Greetings TNOCS Community!
Thank you for your nominations over the last virtual decade for Song of the 2000’s.
I received 60 suggestions, and I added in four more honorable mentions to get us to a cool 64, so we could hold a March-Madness style competition for Song of the Decade.
During the nomination process, I asked you all to vote on your favorite songs that had some kind of consensus appeal — not just your favorite but a song, that was widely recognized at the time.
Now the instructions are different.
- When you are voting below, just pick your favorite of the choices
- Not the one that was more popular or the one that was widely appreciated — just YOUR favorite of the two songs.
We’ll come back every Wednesday and vote until together, we have determine the TNOCS Official Song of the 2000’s Decade. We’ll also have consolation brackets in the later rounds so we can quantify an official TNOCS Top Ten. Voting will be open from Wednesday until Saturday. Then the next round of voting will proceed the following Wednesday.
There will no doubt be some tough choices!
… and they’ll get tougher as the process progresses!
Comment and chat below, and over at the Stereogum Number Ones Column on which were the hardest choices, the most glaring omissions from the list… or the matchups you’re looking forward to.
What song will get its own #Justicefor hashtag?
And if you’re new here, check out some of the other excellent articles from TNOCS contributors… like yourself!
Remember: voting is open now until Saturday, 3:30 AM GMT.
Thanks for stopping by and voting!!!
Let the author know that you liked their article with a “Green Thumb” Upvote!
Thank You For Your Vote!
Sorry You have Already Voted!
Let’s keep it clean folks. After all, it’s only fun and games!
(Just make sure “Single Ladies” gets to the top…or else…)
I have my opinion about which song will win, but I’ll withhold it to avoid juicing (or poisoning) the results. I don’t think it will be “Single Ladies” though it certainly would be a worthwhile choice.
For the record, having to choose between “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” and “Crank That” really hurt me. I’m sorry, Souljah Boy Tellem…
He doesn’t even get the honour of being the only person named Soulja to top the charts. (Soulja Slim on Slow Motion…)
Soulja Boy to Soulja Slim: “YAAHH, TRICK, YAAHHH!!!”
I felt like the Paper Planes vs 1 Thing choice was brutal! And Thong Song vs Toxic! I can’t kill these beautiful children so early in the game…
And I created this monstrosity… what have I done????
Someday, I tell myself, I’m going to make a 10s bracket, but now I’m unsure if I can handle having to sacrifice so many great songs every round.
Napoleon, I was not planning on doing the 10’s, so it’s all yours if you want it. It is a bit like having kids then sacrificing them on the altar, so be ready to let go of your loved ones.
I have to give a huge shout-out to mt58 for making this dream a reality!!! This is exactly what I was imagining but better. The voting mechanism is intuitive and easy, results instantaneous. It looks awesome. Thank you brother!!!
That’s super kind; thank you.
The idea for this is 100% Pauly, and it was a pleasure to work on.
Tell your friends! We’re gonna have a lot of fun over the next six weeks.
Dude, I second this, well done getting such a purty poll up for us mt!
This is great! And really hard. I see a couple of my favorites, like Green Day and Amy Winehouse, are doing well as of right now but somehow I don’t think they’ll make it to the finals.
That was fun! Thanks, Pauly and mt, for the collab!
Love it.
Great stuff, though I reserve the right to change my mind should the wrong song win. Currently more than half my picks are in the lead, though its not looking good for Sugababes. I suppose Crazy In Love is a worthy opponent though.
At least Sugababes are doing better than Soulja Boy and UGK. No love in the tnocs house for them.
Some really tough match ups, especially Lil Jon vs Sean Paul. It’s like choosing whether I’d rather have root canal surgery or be smeared in honey and introduced to some angry bees.
The Sugababes weakness is that their nominated song is a cover of the superior Adina Howard song (which is from the 90’s so it doesn’t qualify for this competition alas).
I loooooooooove Adina Howard’s version, but somehow I like tne Sugababes’ version even better. It’s even with Crazy in Love, but I voted for the latter on the basis of “decade-defining”.
Some of these were TOUGH choices. Thanks for doing this!
I’m hoping that a song I’m unfamiliar with will knock off my top pick. It’s a boring and obvious pick. And maybe I’m sick of it already from overplay.
I knew that Kings of Leon’s “On Call” and The New Pornographers’ “Sing Me Spanish Techno” were niche songs, which is why I didn’t participate in the nomination process. I would end off coming across as a troll. During the aughts, I was still trapped in an indie rock silo.
