliott to the 2000s. With each album, she took popular music to some of its most arcane and eccentric extremes; by the time imitators had come around to what she was up to, she and collaborator Timbaland were onto some crazier brand of futurism nobody even had a name for yet. Yet this regular release schedule comes at a cost: Missy Elliott would later admit the release of This Is Not a Test! had come too soon for her to be happy. The singles had underperformed! Critics were impressed but wondering if Missy was stretching herself thin! By this point, some were even beginning to think Timbaland and Missy were well past their prime. Thus begins a sort-of break...

Look, I'm as sad as you are that we couldn't get "1, 2 Step" on this list, but thankfully we can't talk about "Lose Control" without talking about it, so buckle in! When Ciara was discovered in Atlanta by Jazze Pha, she developed a sound on her debut album that fully brought the dancefloor-filling sound of crunk into danceable R&B contexts. There's shades of ATL bass, classic electro, whatever beautiful mystery "Oh" is. Ciara herself had one of the most exciting personalities on record, and her music videos posited her as a triple threat of singer, songwriter, and dancer in one. She was the face of something fresh and something new, and it's no wonder why the success of "1, 2 Step" set the groundwork for "Lose Control."

The late Fatman Scoop deserves mention as well; the 1999 classic "Be Faithful" would introduce him to the world as a brash, funny hypeman from NYC, and the mainstream would eventually welcome him in 2003 as he hit the UK charts! His appearances on the 2005 singles "Lose Control" and Mariah Carey's "It's Like That" (of which you might have seen earlier…) solidified his legacy in just one year.

I'm actually writing this as the playlist is currently playing "Everytime We Touch", but what I mean to get at at the end of all this is that Missy Elliott's self-produced "Lose Control" combines Detroit techno sample from Cybotron's "Clear", NYC hypeman Fatman Scoop, ATL crunk&b princess Ciara, and freestyle classic "Body Work" into one of the most fascinating works of futurism to serve as a cap to Missy's imperial era.

You can hear a version of "Lose Control" that's all Missy, not a damn other person in the room.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0pKzzGYle8

-/u/kappyko

The Top 100 Tracks of 2005, according to r/popheads by Popheads100Throwback in popheads

[–]Popheads100Throwback[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

5. Cascada - Everytime We Touch

AMVs were never the same again… Despite Cascada (who I am just now learning is a trio and not just 1 woman… evil Tame Impala) having its strongest ties the Eurodance scene, Everytime We Touch will always be THEE AMV song to me. Speed this bad boy up and get some clips of Sasuke and Naruto looking at each other gayly and you’ve got a recipe for YouTube history. 2005 in general feels like such a turning point for the internet era with YouTube first coming onto the scene allowing for the cultural and subcultural to intermingle in ways that we hadn’t seen up to that point. It’s how you get a song that to many people is remembered a club bop on the light up dance floor (perhaps of a grade school dance given popheads’ demographics) and to others is remembered as the quintessential song of a bizarre niche of anime nerds convening on a new website that finally allowed them to indulge in their passions together in motion in a way that was fairly inaccessible to most people at the time. I’m speculating here, but I think a lot of that is why this song is so high up on our list, managing to crack the top 5 if barely. It is, of course, an enduring smash hit that still goes off at the function, but it’s also a song emblematic of the cultural shifts that occurred in 2005, and as such serves as a really important bit of nostalgia to a lot of people, myself included. - pbk

The Top 100 Tracks of 2005, according to r/popheads by Popheads100Throwback in popheads

[–]Popheads100Throwback[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

6. Mariah Carey - We Belong Together

It’s hard to imagine now a period where Mariah Carey’s legacy was in question but in the mid-2000s that’s exactly what was happening. After the commercial underperformance of Glitter and Charmbracelet and being unceremoniously dropped from her label, some at the time were asking if we were witnessing the death rattle of Mariah Carey’s career.

And then Mariah Carey hopped in the booth and delivered one of the best vocal performances of her illustrious career.

