18 STORIES · TAGGED
JANET JACKSON · 2001
Beneath its glittering disco shimmer, "All for You" is the sound of Janet Jackson stepping out of a painful divorce and into her own pleasur…
LADY GAGA · 2009
A glittering, gothic dance-pop manifesto disguised as a love song, "Bad Romance" arrived at the end of the 2000s as both the culmination of …
GREEN DAY · 2004
A mid-tempo dirge that became the unofficial soundtrack to post-9/11 American adolescence, Green Day's "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" turned p…
KYLIE MINOGUE · 2001
Beneath the white hooded jumpsuit and the hypnotic la-la-la hook, "Can't Get You Out of My Head" is a song about obsession as a kind of beau…
COLDPLAY · 2005
A slow-building hymn for the moment after collapse, "Fix You" arrived in 2005 as the emotional centerpiece of Coldplay's third album, writte…
PLAIN WHITE T'S · 2006
NEW YORK CITY, USA
It is a real love letter to a real woman the singer barely knew — a track-and-field runner named Delilah DiCrescenzo — written about a long-…
THE KILLERS · 2008
A glittering, synth-soaked existential crisis disguised as a stadium anthem, "Human" asks one of pop music's most ridiculed and most endurin…
JOHNNY CASH · 2002
A 69-year-old Johnny Cash, his body failing and his wife of 35 years months from death, recorded a cover of a Nine Inch Nails industrial dir…
BEYONCÉ · 2006
A breakup anthem disguised as a logistical instruction manual, "Irreplaceable" turned the choreography of removing an unfaithful partner fro…
BON JOVI · 2000
A defibrillator paddle pressed against the chest of a band the world had nearly written off, "It's My Life" was Bon Jovi's brazen leap from …
TAYLOR SWIFT · 2008
A teenage country singer rewrites Shakespeare with a happy ending, accidentally inventing the template for modern pop crossover in the proce…
BRITNEY SPEARS · 2000
A red latex catsuit, a Mars expedition, and a recovered necklace from the bottom of the ocean: in the spring of 2000, Britney Spears release…
LADY GAGA · 2008
A synth-pop juggernaut disguised as a casino anthem, "Poker Face" launched Stefani Germanotta into global stardom by smuggling queer bisexua…
BEYONCÉ · 2008
A clipped, hand-clap-driven anthem that arrived disguised as a wedding-reception novelty and turned out to be one of the defining pop record…
THE KILLERS · 2004
LAS VEGAS, USA
A neon-lit declaration of identity confusion delivered with dance-punk urgency, "Somebody Told Me" became the Killers' breakout single and a…
OASIS · 2002
A weary, almost hymnal ballad released into a world still dazed by the events of the previous September, "Stop Crying Your Heart Out" found …
BRITNEY SPEARS · 2003
A three-and-a-half-minute spy-movie fever dream built around a surf-guitar sample from Bollywood, "Toxic" arrived in early 2004 as the secon…
COLDPLAY · 2000
A four-piece band of unassuming London students stumbled into the new millennium with a song that sounded like sunrise filtered through a be…