In retrospect, “Maps” would have worked.
Maps would have been perfect. Or Home by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros.
What is the indie famous/mainstream alternative divide?
What side do these three songs fall on?
White Winter Hymnal- Fleet Foxes
Skinny Love- Bon Iver
Kids- MGMT
I honestly don’t know.
Tough one! I’d put Fleet Foxes and Bon Iver on the indie famous side and MGMT on the mainstream alternative side. But I’m NOT a neutral observer.
I agree on all 3. “Kids” was the only one that charted, and the only one I could song for you right now
Thanks for the effort, Pauly. I can see now that things are going to get very difficult as we move up the bracket.
What are the 4 last-minute additions?
IIRC, it was Smooth, Foolish, Get Busy and Temperature. (Yes I’m a bit of a Sean Paul fan I guess.)
Can’t wait to see how the round 1 results pan out! The hardest decision for me was Jay/Alicia vs MCR… and fittingly, that matchup is tied right now
I think I broke the tie. Whoops.
A format like this doesn’t favour artists I love like Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga, who broke out in 2009 and became dominating figures of the early 2010s. Aside from those misgivings about their songs being 2000s totems, I loved every moment of this.
Not so sure I agree with this assessment. I bet Lady Gaga will do just fine in my estimation.
I should’ve clarified that I was talking about my own assessments. But you’re probably still right — I voted for Bad Romance.
I thoroughly enjoyed participating in this, though I feel bad for poor Britney going up against Hey Ya! LEAVE HER ALONE!
Coincidentally, my church has been having its own 64 brackets asking us parishioners to decide our top 4 hymns (no Christmas ones allowed, alas). Our preachers promise to do a sermon on each one of the quartet during the week of August. No problem, right? Well, it’s gotten intense enough (we’re now down to the Elite 8) that one guy muttered about the voting, “Democracy isn’t fair!” I’ll try to update y’all on our Final 4 that should be revealed by next Sunday.
Praying for “Amazing Grace.”
That’s a 10 all day, every day. If I had to choose the ten songs that make me wet-eyed most reliably, that would be one of them.
This would be a great topic for a future column… most dependable tear-jerkers.
When an artist dies, all their songs become sad. Nanci Griffith sang “From a Distance” on Late Night with David Letterman. There’s a note she hits that doesn’t occur on the studio version. I remember feeling something. Not the presence of God, but rather, this lady seems like a really nice person. When I had money, I bought Storms, partly because Sears didn’t have a particularly large selection, but mostly because of “From a Distance”.
“Drive-in Movies and Dashboard Lights” is underrated.
So unexpected, Griffith’s death. I didn’t know she was ailing. I found it on YouTube, and perhaps, I got a little emotional.
Elliott Smith’s saddest song? Take your pick.
I think it’s “Rose Parade”.
Ok… who wants to grab this one?
😊
When I was a kid, my parents (and therefore I) switched churches from Baptist to Methodist. I remember there wasn’t a whole lot of hymn overlap among the ones commonly sung on Sunday. On the Baptist side, it was a lot more “Onward Christian Soldiers” and “The Old Rugged Cross,” while on the Methodist side, it was more “How Great Thou Art” and “Holy, Holy, Holy.”
I am definitely curious to hear how the results shake out!!! The more astute among us (not me) may be able to guess your denomination based on the winning hymns.
in what world would someone pick Nickelback over Beyonce? my world!!!!!!!
FWIW, it seems to be quite the minority opinion…
Upvoted for you doing you. This is how you remind us of how you really are.
In the real world, if you make fun of Nickelback, people get mad.
TIL that Nickelback is a genre of joke. There are multiple web pages dedicated to this phenomenon.
Those people you speak of, cappie, may be the vanguard of the backlash against the backlash. But they are also, to quote Elaine Benes, “Sickies.”
Rick Froberg, R.I.P.
I know Elaine’s last name. It’s the first time I saw it in print like this.
Andy Benes was 15-11 with a 3.06 ERA when the s/t Drive Like Jehu album came out.
Such a great collection of comments on the mothership.
Getting back to Nickelback: I remember verbatim, what a coworker said to me when I talked smack about his favorite band.
“If you have a problem with Nickelback, you have a problem with me.”
Oh, no.
I think Mark Mothersbaugh makes for a better spirit animal.
Thank you, randomizer, for making Round 1 choices fairly painless. 😁
I tell ya what, it is hawt in herrrre, my goodness……