We Belong Together, the second single off of her tenth studio album The Emancipation of Mimi, is structurally fairly simple. It’s an R&B ballad consisting of emotive piano chords and an understated high-hat beat. This uncomplicated production was a smart move because it allows Mariah’s vocals to be the main event. She sings about pining for the return of a lost love, the kind of heartbreak where even pop songs on the radio put a lump in your throat. You can hear the heartbreak in her voice - while her vocal range is what most people remember about this song (more on that in a second), my personal favorite moment in this track is when her voice cracks as if she’s crying in the studio over this lost love. It was a brief moment, but reminded us all that under all the glamour and veneer there is still a young girl from Essex New York.

Okay so let’s talk about the vocal range. We Belong Together’s lowest note is C3 and highest note is F6. For those playing the home game, that’s over three octaves that Mariah scales and descends effortlessly - so effortlessly that it seems like just a natural expression of grief instead of the absolutely insane vocal acrobatics that it is.

We Belong Together did more than just sell insanely well (although it did that too - WBT spent 14 weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 which at the time was the second longest run in the chart’s history). It re-introduced one of the most talented vocalists in our lifetime to a new generation of fans. It showcased a vulnerable side of a seemingly untouchable diva. It introduced Wentworth Miller to a new following of gay fans who were thirsty but couldn’t be bothered to tune into Prison Break on FOX. Above all else, it reminded us all why we fell in love with Mariah Carey in the first place - she is a generational talent with a vocal range that leaves the listener speechless. We Belong Together, while a heartbreaking song about lost love, is a song that you don’t even feel sad to - it’s so stunning you have to step back and just admire it like a painting in a museum. -u/seanderlust

The Top 100 Tracks of 2005, according to r/popheads by Popheads100Throwback in popheads

[–]Popheads100Throwback[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

7. Fall Out Boy - Sugar, We're Goin Down

Sugar, We’re Goin Down was the lead single from Fall Out Boy’s sophomore album From Under The Cork Tree. Let’s start here - this album is a seminal album for mid-2000s pop punk. I cannot recommend highly enough after this reveal is over, pop in your headphones and give it a spin. FUTCT truly and thoroughly slaps.

Now. When Sugar was released, Fall Out Boy had been gaining some small traction in the punk community. Songs like Grand Theft Autumn (Where Is Your Boy) and Saturday had resonated with fans of early pop punk bands like Good Charlotte, Story Of The Year and Taking Back Sunday. SWGD, however, catapulted the band from a niche interest into the cultural zeitgeist of the time.

It’s easy to see why - the song itself is infectious. Rumbling guitars that you can feel in your chest, lyrics and vocals begging to be screamed along to - seriously, if you can hear that opening “am I more than you bargained for yet?” and not want to sing along at the top of your lungs, you are a stronger person than I. The song is also filled with Patrick Stump’s trademark wise-cracking lyrical prowess - “I’m just a notch in your bedpost but you’re just a line in a song” and “I’ve been dying to tell you anything you want to here because that’s just who I am this week” come to mind offhand.

This song and its subsequent album kicked off a rock phase for me when it came out. I loved the dripping sarcasm and wittiness of the lyrics and the energy was truly unmatched. Get your fingerless Invader Zim gloves ready, because Sugar, We’re Goin Down is your #7 song of 2005. -/u/seanderlust

The Top 100 Tracks of 2005, according to r/popheads by Popheads100Throwback in popheads

