Best 2000s Pop Songs
The best pop songs of the 2000s — 10 essential tracks, each linked to the album. The decade's pop landscape was unusually fractured: teen-pop holdovers from the late 90s, a wave of R&B-inflected crossover pop, the last gasp of the physical-single era giving way to iTunes and digital downloads mid-decade, and indie-pop crossover acts blurring the line between mainstream and alternative radio. This list favours the songs that still sound like the decade's defining pop moments rather than the ones that simply charted highest.
Reviewed by Callum Ashworth, 247 Album Verdict · Last updated · How we rank
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Tap the artwork or "Listen" to find the track on Amazon Music; "Watch" opens a YouTube search; the song title or "Album" opens its album page. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases and sign-ups.
Why does the 2000s pop landscape feel so fragmented compared to other decades?
The decade sat at a genuine turning point — teen-pop holdovers from the late 1990s, R&B-influenced crossover pop, and the physical-single era giving way to iTunes and digital downloads roughly halfway through. Fewer single dominant sounds means the decade's pop canon is more varied than, say, the 1980s or 1990s.
Is this list ranked by chart performance?
No — we favour songs that still feel like the decade's defining pop moments today, not necessarily the ones with the highest chart peak at the time. Some genuinely huge hits fade quickly; others become more culturally significant with distance.
Does this list include R&B and hip-hop-adjacent pop crossovers?
Yes, where the song functioned primarily as a mainstream pop hit regardless of its genre roots — the 2000s in particular saw heavy crossover between pop, R&B and hip-hop production, and separating them cleanly would misrepresent how the decade's biggest pop hits actually sounded.