The 100 Greatest Songs of 2003: Staff Picks

With the pop music of the ’00s actually discovering its footing in 2002, the 12 months 2003 was a couple of new class of superstars. Certain, a few of the largest names of the late ’90s have been nonetheless round: The most important title of the TRL period was getting again within the zone after a small business downturn, whereas the MC who’d simply ascended to biggest rapper alive standing was already planning his fade to black. And a few icons from earlier within the twentieth century loved late mainstream cameos, one making one thing near a ultimate inventive assertion, and one simply on the lookout for an excuse to hit the closest bar.

However 2003 was initially in regards to the new sensations: notably a pair who’d simply spun off from best-selling flip of the century acts, and would outline solo pop superstardom for the remainder of the last decade. Justin Timberlake’s Justified from late the 12 months earlier than continued to stay as much as its title, incomes its hype by spinning off greater and larger hits effectively into 2003. And Beyoncé’s Dangerously in Love trumpeted — considerably actually, within the Chi-Lites pattern that kicked off its lead single — the arrival of a real game-changing phenomenon. Whereas pop within the ’90s had largely been outlined by teams, the rise of JT and Beyoncé made it clear that solo acts would lead the vanguard within the early twenty first century, a shift that’s solely turn into extra pronounced within the 20 years since.

And solo superstardom was hardly the only province of the highest 40 world. The 12 months was bookended by the emergence of two rappers — 50 Cent early and Kanye West late — whose simultaneous rise would develop into hip-hop’s most fascinating rivalry and binary. Whereas nonetheless recording beneath the OutKast umbrella, the duo of Huge Boi and Andre 3000 additionally splintered into solo ventures, with chart-topping, culture-changing outcomes. Even the producers have been going their very own manner: Whereas he was all the time the extra seen of the Neptunes, Pharrell scored a solo smash beneath his personal title for the primary time in 2003, proving — together with Lil Jon blasting off into one of popular culture’s most ubiquitous figures — that behind-the-decks figures instantly had star potential as excessive as anybody with a mic.

However that’s to not say that nobody was discovering energy in numbers. The rock world, nonetheless dominated by nu-metal, emo and pop-punk, continued to be band-oriented — one or two even with frontwomen, a far-too-rare prevalence in early-’00s fashionable rock. In the meantime, heroes of 2001’s New Rock Revolution like The White Stripes and The Strokes discovered larger business success with their follow-up efforts, as worldwide outfits like Jet and The Darkness adopted their instance by diving additional into rock’s archives, scoring two of the 12 months’s largest breakout hits within the course of. And Northwest indie hero Ben Gibbard thrived as a part of two very completely different teams, because the longtime frontman for Loss of life Cab For Cutie — who pushed ever nearer to the mainstream, with assist from the 12 months’s shock breakout primetime drama — and as one-half of The Postal Service, the electro-pop duo whose distant, computer-based method to music-making made their Give Up the 12 months’s most prescient alt-rock launch.

And all of this simply scratches the floor of the whole lot that was happening in music in 2003: crunk, dancehall, grime, discopunk… it was a 12 months that produced as a lot timeless pop music because it did music that might solely make sense in its specific second, all of which stays extremely satisfying to dive again into 20 years later. Don’t imagine us? Take a look at our listing of the 100 greatest songs of that 12 months — kicking off every week of 2003-themed content material right here at Billboard.com — and see if it doesn’t transfer your toes, rock your physique, and usually make you wistful and nostalgic about occasions like these.

(Songs have been counted as being from 2003 in the event that they first charted on their most related Billboard chart in 2003 — or, in the event that they by no means charted, in the event that they have been launched as a single in 2003 — until they hit No. 1 for the primary time in a later 12 months. So apologies to “The Approach You Transfer,” “Gradual Jamz,” “99 Issues,” “Poisonous,” “Maps” and lots of extra songs all technically first launched in ’03; we’ll see you all subsequent 12 months.)