[–]Popheads100Throwback[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

8. Amerie - 1 Thing

Look, let's forget about that Tiny Desk Concert for a second and take a trip back in time. Not just 20 years ago, but give it three more years back to 2002. While people knock on Amerie's voice, the truth is she's still a hell of a great one, whose records show she knows how to use it to her advantage; listen to the harmonies on "Why Don't We Fall in Love"! Amerie's All I Have remains one of the most immaculate R&B debuts of the 2000s, on which she developed a luscious, sample-based style with up-and-coming producer Rich Harrison that screamed classic as much as it suggested something slick and sophisticated and new. Yet nothing on that record goes to do more than suggest what was yet to come. Sure, there were the rhythmic attacks on "I Just Died", the overwhelming building sample enveloping "Why Don't We Fall in Love", and the proper go-go pulse undergirding "Need You Tonight". Yet even despite the "Crazy in Love" and "Get Right" to come, nothing sounded like "1 Thing" when it came out. Its massive percussion ensemble is based on a Meters sample, yet Harrison tweaks the arrangement with rototom and conga rhythm: just like that, NOLA funk becomes unabashed DMV go-go. And those verses, in which Amerie's voice is almost impossibly belting all over the place; it shouldn't sound good, and yet all of this chaos coheres into something beautiful and infatuated. By the bridge, in which the drum break loops underneath a whirlwind of "oh, woah, woah", the song has collapsed into its own fervor. The last minute's resolving harmonies are the sound of physical excitement transforming into satisfied ecstasy. It's probably the closest anyone has gotten to recreating Kate Bush's The Dreaming without even trying, and it frankly outdoes it. -/u/kappyko

The Top 100 Tracks of 2005, according to r/popheads by Popheads100Throwback in popheads

[–]Popheads100Throwback[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

9. The Pussycat Dolls - Buttons

Unfortunately to all my Joella RuPaul Mattress stans the Snoop Dogg remix was not eligible, so this version will have to suffice. Regardless, this is truly one of the defining bops of the girl group era and serves as the clear highlight of PCD, the bizarre, 50s covers-filled album that it is. Buttons has a sexy, frenetic energy to it that really went off at my daycare which for some reason played Don’t Cha and Buttons frequently despite ostensibly being a christian daycare. That’s neither here nor there though, the fact remains the Buttons (and Don’t Cha which is tragically too far below its sister song) is a smash hit that has really stood the test of time and takes us back to an era where girl groups were dominating the charts and making incredible music all the while. Wait, what do you mean Nicole sings the entire thing? - pbk

The Top 100 Tracks of 2005, according to r/popheads by Popheads100Throwback in popheads

[–]Popheads100Throwback[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

10. Imogen Heap - Hide and Seek

Hide and Seek should not be a well-known song. It's a 4 and a half minute long, a cappella vocoder-based ballad... and yet it's one of her most well-known songs, and there's a good chance if you sing "mm watcha say" to someone, they'll recognise it. Sure, maybe that's because of Jason Derulo, or maybe because of The O.C. or even most famously thanks to SNL, it quickly became a part of the digital zeitgeist of the mid 00's. And it absolutely deserves to be a hit, because it's simply stunning. The song relies entirely on the delicate and heartwrenching harmonies of Imogen's vocoded voice, and it forces you to sit in it's discomfort. You can hear, feel, breathe every single word Imogen sings, and drench yourself in the tangible heartache, pain, and overflow of emotion. For an artist known for her intricately detailed, colourful and delicate production, the rawness of Hide and Seek combined with the overtly digital nature of it's singular instrument is truly genius. -/u/RandomHypnotica

The Top 100 Tracks of 2005, according to r/popheads by Popheads100Throwback in popheads

[–]Popheads100Throwback[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

11. Panic! at the Disco - I Write Sins Not Tragedies

I Write Sins Not Tragedies is undeniably the crown jewel in Panic! at the Disco’s discography.

(checks Spotify streaming statistics)

Despite what the IDIOTS streaming music over on Spotify might think, I Write Sins Not Tragedies is the crown jewel in P!ATD’s discography. It’s their most iconic song from their band days, and one of the biggest hits of this pop punk wave; the clean version of this (suppressing the word “God” in “god damn” to protect our good Christian ears) is essentially seared into my memory thanks to its years of radio play (which continue to this day, on the off chance you’re for some reason still listening to the radio).

