May the best song win.īefore Justice and Daft Punk lit their megawatt crosses and pyramids in the name of all things distorted and danceable, there was Pascal Arbez aka Vitalic and his arena-ready take on four-down party spiking. With the playing field more level than ever, at its best, the 2000s were a freewheeling musical meritocracy. Meanwhile, everyone put their playlists on shuffle, ricocheting between the White Stripes’ “Fell in Love With a Girl,” Missy Elliott’s “Get Yr Freak On,” and Justin Timberlake’s “My Love” without thinking twice. Jay-Z and Beyoncé started off the decade with brilliant radio hits like “Crazy in Love” and “Big Pimpin’,” and capped it by embracing indie rock in Williamsburg. combined geopolitics with hip-hop and postmodern production on “Paper Planes.” Hot Chip, LCD Soundsystem, and the Knife offered heart-tugging odes built for the dancefloor. Pop met experimental met rap met rock met electronic, sometimes in the same song (see: OutKast’s “B.O.B.”).

The underground met the overground in the form of easily amassed, often free mp3 files. Spurred on by the equalizing force of the internet, distinctions that used to separate music fans collapsed in the 2000s.

Top breakbeat djs in year 2000