Slant Magazine

30. The Avalanches, "Frontier Psychiatrist." A masterpiece of overdriven pastiche, "Frontier Psychiatrist" is the most impressive technical feat from Since I Left You, crafting an entire chorus from castoff phrases, thundering with booming horns, and closing out with what's undoubtedly the greatest thing ever done with a parrot squawk. There's also some hint of narrative, but that, like the mysterious sources of the obscure samples that dot the song, takes a back seat to the product as a whole, which twitches with the individual energy of all its buzzing pieces. JC

29. Missy Elliott, "Work It." Missy Elliot's lyrics have always been suggestive, but never this interestingly so. Like her beats, she lays her pussy on you aggressively, but the naughtiest bits of business are masked—by an elephant's trumpet no less—and sometimes reversed. With the song, her most successful to date and a testament to her lyrical and sexual flow, she doesn't so much preach as she brags about knowing how to work a dick while also turning an awesome phrase. Pairing Elliot's enlightened sexual prowess with Timbaland's old school beats makes for a song of bizarre and brazenly discordant power. EG

28. Sigur Rós, "Svefn-G-Enblar." Like drowning in a sea of bulbous musical textures, "Svefn-G-Enblar" is 10 minutes of pure bliss—a majestic, intoxicating totem of a song that crashes over you like a wave. Part of its mesmeric allure is how its rich ambiance suggests a trip into a strange, cosmic netherworld that's foreign, scary, and tempting to resist, but one made welcoming by the comforting effect of the ambiguously tongued Jónsi's only recognizably English line ("It's you"), which guides one through the song's reverie as if toward rapture. EG

27. Modest Mouse, "Float On." Pushing Isaac Brock's yelpy wail briefly into the limelight (there was even a Kidz Bop version!), "Float On" was the strange moment where the band's jagged sound clicked with the masses, riding along a by-the-numbers bassline that clashes nicely with the horror-movie guitar tricks hovering above. Likely the most accessible song from their most accessible album, the song feigns sunniness, hiding behind its spryly upbeat guitar and some begrudgingly accepting lyrics, while still remaining as progressively dark as most of the band's other material. JC

26. Annie, "Chewing Gum." Bubblegum pop, literally, and a highlight of Annie's stellar debut, Anniemal, this delectable stick of electro-pop finds in the snappy production by Richard X the perfect corollary to the singer's infectious coyness. Annie's friend thinks she has a new boy stuck to her shoe, and just as you're ready to begrudge the singer for what seems like highly egregious, very unnecessary metaphor-play, the sassy chorus, in which Annie declares herself a sort of fulltime man-chewer, playfully flips the whole song on its head. Annie's the hot girl at the skating rink who knocks you off your feet when you're least expecting it. EG

25. Madonna, "Music." From its generic title to Madonna's anonymous vocal performance, "Music" is a blank slate of a song. To wit, the song has had almost as many makeovers as Madonna herself. Okay, so not quite that many, but each of the performer's tours during the last decade has featured a new incarnation of the song: Kraftwerk-inspired electronica, '70s disco, and most recently, '80s hip-hop (the next logical embodiment would be '90s house). If music truly is a universal language, then "Music"—in all of its meta reinventions and retro dialects—might be the best piece of evidence we have that music really does make the people come together. SC

24. Justin Timberlake featuring T.I., "My Love." After getting more or less Louisette Bertholle'd from Missy Elliott's Mastering the Art of Hot Shit, producer Timbaland (already on his second or third career renaissance in the aughts, but who's counting?) set his sights on little JT's continuing dog and pony show. "SexyBack" was the mutant novelty hit, wherein Tim's King Kong beats all but crushed Justin's Faye Wray vocals. But the butter and the meat came together in salaciously un-kosher fashion with the dead-sexy "My Love," a tip-top, hot-blooded vehicle for Timberlake's true calling as the 21st century's skanky Ben Vereen. Listen closely. You can hear everyone's mouth watering. EH

23. Daft Punk, "One More Time." And on the seventh day, two robot gods did not rest but instead brought the filtered disco craze of the late '90s to its star-spangled apex. Body-glittered pink cherubs brought to their neon lips a chorus of trumpets, the chosen people congregated at the foot of a luminescent temple, and the world was either baptized or skull-fucked by a most tumescent bass kick. No room for little fluffy clouds this high up in the stratosphere. So it was written, so it has been done: "It's Christmas in Disco Heaven, every single day." EH

22. OutKast, "Hey Ya!" Splitting Big Boi's gruff insouciance from Andre 3000's wild energy on Speakerboxxx/The Love Below may not have been the best decision, but it yielded at least one piece of undeniable perfection. Leagues above his counterpart's "I Like the Way You Move," leagues above most things released that year, "Hey Ya!" rides a flawless vocal line, isolated moments (the "All right" repetition) that work through sheer verve and a bouncing-ball synth to a stylistic peak that withstood even half a decade's worth of oversaturation. JC

21. Aaliyah featuring Timbaland, "We Need a Resolution." Told almost entirely as a series of bitter-tongued questions, "We Need a Resolution" finds Aaliyah hurt and exasperated. It's a breakup song of unconventional structure and startling complexity because it offers no easy answers, though by the time Timbaland chimes in you realize the lovers he and Aaliyah play don't resent each other so much as they resent their going through the motions. My favorite musical choice of the decade: How Timbaland rhymes one of his typically sick sci-fi flourishes to Aaliyah's "Where were you last night?," amazingly conveying the mocking line in the sand lovers almost always regret drawing during a spat. EG