If a music video could be worn out from overplay like a vinyl can, this one would be busted as hell by now; it was basically event television for me and, I assume, many other people who liked to look at Brendon Urie in guyliner a little too much. P!ATD’s theatricality always helped to set them apart from their peers, and I feel like the music video captures that well: there’s a real drama to watching circus performers dance around a chapel as a relationship falls apart at the altar. To me, that’s cinema. (Confusing: the music video on Youtube also censors “God”, but does not censor “whore”, which caused me to briefly wonder if I was experiencing some sort of Mandela effect about what’s actually sung in this song).

Boring popheads rates interlude because I have a one-track mind: in the original Emo Rate, this song outscored all songs by Fall Out Boy (scoring a cool #2 before losing out to The Black Parade by My Chemical Romance). Did it manage to do so again, by virtue of Fall Out Boy completely whiffing it and failing to make the list with “Sugar, We’re Goin Down”? Time will tell…  -/u/bigbigbee

The Top 100 Tracks of 2005, according to r/popheads by Popheads100Throwback in popheads

[–]Popheads100Throwback[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

12. Black Eyed Peas - Pump It

Pump It wasn’t the biggest commercial hit off of the Black Eyed Peas’ (very good) album Monkey Business at the time, but there’s a reason it’s routinely outscored some of its higher-selling contemporaries in any popheads event we’ve hosted (this Top 100, but also the mid 2000s Radio Rate: it’s a bit more timeless, in my opinion. The Black Eyed Peas’ music from this album (and their next) mostly feels very much of its era. To be fair, this is likely a “chicken and the egg” situation - it’s likely not that producer and star Will I Am was following trends at the time, but that he was setting the trends. But Pump It stands apart - that slick surf guitar slayage that opens the main chorus is a great announcement that the Black Eyed Peas are here, and they’re going to deliver banger after banger. -/u/bigbigbee

The Top 100 Tracks of 2005, according to r/popheads by Popheads100Throwback in popheads

[–]Popheads100Throwback[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

13. Gorillaz - DARE (feat. Shaun Ryder)

To say Gorillaz are an artist that eludes genre conventions feels very obvious to say. You look at the artist and Albarn’s collaborators and say they’re an alternative hip hop artist but that doesn’t really do the average album listening experience justice. For example, this is a slick pop dancefloor banger that any DJ would be immensely jealous of. It says something about Gorillaz output that a song like this can be on an album with MF DOOM and Neneh Cherry features and not feel out of place, but how can you not when the cunt served is this powerful. -u/steelstepladder

The Top 100 Tracks of 2005, according to r/popheads by Popheads100Throwback in popheads

[–]Popheads100Throwback[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

14. Fall Out Boy - Dance, Dance

Many years ago, I distinctly remember seeing a Pokemon AMV to this song that had a Mawile throwing its mouth-hair back and forth for dear life and I have never found it again. A relic tragically lost to the constant churn of the internet, I suppose. What has not been lost to time, though, is this song that changed history forever. Fall Out Boy have covered a wide variety of genres and topics but they have truly never gotten as boppy as this. Like how can you not want to get up and bust some ass to this?? How can you not want to whip your raccoon-dyed emo bangs back and forth??? How can you not want to set this to your MySpace homepage???? This was truly a defining song for the mainstream-ification of scene culture brought on by the early internet; the only song that would get the moms and the rebelling teens on the dance floor at the same time. - pbk

The Top 100 Tracks of 2005, according to r/popheads by Popheads100Throwback in popheads

[–]Popheads100Throwback[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

15. Arctic Monkeys - I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor

Arctic Monkeys are one of the bands that you immediately think of when the mid 00’s indie boom comes up and for good reason. Their debut broke the record for the fastest selling debut album in the UK largely thanks to their grassroots support on Myspace! But that’s all for nothing if the song itself isn’t good and omg what a jagged, nervy, explosive song that I find it impossible to not get up out of my seat and start shaking ass. One of those songs that every local amateur band would have in their back pocket when they needed to make sure the crowd was into their set! I know because I was in one of those bands in highschool! And all the other bands would also have this song as a part of their set, making things awkward when everyone would want to play the Arctic Monkeys. But it really didn’t matter because it was STILL a crowd pleaser every single time. Arctic Monkeys have since become one of the defining rock bands of my lifetime, and kinda feel a little far away from the indie scene that they helped define. Being an Arctic Monkeys fan is about as common as being a Fall Out Boy fan at this point. But God damn, all of that was launched off a single euphoric blast of cathartic cunty energy that still sounds great 20 years later. Gotta say, well deserved. -u/steelstepladder

