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.
12:51
Guitars pushed to sound like synthesizers, and a Roman Coppola video that borrows its neon from Tron.
Rock Your Body
The Neptunes wrote it for Michael Jackson's Invincible; he passed, Timberlake took it, and the falsetto glides straight into disco.
Are You Gonna Be My Girl
A cough left in from the demo, a Motown-derived stomp, and a riff everyone insisted they had heard before.
The New Year
A field recording of distant Seattle freeway noise opens the album, then the guitars come crashing in behind Gibbard.
Kissing the Lipless
Cut in the basement of Mercer's Portland house, a breakup song that starts at a whisper and detonates.
Remember When
Jackson wrote it alone, a whole marriage from courtship to old age, and country radio held it at number one.
I Believe in a Thing Called Love
Justin Hawkins in full falsetto, cut at Chapel Studios, on a riff Q placed among its 101 greatest guitar tracks.
Stacy's Mom
Schlesinger owned up to this one, chasing the Cars; Ocasek assumed the intro was sampled from Just What I Needed.
21 Questions
Dre objected to a love song on a gangsta album, then mixed it into four weeks atop the Hot 100.
Feeling This
Hoppus and DeLonge wrote in separate rooms, choruses and verses, and Barker's beat locked them together in a day.
The Sound of Settling
Walla had to talk the band into keeping it, and Gibbard's throwaway became their singalong.
Sleeping In
Tamborello mailed beats from Los Angeles; Gibbard answered with a dream he would rather not wake from.
Carry Me Ohio
Kozelek grew up in Massillon, Ohio, and this is what he sends back: an apology set to ringing acoustic guitars.
Where Is The Love?
An uncredited Timberlake sang the hook to protect his solo album, and Britain kept it at number one six weeks.
Bring Me To Life
Lee wrote it at nineteen, the label insisted on a male voice, and David Campbell's string section did the rest.
It's My Life (No Doubt)
Hollis and Friese-Greene wrote it for Talk Talk in 1984, and Nellee Hooper's production hands Stefani a stadium chorus.
Title and Registration
Unhappy with the mix, Walla squashed the drums through speech-therapy hardware and rebuilt the track around a glove compartment.
It's Five O'Clock Somewhere
Brown and Rollins wrote it, Stegall cut it, and Buffett collected the first major award of his thirty-year career.
Senorita
Pharrell and Chad Hugo hand him an electric piano strut and a cowbell; Timberlake splits the room to sing back.
My Immortal
Lee and Moody wrote it at fifteen; the album kept her raw demo vocal, radio got Campbell's grieving strings.