Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)
2008
Beyonce found Bob Fosse's Mexican Breakfast on YouTube; three Grammys and a decade of wedding receptions followed.
★ 8.6
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2008
Showing 44 songs from 2008
Paper Planes
2008 · From Kala
Gunshots and a cash register over a Clash loop, with Brixton kids singing a hook about immigrant stereotypes.
★ 7.8
Poker Face
2008
RedOne produced it at Record Plant, Gaga's mum-mum-mum-mah hook nodding to Boney M, and 2009's best-selling single worldwide.
★ 7.5
Heartless
2008 · From 808s & Heartbreak
Auto-Tune, a TR-808, No I.D. co-producing, and Kid Cudi writing the hook: rap learned to sing from this.
★ 7.5
Love Story
2008 · From Fearless
Swift wrote it in twenty minutes on her bedroom floor, gave Romeo and Juliet a happy ending, banjo included.
★ 7.3
Viva La Vida
2008 · From Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends
Eno producing, Davide Rossi's looping strings, a deposed king narrating, and Coldplay's first number one in Britain and America.
★ 7.1
Day 'n' Nite
2008
Cut in Dot da Genius's home studio in East New York, using a Geto Boys favorite as its blueprint.
★ 7.0
Skinny Love
2008 · From For Emma, Forever Ago
Vernon cut it alone in his father's Wisconsin hunting cabin over a winter, and the falsetto still sounds snowbound.
★ 6.9
Love Lockdown
2008 · From 808s & Heartbreak
Taiko drums against an 808 heartbeat, Auto-Tune everywhere, and a version West scrapped and recut after the fan backlash.
★ 6.7
Kids
2008 · From Oracular Spectacular
Goldwasser wrote the music at nineteen in a dorm room, an exercise in stereotypical pop that outgrew itself.
★ 6.7
Time to Pretend
2008 · From Oracular Spectacular
The praying mantis in their house inspired the music, by the band's account; the words satirize rock-star excess.
★ 6.6
Electric Feel
2008 · From Oracular Spectacular
A 6/4 groove where pop usually sits in 4/4, and Fridmann's production turns silvery synths into a slow strut.
★ 6.6
Flume
2008 · From For Emma, Forever Ago
Three months alone in his father's Wisconsin hunting cabin, and falsetto stacked until one voice becomes a choir.
★ 6.4
White Winter Hymnal
2008 · From Fleet Foxes
A round about snow that the band never once played together, its voices stacked from first takes in production.
★ 6.4
Mykonos
2008 · From Sun Giant
Pecknold rebuilt a piano soul demo with Phil Ek at Bear Creek, and the harmonies own the second half.
★ 6.2
Just Dance
2008
Twenty-two weeks crawling up the Hot 100 before number one, RedOne's synths announcing the pop decade ahead.
★ 6.2
Oxford Comma
2008 · From Vampire Weekend
Koenig found the punctuation via a Columbia Facebook group, then wrote a song about not caring at all.
★ 6.0
Use Somebody
2008 · From Only by the Night
Recorded at Blackbird Studio in Nashville, it spent fifty-seven weeks on the Hot 100 and won Record of the Year.
★ 5.7
Help I'm Alive
2008
Haines wrote it on piano in Buenos Aires as a ballad; the tempo went up and panic became a hook.
★ 5.6
Re: Stacks
2008 · From For Emma, Forever Ago
In his father's Wisconsin hunting cabin, Vernon shaped the melody wordlessly, then wrote his gambling losses into it.
★ 5.6
Blue Ridge MountainsFleet Foxes
Blue Ridge Mountains
2008 · From Fleet Foxes
Homesick for his brother Sean, Pecknold buried the vocals in reverb and block harmony that swells like Sacred Harp singing.
★ 5.5
L.E.S. Artistes
2008
Billed as Santogold then, White aimed it at Lower East Side poseurs; Rolling Stone called it 2008's second best single.
★ 5.3
I'm Yours
2008
A demo on a 2005 EP that fans wore out live, then spent seventy-six weeks on the Hot 100.
★ 5.0
Disturbia
2008
Four writers including Chris Brown, a reissue bonus track, and two weeks at number one on anxiety alone.
★ 4.8
Take a Bow
2008
StarGate and Ne-Yo tracked the ballad in three studios on two continents, and it vaulted from fifty-three to number one.
★ 4.3
Furr
2008
A four-track cassette machine in the rehearsal space Earley half lived in, and a boy who runs with wolves.
★ 4.2
Circus
2008
Claude Kelly's ringleader conceit, a Dr. Luke stomp, and Spears back on top of the spectacle that swallowed her.
★ 4.2
We Own The Sky
2008
Gonzalez wrote it with his brother Yann, and Ken Thomas produced an album that worships John Hughes and eighties synths.
★ 4.1
Rockin' that Thang
2008
Los Da Mystro's synths and a title the radio had to clean up; The-Dream made desire sound weightless.
★ 4.1
Love in This Club
2008
Three weeks at number one, built on synth loops Polow da Don pulled from a GarageBand pack.
★ 4.1
Hot N Cold
2008
Max Martin and Dr. Luke's pop machine at full tilt, a runaway-groom video, and 39 weeks on the Hot 100.
★ 4.0
Live Your Life
2008
Eighty to number one in a single week, on a hook lifted from the Moldovan pop song behind Numa Numa.
★ 4.0
Whatever You Like
2008
Jim Jonsin built the beat from the Rocky II theme, and it leapt seventy places to number one, a chart record.
★ 3.8
No Air
2008
Sparks became the first American Idol alum past three million US sales, and the duet earned a Grammy nomination.
★ 3.2
Pocketful of Sunshine
2008
Cut at Starstruck in Nashville with John Shanks playing most of it, sunshine offered as an escape hatch.
★ 3.0
Right Now (Na Na Na)
2008
A deliberate Euro-club record from Akon and Giorgio Tuinfort, with a video now past a billion views.
★ 3.0
Dangerous
2008
Under an hour, beat to finished verse, by Kardinal's account; the Junos named it Single of the Year.
★ 2.6
Free Fallin' (John Mayer)
2008
Two days was all Petty and Lynne needed; Mayer's acoustic version, taped at the Nokia Theatre, became a single itself.
★ 2.3