Best of 2000s Pop Song Bracket Part 1

It was a new millennium. The music that dominated the 90's was on it's way out and new trends were about to take over the airwaves. It was 10 years of many different new trends coming and going, some longer than others. New stars would emerge and become A-list mainstays while others wouldn't make it out of the decade without losing that status. Looking back at it, there was so much good and it's all so nostalgic to me now. It was in that decade that music really started to hit me in a different way, and slowly started to become an important part of who I am. And while the pop songs on the radio/charts weren't the only thing that caused that love to grow, today I thought I would look back at some of the most popular and iconic songs of that decade and decide which one was truly the best. I'm not going to try to just pick my personal favorite but actually look at the song in many ways.

1. How popular it was during its peak

2. How it influenced the music around it at the time

3. How long it stuck around in the mainstream

4. What kind of legacy it left behind (if any)

5. What it did for the artist behind it

6. How it stood out in its own genre
7. If it holds up today

The first section will be the rock section which will include rock songs put up against random songs in the same genre. I tried to pick the most popular rock songs of the 2000s, of course, there's plenty missing, but it would be impossible to fit them all. 16 songs that I feel were important in one way or another to the decade. Also, only one song per artist so that there are not 3 Linkin Park songs or more than one Nickelback song (gross). This time I'll be covering the first four matchups. 

Match 1: Blink 182's All the Small Things VS. Panic! at the Disco's I Write Sins...

Starting off the bracket with a really tough one right away. Both songs probably shared a decent amount of fans, though they were separated by about 6 years. Blink 182's from their 1999 album Enema of the State and Panic's from their 2005 album A Fever You Can't Sweat Out.

Starting with Blink on this one, the song was their biggest hit at the time and it helped catapult them to new heights. The band had been around for most of the 90s slowly growing their fanbase and finding their sound. It wasn't until this album that it felt like they truly found their sound and would go on to release several other great albums, though no song would be as big as All The Small Things was. The song is pretty simple in its execution, but it's also incredibly catchy and smart in its musical choices. The two notes starting of the song always felt like something really iconic and memorable that no other song had really done at the time. Those two notes just kick the song off into high gear instantly and it's one of those moments that works great at live shows. Travis also does a fine job on the drums, nothing special (sarcasm). Also worth remembering the music video which made fun of all the boy bands of the late 90s.
Blink-182 used the success of this song to continue making great music for the first half of the decade before splitting up into two new bands, eventually reuniting and changing their lineup. Their influence in music is still really important to the music scene especially in the mid-2000s where the big pop-punk movement was all the rage until the late 2000s. Funny enough, Panic! at the Disco themselves started as a Blink-182 cover band before finding their own success. It's safe to say that Blink's influence in music was pretty big and lots of great bands came after them taking a little of their style and making something new. I think a lot of that is owed to the success of All The Small Things because a lot of people wouldn't have found them without that huge hit.

Now on to Panic's overly long titled song I Write Sins Not Tragedies. In some ways, you could say this song was the peak of the pop-punk movement of the mid-2000s. At the time Panic! consisted of four members all from the original line-up, who are all gone as of now, the only member left being Brandon Urie. It was honestly tough trying to decide between Fall Out Boy's music or Panic's music to put on to the list here. Ultimately I felt this song was more popular and lead to a bigger career in Brandon Urie's Panic! at the Disco. Over the years he's had multiple hits, but it wasn't until just last year he finally had a song bigger than this one with High Hopes.
Much like All The Small Things, I Write Sins also has a really memorable intro with a subtle instrumental before breaking into the rock sound. Panic! became known for their use of many different instruments/orchestral sounds in their albums, which made them feel a lot different than other pop-punk bands at the time, not even sure you could call them a pop-punk band, but they hung around that scene earlier in their career.  While the song was the peak of pop-punk in some ways, I don't think its influence is as strong as Blink-182's. Maybe because other bands at the time were doing similar songs with some success, it's tough to say how strong their influence was on the scene. Especially since that scene is far less popular than it was in the 2000s though it's still around.

Verdict: It's a tough choice really, trying to pick either of these songs as the better one. I think Panic! at the Disco's song is better in its lyrics and music, but I think Blink's is far catchier and probably more important to the decade and the music landscape. So I think I'd give the slight edge here to All The Small Things.

Match 2: White Stripe's Seven Nation Army VS. Santana's Smooth

In what feels like a pretty strange matchup, we got two big rock song staples here. The big arena rock hit Seven Nation Army takes on the inescapable song that crushed the charts in Smooth. Seven Nation Army made it's debut early in the decade in the year 2003, while Smooth was the song that transitioned to the new millennium in mid-1999. 

So Seven Nation Army wasn't really that big of a hit when it first came out, actually, it didn't even make a dent on the pop charts here until the year 2014 (though it was a bigger hit in the UK). The song has been adopted as a chant in many arenas all over the world, you'll probably have heard it during football matches and other sporting events. The opening "bass" line has become a very iconic riff in music. Though the original recording was actually not a bass guitar just an electric guitar with a pedal used to get that deep effect. That iconic riff might actually be the most well-known riff in all of music it seems. The song just feels so raw and when the guitar really kicks in it's pretty damn amazing, but that's what Jack White does with a guitar in his hand. The style of guitar playing was very influential to many future artists. Groups like Alabama Shakes, Black Keys, and Kings of Leon all used that style of raw distorted guitar among many others. The White Stripe's influence in music through this song is important and clear. 

