The brain trust at Pitchfork.com has spent the past week rolling out its picks for the 500 best songs of the 2000s. Yes, our present remarkable decade is mere months from ending, and that means it’s time for us music nerds of the world to get busy assembling arbitrary lists and/or arguing about said lists. Pitchfork unveiled their choice for the No. 1 most excellent song of the past 10 years yesterday: OutKast’s “B.O.B.” (a.k.a. “Bombs Over Baghdad”). Did they make the right call?
I say, sure! The wildly innovative sound of “B.O.B.” blew my mind when I first heard it back in 2000, and I’m not close to tired of it yet. Even if that song showed up at the top of every list ever, I still wouldn’t think it was overpraised. That psychedelic wash of organ chords, that relentless drum-machine stutter, that ripping guitar solo, those dueling rhymes from two of the illest lyricists of all time… Man, do I miss OutKast.
Other Top 10 contenders in Pitchfork’s list came from Arcade Fire, Animal Collective, Radiohead, Beyonce, M.I.A., and more. Click over to read the full list of 500, then let us know: Do you agree with Pitchfork’s rankings? Any startling omissions or egregiously off-base inclusions? In the meantime, you can listen to all 500 Pitchfork picks at Lala.com — or just bask in the glory that is “B.O.B.” again and again after the jump (some NSFW lyrics). Go on, you know you want to.
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Wow! What a HORRIBLE choice. It wasn’t even the best Outkast song. People have the poorest taste in music these days.
What kills me is that while it’s not a bad song my any means, lists like these should really be about how a song captured everyone’s attention and brings you back to the time it was released. And if ANY Outkast song did that effectively in this decade, it was Andre 3000′s “Hey Ya”. But lists like these are destined for FAIL since music is subjective and everyone’s individual tastes vary greatly.
No, these lists should be about the best songs of the time, and the best song of the 2000′s was B.O.B. But Hey Ya was a great song, and it was on Pitchforks list, but i agree B.O.B. is much better
Agreed. Not even the best Outkast song. I think people like those at Pitchfork purposefully say dumb crap like this to be provocative. It’s desperation.
They aren’t picking the most POPULAR songs of the decade…they are picking what they think are the most unique, ground-breaking, influential songs. Otherwise, this list would be full of Nickelback, Rob Thomas and Soulja Boy. Would that suit you better?
The rest of the list is even worse. Since when did a song being wierd, automatically make it genious?
See “Losing My Head” as an example of just plain wierd, but not in a good way.
No, being “weird” doesn’t automatically make something genius. However, being unique is viewed as valuable in art because uniqueness is…rare.
I think “Crazy in Love” totally deserves its spot on the list. Can anyone ever resist dancing and/or singing along when it plays? Has anyone ever gotten sick of it?!
I have
Me too
Me too
Though I agree that Crazy in Love is the one of the only two good things Beyone has ever done (the second thing being “baby boy”) Madonna’s Hung Up rules even higher.
Crazy in Love was hailed as visionary and peerless. Just listen to club music and you know that this song SUCKS and paled in comparison by being so derivative of ANY other seminal dance club song.
Checked out the entire list. Ridiculous. How can you write a list of the best songs of the decade, top 500 no less, and not include “we belong together” by Mariah. Knock her or her antics, the song ruled the radio waves…
Ha! Don’t make me laughed, it ruled the radio only because radio doesn’t play anything else anymore but far from being *song of the decade* I’ll put it in last place on my list.
Just because a song ruled the radio waves does not make it a good one. I agree with Pitchfork made good choices. They mixed a lot of radio ready tunes like “Crazy in Love,” “Yeah,” and “Umbrella,” with other obscure tracks that are just as good but other people don’t know about. I like it.
Um they didn’t do much mixing. About 20 songs in the top 100 were actually radio hits. Might be the top 500 for indie intellectuals. Not for the general public.
A lot of songs go unnoticed because radios play a limited amount of music. The artist Robyn who has two songs in the countdown is an amazing pop artist who’d be great for radio play but she doesn’t get any in the US. Does that make her worse then some of the dreck that the radio plays?
Perhaps this is because Pitchfork is a Web site geared toward indie intellectuals, brainiac.
That’s “intellectuals”, as in pseudo.
because the quality of music is determined by how popular it is right…NOT!
Did you even look at the list? People who work for a music mag listen to a lot more music than the average person, so of course there will be songs you don’t know on a “best of” list. Because you are stuck in 1985, when your musical choices were limited to radio play. Why not join the internet age?
HELL YES!!! I had eargasms when i first heard this song.
Me too! I get excited everytime the Big Boi part starts up!
B.O.B. is perfect. Wild tune. Obviously the general public will not like it and go for chart toppers, but this tune is completely credible. Most of the people posting here should check out the NOW! series for their songs, ha!
Great choice, “B.O.B.” is a great song. I already liked Outkast before that due to Aquemini (especially “Rosa Parks”), but “B.O.B.” absolutely blew my mind, and the rest of Stankonia did not disappoint. That electric guitar-scratch gospel choir breakdown at the end of the song, complete with explosions? Music doesn’t get any better than that!
While I disagree with a lot of the placement on that list and some downright terrible choices (In Da Club, Milshake, etc.), most of the list is pretty accurate. Just because you haven’t heard of most of the stuff on there doesn’t mean it isn’t great. Do yourself a favor and venture outside of the radio…
The list is a great mix of blissfuly fun pop and more obscure stuff. A+!
thank god for pitchfork, or those of us with taste and a sense of self esteem might not have an alternative to the american idols and the mariah careys that are so horrifying to the soul.
Those with taste and sense of self esteem… while posting online thanking god?
If you had taste and self-esteem, you would neither need advice from Pitchfork nor would you need their approval..which might somehow lead you to choose to actually like something that all of the other hipster wannabes aren’t pretending to like this week.
I love B.O.B. Such and amazing song. And you know who else does? Wood Harris and Jon Hamm. AKA Avon Barksdale and Don Draper.
Outkast is a good group, for the most part. But it seems that every year of this decade has had a song that’s supposed to be THE ONE for the 00s. If it’s not that, it’s all about THE SONG OF THE SUMMER!!!!
I’m tired of it all & can’t wait for the 2010s to begin so we can all start over.
They didn’t even put “We Belong Together” on the list?
Worst list I’ve ever seen.
who makes these things anyways?
GREAT call on OutKast’s “B.O.B.” for #1.