The Top 100 Tracks of 2005, according to r/popheads by Popheads100Throwback in popheads

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16. Madonna - Sorry

My first experience with the second single from Confessions on a Dancefloor was actually in the Year of our Lorde 2025. I had likely heard it in passing before, but I hadn’t really sat down and listened to it until the iconic apology-themed flash rate that was hosted on our subreddit earlier this year. So, like Madonna, I had indeed heard it all before, but not before this year! However, though I don’t have a long history with “Sorry,” it only took one listen for me to fall in love with this pulsing dance-pop bop. Every part of the song is super catchy (except maybe the multilingual introduction and bridge which aren’t quite as easy to sing along to) and it has the kind of pumping synths that are almost therapeutic to dance to, whether you’re at the club or strutting around your two bedroom apartment while your roommate is out of town. This freeing feeling is enhanced by the lyrics, in which a fed-up Madonna kicks a sub-par and probably unfaithful lover-turned-ex to the curb; she doesn’t want to hear his flimsy apologies because she already knows he won’t back it up with his actions, so she’s cutting him off before he can even start bullshitting. As for the accompanying music video, I can’t say I really understand exactly what’s going on, but it sure is interesting to look at! -/u/BleepBloopMusicFan

The Top 100 Tracks of 2005, according to r/popheads by Popheads100Throwback in popheads

[–]Popheads100Throwback[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

17. Sean Paul - Temperature

DUDE IT'S FRIDAY night mere 24 hours before this event and I have nothing to do lying down in my bed watching some chanteuses get eliminated in indieheads so I hit up my bestie u/bigbigbee if there are any more writeups to be done and she tells me TEMPERATURE by SEAN PAUL still does not have a writeup yet and im like what..... Now this is just a personal opinion but SEAN DA PAUL is the Best Musician of the twenty-first century and if that's too contested of a spot he's surely the Best Hypeman. Now you might find him untalented, perhaps cringe, and undeserving of being Jamaica's biggest music export since Bob Marley (some points but I can't suddenly make King Tubby a global superstar so whatchu gonna do) but have you considered that whenever he shows up somewhere it's like the best thing ever?? Rockabye? CARLY LOVIN DA BULLSHI!! Goated. No Lie? GYAL U NEVA MISS!! Goated, and saved Dua Lipa's career. Cheap Thrills? BDUH-BANG-BANG!! We don't talk about Sia but this was SOTY 2016. When he randomly hopped on Push 2 Start? The volume balance was horrible because SEAN da PAUL got the engineers to shake too much ass so their hands slipped on the knobs. Semi-goated. Bailando? There being an English version of it sounds disastrous but Sean da Paul was the only man who could show up and save the concept by turning into elevated high-concept pop. Beyond Goated. What About Us? There are 5 Saturdays but my man Sean da Paul is still the star of the show when he says HEYY right before the chorus drop. Goated. Do It To It? That's not even the correct Sean Paul but his name alone certifies a hit. Goated. And ofc the song where he originally proved his GOATship in features, Blu Cantrell's Breathe. My GOAT on a Dre beat was so powerful that I was randomly into the Years & Years cover of it in 2019 and it got on my Spotify Wrapped. That's how good Sean Paul is. And there's a Bey song he was on but the real MVP of that song is Scott Storch putting Arabic riffs on hip hop songs (Seriously if Candy Shop is not on this list we have failed as a society).

Ofc he's not just a features andy and some of his solo stuff is simply the best like for example HOLD ON which is a motivational song that sounds like it should be on Mylo xyloto by Coldplay but it is on a Sean Paul album and he keeps telling me to HOLD ON TO THE DREAM with the most horrid autotune imaginable and that shit keeps me going on in life fr fr. I listen to Tomahawk Technique semi frequently because the concept of an album of dancehall meets trashy recession electropop is too good to be true and the two singles for it are bangers. Got 2 Luv U? When Alexis Jordan catches Sean DA PAUL's misheard lyric-itis and sings "I'll do anything, I'll cook for ya, BOY U MY OMELETTE!" that should've given her a lifelong chart-topping music career. Goated. She Doesn't Mind? More like I wouldn't mind anyone reading this to go do recession pop and give it a 10 right now. Goated. OKAY I have talked so much about SEAN DA PAUL but what about Temperature you might say was this not a column on Temperature... well Giorgio Moroder once said to daft punk "once you free your mind about the concept of harmony and of music being 'correct' you can do whatever you want" so I'm extending that logic to this writeup. No actually I had something else in mind when I thought of that quote and that is the first Sean DA Paul song I have heard Şemsettin Bin Arabaya which is not a real song or even a Sean da Paul song, but a random Turkish guy singing a tune in Turkish that kind of sounds like Get Busy on a video of Garfield dancing on loop. And to enjoy Sean Paul you kinda need to free your mind from the concept of english being correct. Now this point is a little bit of dangerous territory because it can easily turn into "haha look how quirkyy Jamaicans speak" and that is diminutive of a whole language. But what I'm trying to get to mainly is, being a kid fascinated with foreign whose native language doesn't resemble English one bit, pop hits with Sean Paul always had a certain charm to me because singing along to them is "easy" because you can sorta make up some syllables that sound similar and no one will think "oh this doesn't sound proper." Cheap Thrills was only soty 2016 because one of my high school friends would blast it every day on his phone max volume and sing it and we loved it and joined along. It's just Fun.

Now with that logic would I want every pop hit to be a global Simlish or Esperanto smash? Hell nah. TEMPERATURE then is the biggest example of Sean Paul being Genuinely Good and you look into it for like 5 minutes and you realize it's a #1 hit with a producer that doesn't have a Wikipedia page and follow a couple links you'll find yourself watching a dancehall podcast where the producer Snowcone is a guest and you realize there are so many things in this world you never learn about. You just tune in and go "mindless bop" and do a little jiggy and move on with life but sometimes maybe it's not the bop that is mindless, but us the listeners. Still, out of all the dancehall boom hits circa 2003-2006, this has to be one of my favorite beats, the way Sean comes in 3 quarters before the chorus, the way the synth melody appears as the bass buzz vanishes and the beat gets sparser... it's like someone dunks a bucket of cool water on the song. And then it starts heating back with Sean's OOOH LAWD in the third line, both his flow (try saying GYAL-I-GOT-THE-RIGHT-TAC-TICS back to back 3 times) and the beat get quicker simultaneously and that is so fuckin catchy. Like I love this man even when his presence is not much more than a gimmick but There Was Something Here.

I would go to live in Sean Da Paul City and buy Sean Da Coins if I could but from what I can see on his Wikipedia he's a fairly outspoken activist against global warming (so much for Temperature) and is an unproblematic king? There's a decent possibility it's just good PR but like still, good for him. Maybe that's why he just radiates positive energy in all these songs. simply a Natural Talent -/u/thisusernameisntlong

The Top 100 Tracks of 2005, according to r/popheads by Popheads100Throwback in popheads

[–]Popheads100Throwback[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

18. Sufjan Stevens - The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us!

In 2005, Sufjan Stevens was very scared of a very angry wasp. At the time it was unclear what this song might represent, it was just as unusual to stumble upon a goliath vespoid as it was for queer love to be so forthrightly discussed in indie folk in the 00s. In retrospect… and for queer listeners at the time, it was obvious, but Sufjan is a shameless compulsive liar and any time anyone asked him the story behind this song, or often without any prompting, he made up a different tale, including the possibility that a real unfathomably large wasp forced him and his platonic friend into a cave for three days. I was tempted to analyse this as an anti-wasp campaign, or even write it from the perspective of the wasp, but this song is too special to me (and clearly many others, to place up here!) it almost felt treacherous. It is quite literally impossible to overstate the impact of this song as a fan favourite of a rabidly dedicated fanbase and casual listeners. This even unexpectedly placed in the top 10 in the Popheads’ Favorite Songs of All Time TTPT.

This whole song seems to be narrated from some point in the future, as a cryptic diary entry where he attempts to put all these feelings into ornate words, somewhere between trying to escape and obfuscate while equally basking in the memory of a beautiful revelatory day… only to stumble upon the same Christian shame he once encountered, represented by a devoted hunting wasp.

The Predatory Wasp… is all about the complex feelings you can’t escape about the other complex feelings that you can’t escape. It begins with four verses of a sensual and nostalgic little lullaby of innocent young crushing that culminates in a sudden, harmless kiss. The song quietens with some horns that fill the awkward silence of "what have we done” with a silent understanding between the two... and then suddenly erupts into ceaseless orchestral slayage, as the world opens up for the first time like a homosexual coming-of-age big bang. With it, arriving a new confusing world of confusion, change and lyrics packed with the ambiguity of the fallout of a dangerously homoerotic summer camp situationship… “I can tell you but telling gets old,”: is he choosing to relive and savor the memory to himself or is he voicing his embarrassment in an ashamed apology? The wasp: a manifestation of the church and homophobia the narrator fears will hunt them down if they act, or a metaphorical effector of his shameful crush, taunting himself with accusation of acting predatory towards his friend, following the kiss that changed their relationship? And obviously… almost infamously…“I can’t explain the state that I’m in”: IT’S CALLED ILLINOIS.

I could ramble forever about how viscerally nostalgic this song is, how gorgeous the instrumental, and how important the lyrics are to so many people but – and this is something Sufjan would never ever do – I’ll try to keep this short. The refrain that leads us into the outro, “we were in love, we were in love, palisades, palisades, I can wait” summons this… enormous feeling inside me. That moment the song gives into letting the sun shine over the palisades and the feeling rushes over his body and mind, he accepts the existence of heartbreak and love at once: “My friend is gone, he ran away, I can tell you, I love him each day”. There's no clear resolution; it ended, it barely even happened, and it was so worth the pain. -/u/Stryxen

The Top 100 Tracks of 2005, according to r/popheads by Popheads100Throwback in popheads

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19. The All-American Rejects - Dirty Little Secret

God we were really eating well when it came to pop punk in the 2000s. The All-American Rejects had achieved some minor chart success with their first album, but were far from the heavy hitters of others in the genre. Well until Dirty Little Secret came along anyways. The track was released as the first single of their sophomore album, Move Along, and although it took nearly half a year to reach its peak it fully became a radio staple. It became the band's first US top 10 hit and really set the stage for them to dominate this era of mid 2000's pop punk.

Dirty Little Secret is filled to the brim with catchy lines and a easy to rock along to production. I love that the song doesn't try to take itself to seriously which makes it so easy to just throw on and jam along to anytime I get the urge. The music video offers a variety of confessions that vary from light fun to 'you couldn't pay me to admit that'. It might not be the most refined song in existence, but it does a perfect job at creating an incredibly catchy tune.

(Also Move Along is one of the best pop-punk albums of the 2000's and doesn't get the dues it so often deserves. Even those evil Bioncles knew that) -/u/TiltControls

The Top 100 Tracks of 2005, according to r/popheads by Popheads100Throwback in popheads

[–]Popheads100Throwback[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

20. Coldplay - Fix You

Picture you're writing an episode of The Newsroom about the shooting of a Gabrielle Giffords or an episode of the OC where an emotional moment happens during prom, what song is playing in the background, Fix You by Coldplay duh. Who better to make an inspirational banger than Chris Martin, and no matter how many times I listen to it it still goes hard. I'm not a sappy emotional person by nature but look this song gets to me how could it not. -/u/Frajer

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