2003
Showing 49 songs from 2003
Seven Nation Army
A guitar pitched down to fake a bass, and the seven-note riff every stadium on earth now sings.
Crazy in Love
Rich Harrison looped a Chi-Lites horn fanfare; Jay-Z turned up at three in the morning and improvised his verse.
Toxic
Minogue passed on it; Bloodshy and Avant hung a Bollywood string sample over surf guitar for Spears's only Grammy.
In Da Club
Dre's beat was offered to D12 and Rakim before 50 Cent wrote to it and held number one nine weeks.
Ignition (Remix)
A remix that swallowed its own original: number two in America five weeks, four at Britain's top.
The Way You Move
Eight weeks stuck at number two behind Hey Ya!, then Big Boi's live Atlanta horns finally took the top.
Such Great Heights (The Postal Service)
Tamborello sent instrumental DATs to Gibbard, who added vocals and shipped them back; his first happy love song.
Numb
Twelve weeks atop the modern rock chart, and Bennington turning somebody else's expectations into a chorus millions shouted back.
Galang
M.I.A.'s second song ever, built on a Roland MC-505 and written for Elastica; dancehall never sounded so homemade.
Get Low
Crunk's breakthrough, produced entirely by Lil Jon, stalled at number two and drove the album past two million copies.
Get By
Kanye West built the beat from Nina Simone's "Sinnerman", and Kweli turned survival into his commercial breakthrough.
Milkshake
A darbuka drum, finger cymbals, and almost nothing else; the Neptunes' emptiest beat became Kelis's biggest hit.
The District Sleeps Alone Tonight
Tamborello mailed the beats to Gibbard on discs, who wrote this over a breakup with someone who moved to Washington.
Transatlanticism
Gibbard watched goodbyes at Heathrow; the band used Weezer's Only in Dreams as the map for that closing climb.
Heartbeats (Jose Gonzalez)
One classical guitar, no drums, and the Knife's synth-pop single reduced to a whisper that reached UK number nine.
Look at Miss Ohio
Welch keeps the arrangement to two guitars, and a beauty queen decides she will do right, just not yet.
Get Busy
Lenky Marsden's Diwali riddim is mostly handclaps and space, and Sean Paul rode it to three weeks at number one.