Next up we have the Latin-rock crossover hit Smooth by music legend Santana. The thing about Santana is, he was already a hugely influential rock star at this point and he'd already been around for many decades. The thing about him is that he hadn't really been relevant to the popular music scene in a very long time as well. When he decided to make an album where he would collab with younger artists it seemed like a great idea, but I don't think even he knew how big it would actually be. Smooth would become the most successful modern song and it still holds that title. But it's weird that a song this popular wouldn't really influence the way pop music went moving forward. Hip-Hop and R&B were still coming in strong and would eventually be the most popular genres. Smooth was huge, but it also feels like a song that was the perfect send off to the style of the 90s. Its success will live on in the record books, but its influence maybe not so much. Still a great song with lots of great music played by amazing musicians and the weird vocals by Rob Thomas can't be forgotten either.

I think for me, the winner is clear. Seven Nation Army is a far more influential song that holds a special place in pop culture and many people's lives. The song is also very good, and while Smooth is the biggest hit and still a lot of fun to listen to, Seven Nation Army is just a slightly better song overall in my opinion. Making the next round All The Small Things taking on Seven Nation Army.

Match 3: Evanescence's Bring Me To Life VS. Nickelback's How You Remind Me

This is an interesting matchup of early 2000s rock music. The biggest post-grunge band Nickelback takes on another heavy hitter in the same genre. While they kinda fit the same genre, these songs actually feel totally different from each other. That might be because Bring Me To Life had a heavy influence from the very popular genre at the time in Nu-Metal. 

Bring Me To Life was released in 2003, and was probably influenced by Linkin Park's huge hit In The End. Originally the song was only going to feature Amy Lee's vocals, but the rap style vocals were added to ensure the song would become a bigger hit. That and, the label apparently thought it would be easier to get airplay if it had male vocals because that's what post-grunge was dominated by. I guess we'll never know if an Amy Lee only version of this song would have been as popular, but regardless the song hit it big in 2003 over here in the US, reaching number 5 in the hot 100 and becoming the 10th best selling song of the year overall. 

Amy has said the song was dedicated to her boyfriend who would go one to marry her in 2007. Amy's vocals are pretty incredible in this song (and in general) as she sings passionately with the heavy guitars backing her up. Paul McCoy of 12 Stones is the male vocalist in the song, who never had any hits of their own, but had a strong following. 

While maybe the song itself isn't incredibly unique in its sound, it's Amy Lee's vocals that really change the game here. Amy Lee would go on to become a pretty big legend in the rock scene as a female vocalist she no doubt inspired many other great female vocalists in the rock world and music in general. And yes, she has done the song without a male vocalist and yes, it's still really great. 

Any other post I'd start with a joke at Nickelback's expense... I guess I kind of already did that earlier a little. But no, this time I'll give them a bit of respect and talk about their biggest hit EVER. Back in 2002, this was actually the biggest selling song of the year, and despite that, it was still a pretty good year. Oops, I guess it's hard not to make fun of this band, isn't it. The album this song was from was released on September 11, 2001... yep. Actually, this song really isn't bad, it's actually pretty good overall. The song was written by frontman Chad Kroeger about his ex-girlfriend and their dysfunctional relationship. Musically the song doesn't really feel all that special, just lots of basic sounding progressions and starts and stops to kinda change it up here and there. The vocals by Chad are fine too, really this song's strong point is the catchy melodies that get stuck in your head long after you're done listening. 

How You Remind Me isn't a bad song, but it's nothing special. Bring Me To Life brought Evanescence on the map and also Amy Lee who is a fantastic vocalist and important to the rock world. So with a better song that's also more important and influential to music, Bring Me To Life has to win this one no? 

Match 4: Jimmy Eat World's The Middle VS. 3 Doors Down's Kryptonite

It's emo-pop rock group Jimmy Eat World taking on the last post-grunge act on this first round 3 Doors Down. Kryptonite was a huge hit that dominated radio and spent an entire year on the Billboard Hot 100 from 2000-2001. The Middle came shortly after in 2002, with much less success only reaching number 5 on the charts and slowly fading in a 33-week span.

Jimmy Eat World is one of those bands that's been hugely influential to their genre over the years. The pop-punk and emo scene has many bands influenced by the sound heard on this song and the other early Jimmy Eat World albums. It was only a few years before this song that they released the album Clarity, which was kind of an emo music masterpiece in a way. But it wasn't until Bleed American, the album that featured The Middle, that they say huge success. Similar to Blink-182 and White Stripes, this one huge hit song put them on the map and that's when more people saw how good they were even before the hit song.
The Middle is a song about acceptance and fitting in. It's all about finding the people or the crowd you belong to that accept you for who you are and forgetting about anyone that doesn't accept you. It has a pretty memorable intro with the guitar and the vocals kicking in with a simple "Hey". It's also got a really memorable guitar solo that's not an easy one to just bust out. Overall it's a catchy tune with some great musical moments that kicked off the career of a very influential band that continues to make great music to this day.

Then there are 3 Doors Down, a band I enjoyed quite a bit back in the day. Kryptonite was also their biggest hit, which I think a lot of these songs will be for the artist in question. The thing is, 3 Doors Down had a ton of hits in their peak period of the early 2000s. With at least 10 songs hitting the Hot 100 and six of those making it to the top 40 or higher. While Kryptonite is their most well-known song, they also had two other massive hits in Here Without You and When I'm Gone.
Continuing the trend of memorable intros, this one starts with that picking of the Bm chords that flows throughout the verses before the heavily distorted guitars kick in for the chorus. The song also has a pretty catchy solo, but it's not very impressive even by post-grunge standards. Also important to note that frontman Brad Arnold wrote this song when he was only 15 years old bored in math class, which is pretty impressive considering it would go on to be their biggest hit of many.

Well, one song is clearly bigger and leads to a great career with many hits and the other is The Middle. But Jimmy Eat World was arguably more influential to the musical landscape of the 2000s and further on, plus made a better song. It's tough, but I think the choice has to be The Middle here. This leads to a future matchup with Bring Me To Life. 

Future matchups include: