The Biggest Song From Every Year in the 2000s

The 2000s were a time of change, rapid-fire technological innovation, and low-rise, boot-cut jeans. In terms of top-charting music, the decade saw the rise of upbeat club hits and soft-rock anthems as well as the ascension of streaming and downloadable content. Here are the biggest songs from every year in the 2000s, based on Billboard magazine’s end-of-year rankings.2000 - “Breathe” // Faith Hill2001 - “Hanging By a Moment” // Lifehouse2002 - “How You Remind Me” // Nickelback2003 - “In Da Club” // 50 Cent2004 - “Yeah!” // Usher feat. Lil Jon and Ludacris2005 - “We Belong Together” // Mariah Carey2006 - “Bad Day” // Daniel Powter2007 - “Irreplaceable” // Beyoncé2008 - “Low” // Flo Rida and T-Pain2009 - “Boom Boom Pow” // The Black Eyed Peas2000 - “Breathe” // Faith HillFaith Hill’s powerful country-pop ballad became the first country record ranked as Billboard’s biggest song of the year since Johnny Horton’s 1959 track “The Battle of New Orleans.” The song spent 53 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 2000, though it never actually hit No. 1. It was penned by Nashville songwriters Stephanie Bentley and Holly Lamar, who both hailed from the same small Georgia town. The song kickstarted their songwriting careers and cemented Hill as a country-pop superstar.2001 - “Hanging By a Moment” // LifehouseLifehouse’s “Hanging By a Moment” was the first single released from the band’s debut album. Lead singer Jason Wade later revealed that the song’s melody came into his head while he was recording another track, and he penned the tune in about five minutes. He also shared that it was inspired by the instability he experienced during a childhood spent moving around constantly. The song became a massive success and was Billboard’s biggest hit of 2001.2002 - “How You Remind Me” // NickelbackNickelback’s Chad Kroeger penned this song after an intense argument with his then-girlfriend. “I was sitting in the basement of my old house in 2000,” Kroeger told Louder Sound, “having just got into a big argument with my girlfriend. So I guess I was feeling pretty jaded at the time. I wanted to write some lyrics that were a slap in the face to her…I was shouting lines like ‘It’s not like you to say sorry’ and ‘This is how you remind me,’” he continued, “and I was trying to be nasty, trying to put in these really sarcastic lines. Then she opened the door, and she was like: ‘What’s that? I really like it.’ So it kinda defeated the object of what I was doing.” The resulting track was chosen as the band’s third album’s lead single at the last minute. It became a smash and shot the then-struggling band to stardom.2003 - “In Da Club” // 50 Cent50 Cent’s “In Da Club” was the lead single off of the rapper’s debut album, Get Rich or Die Tryin’, and it was indeed played in many a club in 2003 and beyond. The song was the first that 50 Cent recorded with Dr. Dre after being discovered by Eminem.“Dre, he'll play dope beats…[He'll say], ‘These are the hits, 50. So pick one of these and make a couple of singles or something,’” the rapper recalled of the session. “The very first time he heard [me rap on] 'In Da Club' he said, 'Yo, I didn't think you was going to go there with it, but, you know, it works.' He was probably thinking of going in a different direction with that song. Then he expanded it into a hit record.” The rapper penned the lyrics in around an hour, and later shared that he wanted the song to be a “celebration of life” that contrasted the many serious themes on his debut album.2004 - “Yeah!” // Usher feat. Lil Jon and LudacrisUsher’s “Yeah!” was the lead single from his fourth album, Confessions. It was written after executives at his label, Arista, told him he needed a more impactful debut single for the record. The song was initially written over a beat created by producer Lil Jon, but that turned out to have already been given to the artist Petey Pablo. So Lil Jon returned to the studio and composed the iconic backing track for “Yeah!” Then, after everyone at Arista had left for Christmas that year, the producer leaked the track to DJs around America. It quickly became a global sensation.2005 - “We Belong Together” // Mariah CareyMariah Carey’s heartbreak anthem was also a comeback track. After soaring to success in the ‘90s, the diva’s career seemed to stall in the early 2000s. But her tenth album, The Emancipation of Mimi, was a massive hit that made it clear she wasn’t going anywhere. Its most successful track was its second single, “We Belong Together,” which spent 14 non-consecutive weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The outlet later named it the song of the decade.2006 - “Bad Day” // Daniel PowterThis memorable one-hit wonder spent five consecutive weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 and has undoubtedly helped countless people remember that a bad day isn’t the end of the world. Songwriter and performer Daniel Powter was inspired to pen the track after seeing a sign that asked, “Having a bad day?” while taking the ferry from Victoria to Vancouver. “I really don't feel like I had much to do with it because the entire melody and chord structure was done in 10 [minutes],” he said of the writing process. The song became massive, but Powter struggled with the fame it brought him and abused drugs and alcohol for a time before getting sober. After many years of difficulty accepting its impact, he has since come to appreciate it. “I am proud of that song," he said in a 2025 interview. “It took me a long time to come to terms with that…Now, it's like, dude, look what it's done for you. Look where you are—and it's great.”2007 - “Irreplaceable” // Beyoncé“Irreplaceable” was written and produced by Ne-yo alongside the duo Stargate, using a guitar instrumental recorded by the Norwegian duo Espionage. “We took country guitars and put a hip-hop verse over it and wrote a country-hip-hop song and it works. We experimented with something and it worked,” Ne-yo said of the writing process. It was originally written from a male perspective, but Ne-yo felt his largely female audience wouldn’t appreciate the message that conveyed. Ultimately, the song went to Beyoncé instead. It took some convincing for her to accept it as she wasn’t sure it fit with her style, but her soaring, emotive vocals took the tune to new heights—and to the top of the charts.2008 - “Low” // Flo Rida and T-PainTo this day, this song can still be heard echoing out on middle school dance floors around the world. The track’s description of a girl seemingly wearing both jeans and sweatpants has even sparked theories that it’s about a centaur. T-Pain later debunked those in a tweet that explained, “The first girl is dressed how Flo Rida likes. Second girls [sic] is dressed how I like.” The infectious song, which mixes elements of crunk and Miami bass, spent ten weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 chart.2009 - “Boom Boom Pow” // The Black Eyed Peas2009 belonged to the Black Eyed Peas, and specifically, to their song “Boom Boom Pow.” The track was instrumental in inspiring the electronic-pop-rap craze of the 2010s. “It has one note. It says 'Boom' 168 times. The structure has three beats in one song. It's not lyrics—it's audio patterns, structure, architecture,” will.i.am told Rolling Stone in 2010. Lots of people say, 'Black Eyed Peas s**t is simple,' and I'll be like, 'No, fool, it's the most complex s**t you could fathom, that's the reason it works everywhere around the planet.” The song’s music video was also prescient, depicting the band’s “birth into the digital afterlife. So the transformation is us going into a sort of birth or cocoon and coming out the other end as forms of energy,” Fergie told MTV News. “It's a parallel to the music industry. Now everything is downloaded.” The tune stayed at the top of the charts for 12 weeks.